Lamb Of God’s Mark Morton on writing about his daughter’s death in new memoir

Lamb Of God guitarist Mark Morton's autobiography, Desolation: A Heavy Metal Memoir , was published on June 25 via Hachette Books.

And, talking about the memoir in an interview hosted by his co-author Ben Opipari, Morton admits that the most challenging chapter to write was that concerning the death of his daughter, Madalyn Grace Morton, in 2009.

Madalyn Grace passed away on the day after she was born, due to an infection.

Explaining why the chapter about his daughter was so difficult to write, Morton says (as transcribed by Blabbermouth ): “It’s not because I discovered anything new about that situation. I just think that I struggled to honour it and word it just right.”

“And I remember telling you [Opipari], ‘I don’t want a lot of notes on this one.’ That was one of the things I was, like, If there’s grammatical stuff… I spent some time with that one.

“I was in a really bad mood those few days. So, in that sense, it just drummed up stuff. It’s not something I bury. It’s not something I forget. It's not something I wanna commodify either.

“I didn't want this to be a book about that, but I can’t tell my story without touching on that. So it was more about finding the balance of all those things and kind of making it feel like I honoured that, but didn’t exploit it and told my authentic version of that. And I think that’s what we did.”

Morton also reveals that the most fun part of Desolation to write was his reflections on the early days of Lamb Of God, originally formed under the name Burn The Priest.

“I really, really enjoyed kind of going through all the memories of the Burn The Priest era of Lamb Of God and then the early Lamb Of God stuff and just really trying to characterise what an absolute just cyclone of chaos and idiocy we were back then,” he says.

“And that was fun to explore and to revisit. And even with the stuff before that, like my high school bands, I did a lot of checking in with folks and seeing if I was remembering this right.”

Lamb Of God will embark on a co-headlining tour of North America next month with Mastodon .

The bands will be celebrating the 20th anniversaries of their respective albums Ashes Of The Wake and Leviathan , with support coming from Kerry King and Malevolence.

See the full list of dates below.

Lamb Of God / Mastodon Ashes Of Leviathan tour dates:

Jul 19: Grand Prairie, TX - Texas Trust CU Theatre
Jul 20: Austin, TX - Germania Insurance Amphitheater
Jul 21: Houston, TX - 713 Music Hall
Jul 23: Jacksonville, FL - Daily’s Place
Jul 24: Orlando, FL - Orlando Amphitheater
Jul 25: Alpharetta, GA - Ameris Bank Amphitheatre
Jul 27: Raleigh, NC - Red Hat Amphitheater
Jul 28: Richmond, VA - Virginia Credit Union LIVE!
Jul 30: Pittsburgh, PA - Stage AE
Jul 31: London, ON - Budweiser Gardens
Aug 1: Montreal, QC - Bell Centre
Aug 3: Uncasville, CT - Mohegan Sun Arena
Aug 4: Manchester, NH - SNHU Arena
Aug 6: Bangor, ME - Maine Savings Amphitheatre
Aug 8: Reading, PA - Santander Arena**
Aug 9: Cleveland, OH - Jacobs Pavilion**
Aug 10: Sterling Heights, MI - Michigan Lottery Amphitheatre @ Freedom Hill**
Aug 13: Moorhead, MN - Bluestem Center For The Arts Amphitheater
Aug 15: Calgary, AB - Scotiabank Saddledome
Aug 16: Penticton, BC - South Okanagan Events Centre
Aug 17: Kent, WA - accesso ShoWare Center
Aug 18: Portland, OR - Theater of the Clouds
Aug 21: Los Angeles, CA - The Kia Forum
Aug 23: Phoenix, AZ - Arizona Financial Theatre
Aug 24: Rio Rancho, NM - Rio Rancho Events Center
Aug 25: El Paso, TX - El Paso County Coliseum
Aug 27: Magna, UT - The Great Saltair
Aug 29: Morrison, CO - Red Rocks Amphitheatre
Aug 31: Omaha, NE - The Astro Amphitheater