Matt Byrne (Hatebreed)
Photography // Jeremy Saffer
You’ve got some sick festival bookings for the summer of 2026. Inkcarceration, Wacken Open Air, Rock Fest and Jera-On-Air to name a few… Any bands you’re personally looking forward to seeing again or checking out for the first time? I'm to a point now where we’ve (it’s been 20 something years) that we pretty much can do the festival circuit in Europe consistently every summer. It just becomes natural, like, okay, yeah, we're going to Europe again and, you know, we'll hit it hard. I don't really know who we're playing with on some of these, I haven't even looked. I know our slots are pretty good.
I've just been more focused on the production side of our show, really. We're adding some lights, we're adding some smoke and fire, we just added some stage production. We have a big inflatable barbarian. He’s 15ft tall, sits behind me. For the last couple years, we've had the ball of death, which is an inflatable 8ft inflatable-like beach ball. Essentially, we toss that out in the crowd a certain point in the set. A lot of crowd interaction between the band and the audience. So I've just been more focused on keeping that train rolling and stepping it up a little bit from what we've been doing in previous years.
The festivals atmosphere is the perfect atmosphere to do this type of stuff, you know? It's Open Air and there's 50,000 people there. It's like, you could land a spaceship on stage if you want to. I mean, if you're that type of band… we're not trying to go that extreme. I think we're just adding enough production to our show where we don't lose the identity of the band, but we're just stepping it up… the live show for the fans and for us too. I don't even know who we're playing with, but I know we have good slots. We're on a huge stage where we can pull some of this stuff off.
Back in July 2025, Hatebreed dropped their most recent single “Make The Demons Obey”. Can you tell us about the new album on the way? We're shooting to get it out before Thanksgiving at this point, but that could be a moving target. We're currently free agents, though we're talking to a couple of labels.
The beauty in all of this is that we're not under any pressure to deliver a product. We don't have anyone looking over our shoulder while we record. I mean, the whole product is ours and we can work at our own pace.
We can do as many songs as we want and then, y’know, whittle it down to what would be an album. Who knows, maybe we'll have enough material where we do more than that! It's kind of like everything's in our hands, it’s a great feeling. We've never been in that position before.
Typically, you're working according to deadlines and stuff like that. We don't have anything like that - there’s no restrictions. So it's been a great experience so far. We started recording actually about a year ago now, as we're talking right now.
Photography // Danielle Dombrowski
In your downtime from Hatebreed, you’ve performed with a variety of bands and projects throughout the Hudson Valley. Which are your most current collaborations? Any cool releases or upcoming events in the pipeline? No releases, events are always pending as things pop up. I have a cover band called Strange Candy with two great players from the Hudson Valley, Mike Hamel and Terrence Trama. Those guys (who are local) do a lot of solo stuff on their own and then they double up and do things together. So all together, we formed this cover band that just kind of do a lot of R&B, Rock and Hip-Hop style stuff. It's a lot of fun because it's completely out of my wheelhouse. Sometimes doing even some hand drum gigs. It keeps you on your toes, creatively, and as a player, which I like. In my downtime at home, it's a completely different avenue than playing in a heavy metal hardcore band. So, yeah, it's a lot of fun, man. Doing it probably 3 years now and no sign of stopping.
Gear Talk! What does your current rig consist of? I've been using the same setup now for, wow, years and years. It's very comfortable ergonomically, I have it completely dialed in.
I'm a Tama endorsee since 2002, so everything I use is Tama and then Paiste Cymbals, Vader Drumsticks and Evans drum heads. Current setup is 10”, 12”, 14” toms mounted on a double kick kit, one snare drum and two floor toms, 16” and 18”. Then I have three Crashes, a Ride, a China and Hi-Hats …and I use a Roland TM2 Module and BT1 sound bar for 808 drops. I've been using that setup for 15 years, at least. Super comfortable, that's the Hatebreed setup.
Speaking of Paiste Cymbals, I see you have an all blacked out Artist Series Pack with the Hatebreed logo imprinted in white. Love the monochromatic look, so metal! Is this a pack just for you or will these cymbals be widely available to the public? No, these are just for me. They're a custom painted setup that Paiste does for artists. Did it last year, actually! Thought it was a cool feature from the drum side of things, but also for the stage look and production. All my crashes are Paiste Rude, so the fact that you have a Rude cymbal that's painted black with a Hatebreed logo on it, it's pretty badass.
Photography // iambanished
Years back, you produced the ‘Hardcore Midi’ pack with ToonTrack (A brand I personally LOVE!). How did that collaboration come about? Any interest in developing a Matt Byrne Sound Library for their Superior Drummer software? They reached out to me, actually, and I believe that I was recommended to them from a producer we worked with at the time for our album ‘The Concrete Confessional’, Josh Wilbur. He graciously threw my name in the hat when they were talking about doing a hardcore pack… and they just reached out to me and we went back and forth. I got together with them for like, a weekend and we sat at the drums and did a bunch of samples, beats and song structures and stuff like that. It was a really cool experience.
