Lamb of God’s Randy Blythe is set to publish his second book, Just Beyond the Light: Making Peace with the Wars Inside Our Head, on Feb. 18, 2025.
Just Beyond the Light (available to pre-order now) will mix bits of memoir and philosophical and artistic musings. Blythe described it in a statement as a “tight, concise roadmap of how I have attempted to maintain what I believe to be a proper perspective in life, even during difficult times.”
Blythe wrote about his childhood in the South, friends he’s lost, what he’s learned touring the world with Lamb of God, and how he’s shaped his life around things like sobriety, art, and surfing.
“For me, the single most gratifying aspect of being an artist is learning that your work has been useful to others in some way,” Blythe said. “I’ve been told by lots of readers that my last book, Dark Days, helped them I hope Just Beyond the Light does the same.”
Blythe released Dark Days back in 2015. In it, he recounted the story of how he wound up arrested and tried for manslaughter in Prague after allegedly pushing a 19-year-old fan offstage at a 2012 show, causing injuries that led to the fan’s death. He was ultimately found not guilty in 2013 after making the bold decision to return to the Czech Republic and face trial.
Earlier this summer, Blythe’s Lamb of God bandmate, guitarist Mark Morton, published a memoir of his own, Desolation: A Heavy Metal Memoir. That book found him grappling with his decision to push forward with the band after the death of his newborn daughter in 2009, and how that led to his struggles with addiction (he has since celebrated five years of sobriety).
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Lamb of God spent much of this summer touring with Mastodon, with both bands playing their breakthrough 2004 albums — Ashes of the Wake and Leviathan, respectively — in their entirety. The two bands recently collaborated on a new song as well, “Floods of Triton,” and they spoke about how the track came together in an interview with Rolling Stone.
“Something happens when you’re in the studio with someone, particularly on something like this,” Blythe said. “It may look silly to other people, but we have a certain universal language. I believe there’s an understanding there that happens when you’re in person that is absent via email or whatever.”