Lounge
For American heavy metal band Avenged Sevenfold, life is but a dream
Summary
Ahead of their first concert in India, the 25-year-old band's lead vocalist Matthew Charles Sanders aka M Shadows talks to Lounge about the setlist and a funny tour memory among other things
You’ll rarely meet a fan of Avenged Sevenfold (A7X) who doesn’t go gaga over their music. And every concert of theirs becomes a calendar event. Formed in 1999, the heavy metal band from Huntington Beach, California, over the past two decades have earned this steadfast fan following by making music that’s never adhered to one particular sound. “We are never going to be a band that sounds like the old version of itself," says the band’s founding member and lead vocalist Matthew Charles Sanders, known better by his stage name
M Shadows, in this video interview with Lounge.
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The band has seen several highs including having their songs like ‘Nightmare’ and ‘Hail to the King’ becoming Billboard chartbusters, winning Best New Artist at the MTV VMAs in 2006, earning a Grammy nomination in 2016 for ‘Best Song of the Year’ for ‘The Stage’ and touring with iconic bands like Iron Maiden, Guns N’ Roses and Metallica. They have also survived the loss of their drummer, James Sullivan. With eight albums to their credit, the band has earned its place among the world’s best heavy metal bands. Now, Bengalureans will get to watch the band perform live – in their first concert in India – at Bandland 2024, produced by BookMyShow Live. “India became an important place for us when we saw that a lot of people there listened to us. It’s a dream for us that we’ll get to travel that part of the world," says Sanders before discussing among other things the setlist they’ve planned for the show, and why the band, instead of resting on its laurels, will always make new music. Edited excerpts:
You are the headlining act on Saturday. Tell me a little bit about the setlist planned for the day.
We have a 25-year-old history but we also know that there will be a lot of people who’ve never seen us before. These are people who want to have a nice night out and want to listen to music they like. So, we kind of are going to be playing a little bit of everything along the way. If you really want to know, we will be playing songs from our latest record, Life Is But A Dream along with songs off every (previous) record.
Nostalgia among millennials and Gen X seems to have infused new life into some old bands again. What’s your take?
We're aware that a lot of bands are already doing throwback tours. They are already leaning on their past catalogue. That approach doesn’t interest us at all. As a band, we believe in pushing the ball forward. We are going to keep moving forward, our production is going to keep getting cutting-edge, and as far as we are concerned, we are never going to be a band that will sound like the old version of itself. That’s just who we are.
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There’s a seven-year-long gap between your new album, Life Is But A Dream, and the previous one, The Stage, which came out in 2016. What was the reason for this long break?
We’d been on a grind for 20 years, and one day, we looked at ourselves and said we were done doing the tour-album, tour-album rigmarole, you know? And so we started writing and we were happy with how the record was turning out. But then covid-19 happened and we had another year-and-a-half or two years where we couldn’t get into a studio or do a live orchestra. So, we just pushed working on the record and said ‘we’ll do it when we can’. And that’s what happened. The way I look at this ‘long gap’, I think it’s a really healthy place for a band to be at where we only tour or put out records because we want to, and not because we have to. This mindset conveys to people that when we are there, we are really invested in being there.
You've travelled around the whole world. What are some things you love about the touring life?
Well, right now, the best thing about it is taking my kids to see the world. I think that’s better than school because they get to see new cultures, and they get to do that with me. As a performer, the best part of the job is getting out there on the stage. Being aware of the fans we have, knowing that we are going to be making an impact in their lives – even if it's just for a night – makes it all worth it.
Do you have anecdotes related to tour mishaps, say of instruments getting lost or things getting crazy on stage?
This happened back in the day when we were doing simultaneous Europe tours with Guns N' Roses and Iron Maiden. So, we were going back and forth (across cities) for gigs with the two bands. And as things turned out, when we arrived to open for Guns N’ Roses at the Paris concert, we found that none of our gear had got there. Zacky Vengeance, our rhythm guitarist, is left-handed and so, that evening, he ended up playing (Guns N' Roses' rhythm guitarist) Izzy Stradlin’s guitar upside down (laughs). Everyone who turned up for that concert hated us. That was one embarrassing episode, alright.
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