Atreyu's Brandon Saller Reveals the Rule Impacting Their Current Musical Direction

Atreyu issued their new song "Dead" earlier this year and singer Brandon Saller revealed to Full Metal Jackie that they have a rule in place that's impacting the sound of what they're currently working on.

If you're digging the vibrance and energy of that song, it falls in line with the group's passion for the things that inspired them earlier in their career.

"I think we were all sort of looking back and really appreciating a lot of the bands we listened to growing up," says Saller. "We actually gave ourselves a 10-year rule while we were writing music. We weren't allowed to listen to any music that wasn't at least 10 years old. It really kind of like put us back into our early influences of bands like Hatebreed and Soilwork and In Flames and local hardcore bands that we grew up listening to."

He adds, "It was kinda cool to not be influenced by the modern world, just because I feel like there's maybe a bit too much of that these days. I think that a lot of bands are so heavily influenced with what's going on today that by the time they recreate that, or try to, that thing has already moved on to something else, you know?"

Within the chat, Full Metal Jackie and Brandon Saller also speak about the band's recent anniversary celebration of The Curse on tour and why the band made the decision to actually re-record the album. The singer also addresses the unintentional drama surrounding the tease of "Dead" in which many questioned if they were breaking up even as tour dates were in place.

Saller also speaks on the band's legacy to date and how he feels about their future at this point in their career. Check out more of the discussion below.

It's Full Metal Jackie. Happy to welcome back to the show Brandon Saller of Atreyu. Atreyu have the new song "Dead," which I'm gonna play for you, and they just finished up their celebration tour of their 21st-ish anniversary of their breakthrough album, The Curse. In addition to touring the album, you've re-recorded The Curse. Some bands do reissues. What made you want to revisit recording the album for its anniversary?

I think a lot of bands will probably agree on the fact that you make records when you're really young and there's things you would have loved to have different or the technology with recording and audio has come a long way and it was a chance to kind of go back and make it better.

It's a tough, tough thing, because I know people hold albums sacred to exactly what they remember from them. But for us, that was the kind of main thing. With us doing this tour, our lineup is a little bit different than it was when The Curse came out, so we kind of wanted to give a representation of what this is now. It's sort of like if you're coming to see The Curse shows, this is what you're gonna get.

Above all of those other things too, it was a bit of ownership. We've been a band for 20-something-odd years and this is the first time we ever have a recording that we actually own 100 percent.

It was a cool thing to be able to have a cool representation of what we're doing right now and also give our fans an opportunity to directly support the band if they want to.

Atreyu, "Dead"

Brandon, what are your reflections of the time in which you recorded The Curse, and through this process of re-recording, are there things you came to appreciate about the original or appreciated having the opportunity to give it another try?

I've spoken before about the back half of the album. You kind of make a record and a lot of times, especially back in the day, like, you kind of front load your record with the songs that end up being singles or the more popular ones. For us, kind of revisiting the back half has been really, really cool and interesting.

For me personally, and our bass player Porter [McKnight], who we share the vocals, it was really cool to go back and sort of revisit our previous singer Alex [Varkatzas]'s vocals, because they were very much in his way and his phrasing and his brain.

So it was really cool and challenging to get into his head and try and make sure we paid homage to that as well. It was really challenging and fun for us to revisit and we're all better performers now, so it was like you maybe embellish a couple things here and there. But we did try to stay as true as we could to the original.

Brandon, albums can very much be a snapshot of a particular place and time. For fans that grew up with The Curse, that's a great sense of nostalgia and appreciation for that period of time. But for you as an artist, is it difficult to tap into that mindset of where you were in your 20s? And as a veteran artist, do these songs essentially evolve into something different over time for you as you get older?

For sure. I think everyone could speak on the fact that you're a completely different human in your early 20s than you are in your 40s. So, looking at this record and revisiting this record with just more of an adult kind of mature brain, there's obviously a lot of things that we probably could have changed more and embellished on more.

But as I kind of said before, the biggest challenge was to try and stay as true to the original as possible, while still making ourselves happy with the forward motion.

Brandon, there are different ways to approach music. You can listen to as much as possible and let the influence work its way in, or in the case of "Dead," shut out the outside world, as Porter stated in a recent interview. Can you speak about your preferred creative process and give us a little insight on how "Dead" came together and why it became first piece of new music released?

When we started thinking about writing new music, we've always tried to just move forward in whichever way seemed right for us, I think we were all sort of looking back and really appreciating a lot of the bands we listened to growing up.

