Ahead of the band’s third headline performance at Download this weekend, and one year on from the release of brain-bending eighth album Life Is But A Dream…, M. Shadows is, well, living the dream right now. And having successfully found the freedom he’s always wanted for Avenged Sevenfold, he’s now focussed on showing other artists how they too can own their future…
In 2016, m shadow and Synyster Gates engaged in a full and frank exchange of views about the speed and course set by the good ship Avenged Sevenfold. The points of order under discussion by the group’s singer and lead guitarist – respectively, Matt and Brian to their friends – were issues fundamental, perhaps even existential, regarding motivation, working hours, private lives, and the division of professional and familial responsibilities amid the constant thunder of a rolling rock group. As with so much of what lies at the core of A7X, these topics were tied together by a desire to find harmony in a shared instinct for constant evolution.
“It was during [the making of 2016 album] The Stage record that Brian and I really had it out in terms of workload, work ethic, and how we all wanted to get the record done,” Matt says. “Because it was taking a really long time. At that point at least, I was the driver of this thing, like I’ve been driving it since I was 17 years old. And at a certain point I realised I had to give up those reins. I had to realise that the only way the band was going to survive was by me not hounding bandmates who were [then] in their 30s. You can’t have that all the time. We have families, people have kids, priorities change. I realised, basically, that everyone’s an adult now.”
The moment at which the man caught sight of a verdant wood rather than a copse of trees inspired an ongoing – and here comes that word again – evolution in the operations department of Avenged Sevenfold. The singer explains, “Because we do all have families, the road, for example, has to be a place where everyone can bring them out at any time. There’s no problem with that; everyone’s taken care of. It’s also important to meet people where they’re at – when they’re inspired, when they want to do a record, when we want to write. Everybody has to be on the same page. It can’t be, like, ‘Well, I’m ready to go, so you guys have to be ready too.”
