“We paid $30,000 to get bullied like we were in high school!” Trivium were asked to egg Iron Maiden at Ozzfest 2005. They declined and started wearing Iron Maiden shirts onstage…

Trivium frontman Matt Heafy has revealed the band were asked to egg Iron Maiden in 2005.

The singer/guitarist makes the admission in an exclusive interview with Metal Hammer, while reflecting on the metalcore band’s time opening Ozzfest that year for Maiden and Black Sabbath.

The tour took place amid a feud between Sabbath manager/Ozzfest organiser Sharon Osbourne and Maiden frontman Bruce Dickinson. It reportedly stemmed from Dickinson making disparaging comments about reality TV, which Osbourne, co-star of MTV reality series The Osbournes, took exception to. The spat peaked during the tour’s stop in Los Angeles, when a posse led by Osbourne egged Maiden as the band endured power outages.

Heafy starts by saying that Trivium had to pay $30,000 to join the Ozzfest bill, which included the costs of renting a bus and crew for the jaunt. He continues: “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 didn’t just decline to egg Maiden – they then doubled down on their support for the UK heavy metal icons by wearing their t-shirts onstage and covering The Trooper during their sets. They were treated fiercely by Ozzfest’s crew as a result.

“We got bullied by the Ozzfest crew; they’d drive their golf carts right up to our faces, shoot dirt at us,” Heafy remembers. “Paolo [Gregoletto, bass] 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 bad blood towards Trivium seemingly extended for years, to the point that the band were only “recently” given a very conditional offer to return to the travelling festival. “We were actually told recently if we apologised we’d be allowed to do the tour again someday,” says Heafy.

Ozzfest has been on ice since 2018, but Osbourne suggested in January it could return. In July, she reflected on pelting Maiden with eggs in 2005. “I had been having cancer treatments [Osbourne had surgery for colon cancer in 2002], and all the nurses that I had met over my year in chemo came to the show and they said, ‘Can we do anything for you?’ And I’m like, ‘Yes, you can,’” she remembered.

“I loaded them up with cans of bean soup, vegetables, eggs, and I said, ‘Pelt the singer.’ And that’s what they did.”

Osbourne still seems to harbour ill will towards Dickinson, as she described him as being “eaten up with jealousy” for her husband, Sabbath singer Ozzy Osbourne.

Trivium will co-headline The Poisoned Ascendancy world tour with Bullet For My Valentine in 2025. The two bands will be playing their respective 2005 albums, Ascendancy and The Poison, in full to mark their 20th anniversaries. The European and North American legs have been announced, dates of which are below.