We actually gave ourselves a 10-year rule while we were writing music. We weren't allowed to listen to any music that wasn't at least 10 years old. It really kind of like put us back into our early influences of bands like Hatebreed and Soilwork and In Flames and local hardcore bands that we grew up listening to. And it was kinda cool to not be influenced by the modern world, just because I feel like there's maybe a bit too much of that these days. I think that a lot of bands are so heavily influenced with what's going on today that by the time they recreate that, or try to, that thing has already moved on to something else, you know?

We try to really look inward, look backward and look inward. And when we write, it's very much in the moment. It's wake up and get in the studio and figure out where our start is. And "Dead" was actually the first song we wrote as a group. We went to Tokyo for a week and we wrote in Tokyo with our producer, and "Dead" was the the first idea that popped in and sort of became sort of the flagship for the rest of the process.

It's Full Metal Jackie. Brandon Saller of Atreyu is with us and we're talking about the song "Dead." The tease for "Dead" certainly sent fans, including myself, into a tizzy with the blacked out socials and RIP. Were you surprised by fans thinking you were breaking up, and do you feel that the fear or uncertainty that it presented about your future ultimately helped in attracting listeners in what can be a tough environment for bands these days to get their music heard?

Yes and yes. I definitely didn't think people would take it to heart as much as they did. We had most definitely had some DMs full of frantic people worrying about our existence. But in our head, it was like, "The song's called Dead, how else can can you play this?" You know what I mean? So for us, it seemed obvious.

I think for everyone else observing, it was much more dire and sort of nerve-wracking. But at the end of the day, it worked. And luckily, we were able to deliver new, fresh music instead of the end of a career.

Oh, yeah, absolutely. And by the way, I feel like it's just the sign of the times that nothing surprises anybody anymore, because it's like, "Oh, another band breaking up" Because we're just losing people, people are dying, bands are breaking up, Like, I feel like it's just the state of things.

Everything is a a bit fickle these days. But it was funny, because we had made this announcement and within days of making the announcement, we were playing Louder Than Life festival, we had a European tour starting the week following. So it was hilarious that even the other bands we were touring with were like, "Hey, is our tour still happening next week?" It's like, "Yeah, guys, it's gonna be all right."

Did you enjoy that confusion that it might have caused?

It was painstaking not to respond. 'Cause it was like, "Oh, do we tell them?" It's like, "No, no we have we have to let this pan out" Keep it going, keep it going.

Oh, that's funny.

We were talking about the song "Dead" and ultimately, Atreyu are far from dead. But the song itself speaks to aspiring to leave some sort of lasting legacy or impression. If it were to end today, what would you hope that people said about your band and the legacy you left behind? Are there things that you would ultimately like to do with this band that you haven't done yet before the time comes? Do you aspire to have a Rolling Stones-like career playing into your 80s?

I think that our kind of aspirations and goals for this band are far from over. There are so many things that we have not accomplished yet and I think there's so much growth [to be had]. There's a long road ahead of this band, a long road of potential.

There's part of our brains as a band that we feel so fortunate and are just stoked that we're still here and people still care. I think that drives us even harder to go even further than we ever imagined we could.

But at the end of the day, I think we've always been a band that did what our favorite bands did for us. Music for me is a place to get away from real life and music for me is a place to just find honesty in something that I feel.

READ MORE: Atreyu's Guitarists Play Their Favorite Riffs

As far as legacy, if one person was able to find honesty or hope or shelter from the world from our music, then that's great, 'cause that's what we look to from our favorite bands. But there's definitely still a very long road ahead.

Brandon, while "Dead" is currently standing on its own, you've worked on some new music as well. Can you give us an update on where things stand, and are you finding anything in particular that seems to be influencing the direction musically or thematically?

It's definitely been an inward experience. We all just bounce off and are inspired by each other when we write music. It's very much a a group effort and sort of never comes from actual tangible representation of what we're trying to do. It's whatever comes out at the moment. I think that's why our records have always been different every time around. There's definitely a want and need within our band to crank up the intensity.

I think that "Dead" speaks volumes to where our heads wanna be as far as playing songs live and that overall energy of the band.

As we close in on the ending 2025, what have been the moments that stood out to you in the music world from this past year? Favorite albums, concerts or events that really caught your attention from this past year.

Speaking just from the band perspective, we've done a lot of things this year that we've never done. This year we went to South America with our own tour for the first time. We did our first ever Australian tour period. That was completely sold out before the tour even started. So we've definitely kind of hit some internal milestones within the band that have been really cool motivation and keeps things really excited for next year.

Thanks to Atreyu's Brandon Saller for the interview. Stay up to date with the band through their website, Facebook, X and Instagram accounts. Find out where you can hear Full Metal Jackie's weekend radio show here.