Blabbermouth reports that Trivium drummer Travis Smith has given an interview with Australia’s Beat Magazine, he tells Beat that he grew up on thrash metal, and now Lars Ulrich is one of their biggest fans!

Asked how it felt to share stages with his heroes, Smith responded, “It's an honor to play with bands like [IRON] MAIDEN and METALLICA, but it's not like a strike of good luck. It's come from all the hard work we've put in, the last six years of busting our ass. They notice how hungry we are. I think they respect that, because we remind them of themselves when they were our age.”

Due to the success they've had at a young age, TRIVIUM get flack for being rich boys who've had it served up on a platter. “That's people who don't have a clue what's going on,” Smith retorted. “Maybe they don't understand how you can be 18, 19 or 20 and be so set on what you want in life. Maybe they weren't as headstrong, so they don't get it. Sure, we're living our dream at a very young age, but we've worked very hard and we're very focused. It's not our fault if they didn't do the same or haven't made it as far as we have. They chose their path, we chose ours.”

The other thing that gets Smith's goat is genre labelling. “It's a bit much at times,” he said. “In one of our first features in a U.K. magazine, the headline was 'Metalcore,' and we've been fighting it ever since. At first, I'd get really annoyed, but now I think people around the world understand what we're all about. They want to throw you into a category, but we don't want a part of it. So if you have to throw us into a category… don't. We're just TRIVIUM.”

Read the entire interview at here