Over 25 years into their musical career, Trivium are still redefining what longevity looks like in modern metal.
What began as a problem — namely, Bullet for My Valentine dropping out of the international leg of their co-headlining Poisoned Ascendancy World Tour with Trivium — was turned from lemons to lemonade with some quick thinking by the band. Now Trivium are headlining solo in North America, playing their Ascendancy album nightly and looking forward to a homecoming show.
“We are ones that once we have given our word to our fans, we always want to live up to that word,” frontman and proud Orlandoan Matt Heafy tells Orlando Weekly. “Our crew, we had promised them, you know, we were touring through December. So we said, ‘Let’s put something together.’”
That decision sparked the Ascend Above the Ashes Tour, a fall 2025 headline run that brings Trivium back home to Orlando’s Hard Rock Live on Sunday, Dec. 14. Special guests Jinjer from the Ukraine and Brits Heriot join Trivium on the tour, both longtime favorites of the band.
“They’re two bands we’re huge fans of,” Heafy says. “It just happened to work out. And this tour has been absolutely amazing.”
Heafy joined Trivium at the ripe old age of 12. First band, first job. Now, as an adult, seeing fans of that same young age come to the concert sparks something different.
“Every night I ask who’s seeing us for the first time, and it’s been 30-60 percent of the crowd,” Heafy says. “Kids as young as 5, 6, 7, 8, and teenagers from 16 to their early 20s. And it’s such a cool thing.”
At a show in Lancaster, he met three generations of fans in one family: a grandfather, father and daughter.
“We’ve always been multigenerational, but this tour has been more of this revitalization of youth and new people coming out than we have ever had,” marvels Heafy.
Part of Trivium’s current momentum comes from a new creative home — an airplane hangar in Orlando that now houses Trivium’s headquarters, practice space and a state-of-the-art recording studio.
This hangar became the birthplace of a new EP, Struck Dead, written while rehearsing for Ascendancy’s 20th anniversary shows. The sessions arrived during what Heafy describes as a “low point, a mental breakdown/midlife crisis.” The music provided a lifeline.
“These songs tell a metaphorical story of where I was in that state of mind at that time. Because I started looking back, I was like, how am I thinking these same things I was feeling when I was 19 years old? And how do I get to the root of this?” he says. “But I’ve spent a year working on myself. Now I feel the best mental clarity I’ve ever had.”
Struck Dead, released on Halloween, was originally meant to be the opening of their next full-length, Record 11. But when the tour chaos hit, the band pivoted.
“We said, ‘Let’s make this an EP and then focus Record 11 on something brand-new,’” Heafy says. Writing for the album is already underway in the hangar during off days.
Playing Ascendancy in full for its 20th anniversary has created the unexpected side effect of new material that feels spiritually connected to 2005.
“I feel like we kind of time-traveled back to the same headspace,” Heafy says. “It feels like a modern continuation of something that started 20 years ago.” And the Orlando faithful can expect a very special hometown set. “We’re pulling from almost every record,” Heafy teases. “It is a fan-favorite setlist.”
Even after decades spent onstage, Heafy’s creative mindset remains rooted in the same mission he had as a teenager: finding his own voice.
“I always wanted to make music that didn’t sound like anything else,” he says. “Emulate your heroes a little, sure, but strive to create something you feel doesn’t exist yet.”
It’s the advice he now gives every young musician who cares to ask.
“Everything comes from something. But when creating, discover something, and it’s almost as if you’re unearthing something yourself and finding this thing that’s never existed before,” Heafy says.
A hometown show hits different for a band that was once the odd man out in Central Florida’s music scene.
“We were the only metal band in Orlando back then,” Heafy says. “Pop-punk, hardcore, boy-bands, that was it. We were the one metal band that stuck out like a sore thumb. I was the only kid in high school with long hair, camo cutoffs and a death metal shirt.”
He laughs while thinking back to the early gigs. DIY Records, Fairbanks Inn with five people in the room on a Monday night. Two of them were his parents. And now …
“I’ve got all my friends from Gracie Barra North Orlando coming, all my friends from Full Circle Yoga, my family, everyone,” he says. “We’re big Orlando champions. We promote our favorite restaurants and local businesses nonstop. So it’s really great to be able to come home and just relish that.”
Heafy’s love for Orlando goes beyond nostalgia. He’s become one of the city’s loudest unofficial ambassadors. Among his regularly recommended spots in the food scene are Domu at East End Market, Zaru, Black Bean Deli, The Ravenous Pig and The Strand in Mills 50.
“I feel like our food scene, art scene and local communities are just amazing,” he says.
Asked for his favorite part of a live show, Heafy doesn’t choose a single moment. “It’s the whole thing,” he says. “Seeing kids singing every word to records they weren’t alive for yet, I think, is such an amazing thing. It shows that music is timeless.”
Trivium’s Sunday show at Hard Rock Live is nearly sold-out, a culmination of hometown pride and a band entering a fiercely creative era.
“I have had the privilege of touring everywhere, but I chose to live in Orlando. That is the place I want to be. We love being there, and we are proud of being from Orlando,” Heafy says. “I hope everyone comes out. It’s going to be a true homecoming.”
(7:30 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 14, Hard Rock Live , 6050 Universal Blvd., entertainment.hardrock.com, $62-$215)
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This article appears in Dec. 10-16, 2025.
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Emmy Bailey
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