No plans in the future. I think it was a one-and-done thing. Plenty of other artists (aside from myself) have done it on the Rock, Classic Rock and R&B level. I was the Hardcore guy, which I'm honored to do that - really cool stuff. I've gotten a lot of feedback since I've done it, actually. Like random people will reach out and say, “Hey man, I just got your pack and I'm writing to it and it really inspired me because it's really more than I thought it would be. You’re doing things that I didn't think would just be in the ‘Hardcore Pack’, which I thought was cool.”
As a drummer, that's kind of what I strive for and always have, you know? I never wanted to be pigeonholed as just the Hardcore guy or the Punk guy or something. Even in Hatebreed’s music, I've always tried to kind of stretch my legs as much as I can and add some flair where and where I can. I don’t overdo anything, but I'll throw some funk in there or some, just drummer stuff. So, yeah, that whole thing was a cool experience, but you know, no plans to do anything in the future. Kind of a one and done experience.
You’ve mentioned that Motley Crue’s ‘Shout At The Devil’ album is a must-have. Being a fan of the band since the 4th grade, what are your all-time Top 5 favorite tunes from their discography? Wow! In 1984, you know, seeing a record, black album with a pentagram on it and stuff… it scared you as a kid. Like, what is this? I gotta see what this is all about. So that's what attracted me. Then of course, I had older cousins, friends and whatnot that we're listening to bands like that, Quiet Riot, Judas Priest, Iron Maiden and just metal in general.
Geez, what is it, Top 5 Motley Crue songs? “Shout At The Devil” would be one. I mean, I could just name 5 off that album! “Knock ‘Em Dead, Kid”, “Looks That Kill”. They did an awesome cover of “Helter Skelter” which, you know, some could say it was better than The Beatles at the time. And then, you have “Bastard”. Just having a song title that's a curse word, when you nine years old, that's pretty badass.
Speaking of the Devil… What are (3) horror films you cannot live without? My favorite has always been the original ‘Halloween’ stuff because I feel like it was always (and a lot of people probably say this) but it was scary because it was the most realistic when compared to like Freddy or Jason. Another scary one would be Leatherface because it's based on loosely based on true stuff, right? But Michael Myers always scared the hell out of me because it just seems so realistic and it could be the guy next door, you know? You don't know. Top 3 horror movies? Yeah. I would say the original ‘Halloween’. Let's see, what the heck scared the shit out of me...
I thought ‘The Ring’ was pretty freaky when I first saw that. Yeah, that was wild. A lot of Japanese-influenced stuff, like Japanese horror movies are messed up. Psychologically and visually and all that. Oh my god.
And then I think the movie ‘Hostel’ really freaked me out at the time because once again, you know, it could really happen. So scenarios that I think, like the horror stuff that really freaks me out, is the more realistic scenarios as opposed to the fantastical stuff or the just straight gory stuff.
I like the more psychological, mysterious, head trip stuff. I really appreciated the original ‘Saw’, because it was such an original concept. I felt like even if all the ideas were bitten from other stuff (which nothing's original anymore, right?) but watch that movie and how it came together was just one big puzzle. It was just awesome… and it had just enough gore mixed in with it.
Photography // Danielle Dombrowski
Over the years, you, myself and thousands of other musicians have cut our teeth on the stages at (the now former) Chance Theater, Loft and Club Crannell. Upon reflection, any fun, crazy or cherished memories come to mind of time spent at the legendary venue? First time, I think I was ever there was when I saw GWAR and that's a helluva… I had never seen GWAR before, so seeing them there and it’s the first time being at The Chance and they're splitting, spraying blood and semen all over the place and shit, like alien jizz. That was crazy and it's such a weird backdrop to have them doing that at The Chance where you're in like this old movie house and you're up in a balcony and everything. There’s the carvings along the walls and the statues, so it just feels like an old vaudeville house or something and here you have the aliens just spraying the place down with all this crazy shit and chopping people up on stage and stuff. So that's always a cherished memory.
Let's see, I don't know. I've seen so many bands there. Playing there myself, I think, is a cherished memory. The first time I played there was when I was 17 in a local band and it was a big deal to play at The Chance then because that was our club, right? That was the spot we went and saw everybody. It was either that or the Civic Center. That's all we really had in our area and they wouldn't really do local bands. You had to be a pretty popular local band to get a spot opening for a national and it wasn't so common for them to do local shows all the time or local showcases. I think it was like 1994 when it was my first time playing there. That was special because now you're playing a club where you've seen all these bands that you love.
So that was pretty cool… and then I think, ultimately, Hatebreed given the honor to close the place down and be the last show before they close the doors. I mean, that's memorable in itself. Bittersweet, but still, just to be the band that was given that privilege, pretty cool. That's a memorable experience, too, because we were, like, basically the last ones in the building, man. Once we closed down that night, that was it, it was wild. They were already starting to take things down off the walls, kind of dismantled the place while there was a little party afterwards after the show, just like a hangout and everybody just talking, hanging and drinking, sharing memories and stuff. So yeah, that's a memorable experience in itself.
