Courtesy Jack Thompson

The Sword in the studio (left to right): bassist Bryan Richie, guitarist and singer John Cronise, drummer Trivett Wingo and guitarist Kyle Shutt.

Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich, pictured here with lead guitarist Kirk Hammett, is a Sword fan. The band met Ulrich in San Francisco.

There's a reason for cliches. If they didn't have at least some truth to them, people wouldn't repeat them so often.

Example: "It's not what you know; it's who you know."

That nugget brings to mind The Sword, an Austin, Texas-based hard rock band with ties to the Roanoke area.

Recently, the band met and got to know Lars Ulrich, drummer for iconic heavy rockers Metallica. Now, The Sword is getting ready to go on tour with Ulrich's band.

Ulrich, it turns out, "is a Sword nerd," said drummer Trivett Wingo, 29, a Cave Spring High School graduate. Fellow Cave Spring grad J.D. Cronise, 31, founded the band. Cronise writes the songs, sings and plays guitar.

The band met Ulrich when it played in San Francisco, Metallica's home base. He showed up at The Sword's show, introduced himself and hung out afterward, Wingo said.

"I guess we're like his favorite band -- that's what he told us," he said.

Repeated attempts to contact Ulrich were unsuccessful.

The tour with Metallica begins June 12 at Bonnaroo Music Festival, in Manchester, Tenn. From there, it's an action-packed July in Norway, Russia, Latvia, Italy, Romania, Bulgaria and Turkey. Wingo laughed when asked if the band is excited about the amped-up exposure it is about to receive.

"Playing to 50,000 people" per show "certainly beats playing to 500 people at our shows," he said.

A dark, metal stew

But the band's new friendship relies on the first part of the cliche, as well. It is what the band knows -- a dark, metal stew that shows the influence of bands such as Black Sabbath and Motorhead.

It's a sound that inspired a reviewer for Rolling Stone magazine to give the band's new CD, "Gods of the Earth," a three-and-a-half stars rating. "Let the indie kids smirk at the bombast -- metal glee this pure can't be ironic," reviewer Chris Steffen wrote this month.

The Sword also made the magazine's Best of 2008 list, under the heading "Best Metal Alloys." According to Rolling Stone, the band's sound can draw a wide range of listeners yet won't alienate the hard-core fans because its "straightforward approach turns what could be pure dork static into something deliriously fun." Also on that list are Dillinger Escape Plan and Meshuggah.

Since early March, Guitar Player magazine featured in print and online the band's guitarists, Cronise and Kyle Shutt.

The go-to guitarists' monthly wrote that Cronise and Shutt's "thick-toned caveman riffery served to remind the masses that metal's promised land" was still about "mystical D&D imagery, Norse mythology, and, most importantly, punishing, rotund tones a la Master of Reality-era Sabbath. The band's sophomore release, 'Gods of the Earth' [Kemado], is even more lethal than their debut, as the group toured behind 'Age of Winters' for nearly two years solid, honing their dark art to the point of near metal perfection."

Wingo said the band had been unaware of that article.

"The album just came out," he said during the late-April interview. "We've done hundreds of interviews this month. We don't even know who we talk to. It becomes underwhelming after a while."

Of course, they can have fun taking part in a great tradition for musicians -- slinging bull at reporters.

When asked how the band came up with its name, Wingo answered: "Just say we used a Ouija board."

Far from family

The Sword is a big part of Austin's diverse music scene. Within a year of its 2003 formation, music publications were calling The Sword "Austin's most dangerous band." A performance at the 2004 South by Southwest Festival led to tours with Mastadon, ... And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead and other heavy rock units.

All that traveling means that Cronise and Wingo are rarely back in the Roanoke area. In fact, few back home even know of their exploits.

"We're glad to hear that our son is starting to be recognized in his home town!" Cronise's father, Ed, wrote in an e-mail. "We don't get to see him much since his move to Austin. E-mail helps a lot, especially when the band is on the road. They just started the May tour and are playing a different location every night for the next twenty days."

Ed and Katrina Cronise were "very excited" to hear that their son would be touring with Metallica. That's not to say they can necessarily relate to the music.

"From a parent who grew up in the sixties, the music is a little hard to relax to!" he wrote. "We are fans of the Stones, the Beatles, and now Jimmy Buffet, so J.D.'s concerts are very different from those bands. We have been to Charlotte to one of his concerts and the crowd makes me feel old. They really get into the music though.

"JD has always wanted to play guitar and we are amazed at his talent for writing and performing. His mother and I have absolutely no musical talent. (I won't even sing in church)."

Jean Wingo, Trivett's mother, said she grew up listening to Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath, so she likes her son's music. His father, Bob, is older and hadn't been exposed to much hard rock, but is always supportive.

"We're just having the best time watching it unfold," she said.

Of course, they'd like to see him more often, but the band practically lives on the road.

"Last year I saw him at Christmas, and that's it," she said. "But you know, the man is living his dream, and that's what we've always wanted for him. If you can make a living doing what you want to do, that's what you need to do. And he's doing it!"

Wider recognition and global touring are becoming the norm, but Roanoke is unlikely to see The Sword.

"I think we've sold like maybe 20 or 30 records there," Trivett Wingo said. "The way that tours are routed, it really has to do with the strength of various markets. Roanoke is not a high-traffic area."

The closest upcoming shows are: Thursday at the Rock and Roll Hotel, in Washington, D.C.; and May 20 at the Lincoln Theater, in Raleigh, N.C.

But Wingo didn't rule out Roanoke entirely.

"We might do that just for fun someday," he said. "Every place you play, you can get at least 100 people to show up. Even in the most out of the way, random places. It could be a filler show."