Atreyu’s latest album is titled The Pronoia Sessions and for those wondering “pronoia” is the opposite of paranoia in which you have the feeling that the universe is conspiring in your favor. With an extensive history behind them, Full Metal Jackie asked frontman Brandon Saller at what point the band has experienced the most “pronoia” in their career.Surprisingly, the singer picked present day when addressing that question on Full Metal Jackie’s weekend radio show. While expressing his gratitude for some of the previous highs in the band’s career, Saller stated, “I think that within the members of this band, it’s never been a more joyful place and it’s never been something that’s felt so positive before.”Within the chat, Full Metal Jackie speaks with Brandon about the challenges of reimagining the band’s well-established material, how that might impact their future performances and recordings and offered a deeper dive on why classic covers of Audioslave and Tom Petty ended up being part of this record.Plus, Brandon reflects on what it was like to revisit The Curse album for shows over the past year and what, if anything, he’d change about the record. Check out more of the chat below.It’s Full Metal Jackie and this week, we welcome to the show Atreyu’s Brandon Saller. The band is back with their latest effort, The Pronoia Sessions, a reimagining of their classic favorites, along with some pretty cool and haunting covers as well. Brandon, Atreyu’s been a pretty prolific band. When and how did the idea come to do this, and did it feel like the timing was right to break up the new album cycle with more of a passion project for a bit?I think in its core, the idea started sort of during COVID. At the time we were releasing an album called Baptize and  you couldn’t promote an album the same way you would. So we were kind of leaning on livestreams and things like that just to do online.The idea of doing acoustic performances kind of reared its head for the first time. We had never done anything like that previously, and the reaction to it was just way better than we expected. It was something that we really enjoyed doing. So what started with that kind of morphed its way into us wanting to actually make a more focused effort and make kind of a studio album out of it.It was just something really cool. A lot of these songs have existed for a long time, so there’s a few newer tracks on there, obviously. But it was an opportunity to give these older songs a completely new life, you know? I think a lot of them stand alone on their own as kind of their own song, so it was just something fun to do and something a little bit different for Atreyu fans that’s not the average release.Atreyu, “Becoming the Bull” (Reimagined)Brandon, I’m a particular fan of your take on Audioslave’s “Like A Stone.” Great arrangement, and I feel like it gives you a great vocal spotlight, which you nailed. Was there any trepidation stepping up to cover a Chris Cornell-led song, given the reverence to him being one of rock’s great voices? And also, why was “Like A Stone” a cover choice for this collection?First of all, 100 percent yes, there was definitely, within my own brain, a lot of hesitation and nerves involved with approaching such a legendary singer and trying to touch that. But I have to thank my band for coaxing me and giving me the courage to do so, which was awesome.But that song, I feel like The Pronoia Sessions as a whole has such a haunting and dark feel that kind of leaks through the whole album. When we decided to do some covers, we wanted to stay in that realm.That song is obviously a favorite of the bands, and it has that feel already, and we kind of wanted to just take it even further and make it even more haunting. With doing a Cornell song and doing a Tom Petty song, it’s like you also have the sort of weight of the fact that those are two legendary artists that left this world way before I think the world was ready for it. So there’s that kind of element of weight that went along with it as well.It just seemed like it made sense. Then when we started figuring out the arrangements and toying with it, it set in nicely, and we decided to give it a shot.Atreyu, “Like a Stone”Brandon, in some ways, I can’t imagine it’s easy to reimagine certain songs you’ve played a specific way years on end. On the other hand, in some cases, this could be just a natural evolution. What was the biggest challenge you had in giving these songs a new sound?I think with some of them, I think that it was really natural and comfortable for us to kind of approach them almost as a new song. For instance, “Becoming the Bull” is the same lyric, the same kind of sort of progression, but it is a completely different feel and a completely different vibe of a song. So it was just kind of letting them speak to us and going with the feeling.Some of the songs are a little bit closer to where they left off, but maybe just kind of a softer and revised version. But then some of them are truly very different. So it was kind of just whatever fell out of the sky that day and made us go in whatever direction we went. We just kind of let ourselves run with that.Brandon, since the album is