Avenged Sevenfold recruit ex-Bad Religion drummer

Avenged Sevenfold have welcomed former Bad Religion drummer Brooks Wackerman to the fold.

Wackerman left the Bad Religion last month, now joining the Orange County outfit; replacing Arin Ilejay.

Avenged Sevenfold made the announcement via Chris Jericho's 'Talk Is Jericho' podcast.

"Brooks’ name has always been in the mix. It was one of the names we were throwing around when Jimmy passed away in terms of who was going to step up for Nightmare. We felt Mike [Portnoy] was the right choice and we still feel that way. Mike just destroyed on the record. He was perfect. But at the time, our tour manager brought up Brooks’ name as well. But at the time he was also busy with Bad Religion and it was also … people were going to look at it differently because he was a punk drummer at this point," frontman M.Shadows said, as transcribed by Loudwire.

Equally, Wackerman discussed leaving the punk rock veterans saying, “There was no lead up to it and no one knew. Initially it was shock to everyone. I spoke with every band member individually on a day off on tour right before our last show. There’s just a lot of history there, but they understood. They get it. I mean the band has been around for 35 years so they’ve gone through this before.”