Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition…unless you get a call from Metal Hammer. This month, Atreyu receive the call.

YOU’VE USED A LOT OF 80S STYLE GUITAR TECHNIQUES ON YOUR NEW ALBUM ‘LEAD SAILS PAPER ANCHOR’. WHICH BANDS FROM THE 80S WERE YOU HEAVILY INFLUENCED BY?
HALF MAN HALF BISCUIT VIA MYSPACE
Alex Varkatzas (vocals): “Culture Club, Boy George, Duran Duran, Flock Of Seagulls. Next question.” Dan Jacobs (guitar): “I liked Wham.”
Brandon Saller (drums): “My favourite was Huey Lewis. And The News.”
Dan: “Not The News. Fuck The News. They brought Huey down, man.”
Hammer: Do you like men who dress as women?
Alex: “Boy George is a man?!”
Dan: “I thought it was a woman dressed as a man.”

DO YOU LIKE TO PARTY LIKE IT’S 1989?
PRINCE’S DAD VIA EMAIL
Alex: “I party like it’s fucking 2015. We party like it’s the future.”
Dan: “I party like it’s 1800AD.”
Alex: “He parties like he’s Moses. It depends on what your idea of a party is. We knit and we read books.”

YOU’RE AN ORANGE COUNTY BAND. YOU’VE RECORDED A SONG CALLED ‘BLOW’ WHICH YOU INVITED JOSH TODD FROM BUCKCHERRY TO GUEST ON… ADMIT IT, YOU SECRETLY WANT TO BE POISON!
BRET MICHAELS FROM ORANGE COUNTY
Alex: “Are we supposed to believe that Bret Michaels sent that in? Last time I checked Poison were from LA you moron!”
Brandon: “Poison are from LA and Josh Todd is just awesome.”
Alex: “And I wish I was in fucking Poison. Just to be clear.”
Dan: “We do actually wish we were Poison.”
Brandon: “Alex could have his own TV show.”
Dan: “I want a Dan Jacobs ‘Rock Of Love’!” [/US reality TV show in which Poison frontman Bret Michaels searched for a life partner – culture Ed/]

WHEN ‘A DEATH-GRIP ON YESTERDAY’ CAME OUT LAST YEAR YOU SAID THAT IT WAS THE TYPE OF MUSIC YOU ORIGINALLY PLANNED ON PLAYING. SO WHY ABANDON IT FOR THE STYLE ON ‘LEAD SAILS PAPER ANCHOR’?
METAL TO THE CORE VIA MYSPACE
Alex: “Money. Hard cold fucking money.”
Brandon: “We just wanted to be rich and famous.”
Dan: “We got paid billions of dollars.”
Alex: “Hollywood Records gave us five million, Roadrunner Records gave us five million and together we have 20 million.”
Dan: “But it’s not enough, we need more. Now we live in castles and stare down at all you small people walking around miserable and poor down below. And we laugh.”
Alex: “I bought Wales. I needed to make an investment.”
Hammer: You think Wales’s stock will go up? Why not a safer bet like Scotland?
Dan: “We’re gonna get Scotland after the next album.”
Brandon: “But to answer the question seriously, I think they’re listening to the wrong record. We didn’t abandon our style. They’re just not listening to our records properly.”
Alex: “Just stick your hand in the garbage disposal.”

MY FRIENDS SAY YOU HAVE SOLD OUT AND INSULTED YOUR METALCORE ROOTS. THEY ARE RIGHT AREN’T THEY?
CHRIS WILKINSON FROM HULL
Alex: “Yes. I’ve made millions of dollars by making this record and I actually fly to all of our shows in the States in a private jet.”
Brandon: “The tour bus outside and the dirty clothes hanging up in the dressing room, it’s all just a cover up. We actually wear Armani suits and fly in a private jet to all our shows.”
Alex: “We don’t walk anywhere either. We have limos to take us from the stage door to the tour bus 20 yards away.”
Brandon: “The tour buses that aren’t even ours? I have a jet, dude.”
Dan: “And we have giant cucumbers, just waiting for our pleasure.”
Brandon: “In answer to the original question, your friend is right. Just to be clear on that.”
Alex: “Your friend’s a bitch.”

WHY DO THE PEOPLE WHO DISLIKE YOUR BAND, DISLIKE YOUR BAND?
YOUSUCK VIA MYSPACE
Alex: “Because they probably like to gobble cock.”
Brandon: “Because they don’t like good music.”
Alex: “They’re too busy playing hide the salami. In their friends.”

WHICH BAND WOULD YOU LIKE TO SEND DOWN THE RIVER IN A BOAT WITH LEAD SAILS AND A PAPER ANCHOR?
CAPTAIN JACK SPARROW VIA MYSPACE
All: “Atreyu.”
Brandon: “We don’t actually like being in a band, we just do it for the money.”