titled The Pronoia Sessions and “pronoia” is the feeling that the universe is conspiring in your favor, I’ll ask, was there a time in the band’s history where you felt Atreyu was most experiencing Pronoia?I think that now is one of the times. We obviously have had extreme highs in our band and extreme successes that we’re proud of and grateful for. Those were definitely times where we thought the world was kind of rooting for us and everything was going in our favor.But I think that now, the title very much shows the overarching feeling within our band. I think that within the members of this band, it’s never been a more joyful place and it’s never been something that’s felt so positive before.Brandon, with these songs being reimagined as they have, it’s such a different feel from the traditional heaviness of your material. Was this an album-only experience or might some of these reimagined versions find a home in the live sets just to break things up?I think that they’ll definitely show their head at some point. The hard part really is I think that because a lot of them are sort of classic songs in our catalog, it’s tough to expect people to want to hear the new version rather than the version that they know better.WATCH MORE: The Atreyu Guitarists Play Their Favorite RiffsBut I think that they’ll definitely kind of peek their head at some point. It might end up being sort of a Pronoia Sessions-style tour or show of some sort. We definitely would love to sort of showcase these songs live in some way.And also, do you feel that the extra instrumentation in some cases and the different arrangements open the door for that type of experimentation and expanding of the sound moving forward in your recording career?For sure. we’ve never been a band that sort of adhered to the limitation. Our guitar player Dan [Jacobs], we were talking about this the other day and he was saying, “Our band has multiple personalities, and this is us just shining a light on one of those personalities.”I think whenever you creatively accomplish something that is so out of left field and internally feel successful about it, then it definitely opens your mind up to “Well, what else could we do?” So I think there never ever has been and there’s never gonna be a sort of end to us trying weird things that people might feel strange about.Brandon. The Pronoia Sessions has not only the Audioslave cover, but also a pretty haunting take on Tom Petty’s “Mary Jane’s Last Dance.” First, I want to ask if you’re a big Petty fan and secondly, were there other covers considered but ultimately left out because they didn’t seem fit the feel of the rest of the record?I’m most definitely a huge Petty fan. Tom Petty, Roy Orbison and the Traveling Wilburys were my first sort of memory of music that my dad showed me when I was young. So I’ve loved, loved Tom Petty since I was a child. But “Mary Jane’s Last Dance” specifically is one of my favorites.I think that song was one of the first times that I felt the weight and darkness in music when I was younger. So it just seemed like it was the perfect choice. I think we definitely had a few other ideas for songs as far as covers, but none of them made as much sense as these ones do.That’s not to say we won’t end up doing something with the other ideas at some point, but these ones just kind of stood out so obviously within the landscape of the rest of the record that it just made the most sense.Atreyu, “Mary Jane’s Last Dance”Before we go, you recently had a chance to celebrate 20 years of The Curse album, which was a big record for you. How do you feel about the record all these years later? Is there anything you would change or were there any lessons learned that have stuck with you and been applied to other records?For sure. That record was so important to our career. We were also so young, not only as just like humans, but as a band. You end up following what the person at the helm or the producer just says to do.There’s definitely some things we would change. But at the same time, I think part of the reason for that album’s success is because the way it was recorded and how it sounds sonically was so different than everything else kind of in the landscape at the time.So I think whether or not in this day and age I feel super stoked on all of the choices in the way that it sounds, but I think because it sounded that way had a hand in why it did so well. So I can’t be mad at it. But it’s awesome to look back and reflect and revisit these songs.A lot of these songs we haven’t played in a long time, so we’re getting to play some of these shows where we’re doing the album play through and it’s been a really fun kind of nostalgic experience to look at yourself under a microscope.Atreyu, “Right Side of the Bed”Thanks to Atreyu’s Brandon Saller for the interview. The Pronoia Sessions is available now and you can keep up with the band’s activities through their website, Facebook, X, Instagram and Spotify accounts. Find out where you can hear Full Metal Jackie’s weekend radio show here.The 10 Best Metalcore Albums of 2004It was a pivotal year for metalcore and these are the 10 albums that rank as the best from 2004.Gallery Credit: John Hill