M. Shadows wants to set the record straight so there’s no confusion: Avenged Sevenfold are a heavy metal band.
The platinum-grilled frontman said that although topping the “TRL” countdown drove sales of the band’s 2005 album, City of Evil, past the 560,000-sold mark, he wants to make sure “the perception of Avenged Sevenfold doesn’t get twisted in the wrong light.”
“When you go to our live show, it’s a full-on heavy metal show, and
we don’t need — I mean, no offense to 10-year-old and 11-year-old
little girls, [but] they’re not going to understand the experience,” he
said.
The clip for the first single, “Bat Country,” spent more than a week
as the “TRL” audience’s top pick. “We want our shows to be respectable
heavy metal shows. We’re a rock and roll band, and we want kids to know
that.”
So when it came time to release the record’s second single, the band
went with the more acerbic “Beast and the Harlot” to separate the wheat
from the chafe.
“With ‘Beast and the Harlot,’ we wanted kids to know that this
record isn’t driven towards ‘TRL,’ ” Shadows said. “It’s a rock record.
This is what Avenged Sevenfold is about. It’s not a radio-driven band.
This next single’s more for the fans, more for the kids that get the
record, and get the whole record — not just the poppy chorus and the
Hunter S. Thompson thing, and that’s all we care about this band for.
The quicker you can get rid of those people, the better. I think going
with ‘Beast’ was more of us trying to solidify our career and not throw
it down the drain by being in a bunch of teeny magazines. We don’t
belong there. That kind of scared us a bit, and I think it’s smart to
push back and deliver a real rock single next.”
Hey whatever guy. Without those teenage girls buying your records,
you’d still be in a Guns N’ Roses cover band and working night shift
cleaning toilets.
