Back in late August, Metal File had an opportunity to chat with Demi Lovato, the squeaky-clean 16-year-old star of the Disney Channel’s “Camp Rock.” Lovato, who some have dubbed “the next Miley Cyrus,” got her start in the business at age 7, as one of the tykes on “Barney & Friends.” She admitted to the File that, despite her image, she’s something of a closet metalhead — she listed Maylene and the Sons of Disaster, Lamb of God, Dr. Acula, Underoath, Dimmu Borgir, the Devil Wears Prada and Abigail Williams as some of her favorite metal acts.

At the time, Lovato also confessed that she’d secretly love to make metal music at some point, by providing backing vocals for a song on a metal band’s album. Ken Sorceron, who fronts Abigail Williams, said his band would definitely be down with working on some material with the teen star, because, well, selling records is a good thing.
 ”I read she was a fan, but otherwise, I’d have no idea she existed,” Sorceron said. “My mom showed me an article online about her being a metal fan, and I was like, ‘What?’ I was reading it, and I’m thinking, ‘What, are you kidding me?’ At the same time, I thought that was kind of badass. She was all talking about how she wants to work with a metal band, and I was like, ‘Dude, she should sing on our next CD. We’ll sell a sh– ton of records.’ Have her people contact my people.”

Unfortunately, a collaboration between the Disney sensation and the symphonic black metallers won’t be happening anytime soon, what with Abigail Williams having just released their latest LP, In the Shadow of a Thousand Suns, which was produced by James Murphy of Testament, Cancer, Death and Obituary fame. The album, which is in stores now, may just be one of the band’s greatest achievements — replete with orchestral movements, Emperor drummer Trym Torson’s punishing double-bass brilliance, sinister guitar riffs and Sorceron’s gravely vocals, it’s an experimental offering that took the band more than six months to track.

“There were a lot of difficulties we’d experienced during the recording of this one,” the singer explained. “My computer crashed, and I had hard drives fail on me, so I lost a lot of material I ended up re-creating; I listen back to the CD now, and I’m realizing I forgot certain parts, but that’s fine. It sucked. I wrote most of the songs while we were on hiatus — I used that time to regroup the whole thing and find new people to record with.”

Sorceron said he’d always wanted to record with Murphy, whom he’d befriended several years ago — he ended up moving in with Murphy for three months while the two worked on the album. At the moment, Abigail Williams is on tour in the U.S., trying to spread the word about In the Shadow of a Thousand Suns. They’ll be on the road with the Faceless, Veil of Maya, Neuraxis and Decrepit Birth through November 22 in San Diego, and the band is lining up tours for early 2009 with Cryptopsy, Mayhem and Marduk.

“I hate being home, because being out here, there’s always something f—ing ridiculous happening,” Sorceron explained. “We’ve had kids eat roadkill off our trailer for shirts.”

Wait — what was that?

“We played a show in Milwaukee and, after the show, we were partying with these kids out in the parking lot,” he continued. “We noticed there was something dead on our trailer — there was fur and everything, just stuck to the trailer. I don’t remember who came up with this idea, but we told them if they licked it, we’d give ‘em a shirt. So, the first kid licks it, and then, the second kid comes up a pulls off a big old piece and ate it. Then, the last kid comes up, and he eats a healthy amount, too. After that, I had all three of them make out with their unsuspecting girlfriends. When they found out, they were gagging.”

Abigail Williams’ three roadkill-devouring fans don’t get any special thanks in the liner notes for Thousand Suns, but it may surprise you who does: rappers Jay-Z and GZA. The File asked Sorceron to explain the gesture.

“Well, Jay-Z took our video location one day,” he said. “We had a video location all lined up for ‘Into the Ashes,’ and it was in New York. The day before we’re about to shoot, it was canceled because Jay-Z came in and decided he wanted that space … and I’m guessing he had money. This happened a couple of months ago. I think he was just using the space, which was an orchestra room, for his new album. So, that’s why we thanked Jay-Z. We also like his music, and we’re into GZA. Sometimes, we just want to see if people notice stuff like that — to see if they’re paying attention.”

Source: MTV News