Matt Heafy recently revealed that the Ozzfest crew asked Trivium to egg Iron Maiden during the 2005 festival, as tensions ran high between the Osbournes and Bruce Dickinson over his criticism of their reality show.
The singer noted paying $30,000 to join the Ozzfest bill in a chat with Metal Hammer and recalled, “Some days we were opening at 9 in the morning, but I remember on the last Iron Maiden day, the tour was going to continue but we were asked by some of the Ozzfest crew, ‘Hey, do you want to egg Iron Maiden?’ It was like, ‘Why the hell would we do that?’”
Trivium rejected the offer and instead showed their support for Iron Maiden by wearing their t-shirts on stage and covering ‘The Trooper’ during their performances. This led to a heated response from the Ozzfest crew.
“We got bullied by the Ozzfest crew; they’d drive their golf carts right up to our faces, shoot dirt at us,” Heafy shared. “Paolo [Gregoletto] almost got arrested at one of the shows. It was a strange time; we paid $30,000 to get bullied like we were in high school!”
The tension toward Trivium seemed to continue for years. Heafy said that the band was only ‘recently’ given a conditional offer to return to the festival, which can make a comeback from its hiatus since 2018. “We were actually told recently, if we apologized, we’d be allowed to do the tour again someday,” the singer said.
Trivium is now set to co-headline the ‘The Poisoned Ascendancy’ world tour with Bullet For My Valentine in 2025. The tour will celebrate the 20th anniversary of Trivium’s ‘Ascendancy’ and Bullet For My Valentine’s ‘The Poison.’