Robb Flynn from Machine Head was interviewing Matt Heafy from Trivium, on his podcast “No F Regrets”.

Heafy comes across super on a podcast; well-spoken and very articulate. He spoke about his love of black metal, his military father who was the bands manager at the start, and the crap that Trivium copped from the metal press and the metal bands they supported because of the way Heafy sang, especially after “The Crusade” album, when Heafy sounded better than Hetfield ever did.

Bullying was used a lot by Heafy and a mention was made, how at one of the Ozzfests they were the outcasts (and eventually Maiden would be as well, because they played better than the headline act), hated by all the bands on the bills.

And it didn’t help Trivium when people involved with their show, said negative crap to the other artists, which more or less stained the band without them knowing why.

It was the same Ozzfest when Maiden played before Ozzy and the fans gravitated towards the Maiden show a lot more than the Ozzy show, so it was no surprise that Maiden suddenly had sound problems during their sets, then they had the sound completely cut, until it got a stage that Maiden had to leave the Ozzfest tour because of this.

And they would take Trivium out on tour with them after this.

The bullying in metal circles really goes against the metal ethos of the early 80’s, when the metalheads stood together against this kind of behaviour.

Some artists might crumble, argue and give up. But not Trivium. They showed resilience.

Resilience comes from experience. Mental toughness comes from experience.

You can read all the books you want and have a toolbox of routines in place, but to become resilient and to become mentally tough, you need to live it, breathe it and experience it.

Only then, you can apply any of the mental tough routines from your toolbox like box to box breathing and flipping the negatives to understand the why.