IF YOU WERE TO ALL HAVE SIDE-PROJECTS, WHAT WOULD THEY ALL SOUND LIKE?
AL JORGENSEN’S BEARD VIA MYSPACE
Alex: “Anything I could do to get money.”
Brandon: “50 Cent because I hear he’s big right now.”
Alex: “Kanye West because he has the biggest selling record in the entire world at the moment.”
Dan: “I’d like to be in Nickelback.”
Alex: “Whatever I could do to possibly sell out. More.”
Hammer: What would be your biggest sell out Kanye-style collaboration?
Brandon: “Kanye and Timberlake already teamed up.”
Dan: “That’s fucking serious money in the bank right there. Kanye West and Justin Timberlake. That’s all you need right there. And U2. But no more. And maybe the Rolling Stones. And AC/DC. But that’s it.”
Alex: “And Pantera. But that’s it. And Metallica. But no more.”
Dan: “That’s a good point.”
Alex: “And Black Sabbath. But don’t forget Heaven And Hell.”
Dan: “I fucking love Dio.”

IN THE NOVEL ‘THE NEVERENDING STORY’, ATREYU WAS A GREEN-SKINNED WARRIOR…EVER THOUGHT OF PAINTING YOURSELVES GREEN AND PLAYING BATTLE METAL INSTEAD OF WEARING EYELINER AND PLAYING DULL METALCORE?
THE ENDE IS THE BEGINNING VIA MYSPACE
Brandon: “We already did that for the first two years as a band.”
Alex: “Is this question from Ireland? Maybe we’ll just go play in Ireland as a bunch of leprechauns.”

TO DAN JACOBS: IS THIS WHY YOUR GUITAR IS COVERED IN GREEN ELECTRICIANS TAPE, IN HONOUR OF THE CHARACTER ATREYU?
POTTSIE VIA MYSPACE
Dan: ” Erm, yyyes?”
Alex: “No.”
Dan: “The character is green?”
Brandon: “He is green skinned in the book.”
Dan: “He’s green in the book?”
Alex: “How would you know the character has green skin if it’s in a fucking book? It’s words on a page!”
Dan: “I just think bright green is really cool looking.”

DON’T YOU THINK THAT’S A BIT GAY?
CHER’S WIG VIA EMAIL
Dan: “Yyyyeeeah. It is. Very gay.”
Alex: “Reading a book about a kid when you’re a grown assed man and then asking a band questions about it that are stupid… That’s gay.”
Dan: “That is gay. Very gay.”

IF YOU COULD BE SOMEONE FAMOUS FOR A DAY WHO WOULD YOU BE?
BRITNEY SPEARS’ BEAVER VIA MYSPACE
Dan: “Myself.”
Alex: “Kanye West.”
Brandon: “Dan Jacobs.”
Dan: “If you could be in a band for a day which band would you be in? I would be in my band.”
Alex: “Britney Spears.”
Hammer: You want to be in Britney Spears?
Alex: “No I just wanna be Britney Spears.”
Dan: “I’d like to be in Britney Spears. Her shit’s kinda beat up now though. But I’d still like to be in her.”
Brandon: “I wanna be ‘Big’ Dan.”

IS THERE ANYTHING YOU KNOW ABOUT YOUR BAND MATES THAT YOU WISH YOU COULD UN-KNOW?
FORGET-ME-NOT VIA MYSPACE
Brandon: “No. Everything about us is pretty fucking awesome!”
Dan: “Yeah, we’re pretty rad.”

YOU WERE ON THE SOUNDTRACK TO ‘UNDERWORLD: EVOLUTION’. DID YOU MISREAD THE INVITATION AND THOUGHT YOU WERE GOING TO GET INTO KATE BECKINSALE’S UNDERWEAR?
KATE BECKINSALE’S HUSBAND FROM LA
Dan: “We tried but we just ended up giving her a creepy ‘Cape Fear’ kind of look from a distance at the after party and that was it.”
Alex: “Dan and her kissed.”
Dan: “Yeah, actually, at the after party I hooked up with her. Kate! I’m coming for you! This song ‘Blow’ is for you.”

CAN YOU BURP AND FART AT THE SAME TIME?
KATYA VIA MYSPACE
Brandon: “I can’t burp at all.”
Dan: “I think you shit yourself if you do that don’t you? Not Brandon not burping. Burping and farting at the same time I mean…”
Brandon: “You’d shart.”
Dan: “Or shurp.
Alex: “There’d be some kind of a supernova.”
Dan: “I think the world would come to an end.”
Brandon: “It’d be like an atom bomb going off if you burped and farted at the same time. It would spread 20 miles out. It’d just destroy everything.”
Dan: “Or you’d spontaneously combust. Only inward.”

ALEX VARKATZAS PUMPS IRON FOR FUN. HE IS REALLY A JOCK.
ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGER’S DUMBELLS VIA EMAIL
Alex: “Yeah. No question.”

CAN YOU PROVE IT BY BURPING THE ALPHABET.
COTTON-EYED JOE VIA EMAIL
Alex: “That’s not jock! That’s meathead. I can prove it by /not/ burping the alphabet.”
Brandon: “Just tell everyone how much you can rep.”
Alex: “Three million kilos. I can do one-fingered push-ups too. And other kinds of push-ups. But that’s not for /Hammer/ readers. That’s for another magazine. That’s for the top shelf.”