How did Brooks Wackerman get the Avenged Sevenfold job?

Less than a week after officially joining the band new Avenged Sevenfold Brooks Wackerman has spoken to Hammer about the circumstances that led to his joining the band.

“Last year after they finished the Mayhem tour I heard they were looking for a new drummer,” he tells us, “and, by all accounts my name was thrown into the hat to be in the band. One day I received a call from Matt [Shadows, A7X frontman] asking me if I wanted to go out to dinner, and so we met up and talked about music and the future and what we both wanted to do in our careers. And we just hit it off. They’ve been a band that I’ve admired throughout my career, and so to get the chance to work with them up close and personal is really a tremendous honour for me.”

And having scored the drum stool of one of the biggest bands in the world of metal, a job that Brooks himself describes as “exactly the sort of challenge that I’ve always wanted in my career”, you’d be forgiven for thinking that his first act upon being an official member of Avenged Sevenfold would be to go out and celebrate in as wild and crazy a way as possible. Not so.

“The first thing I did,” he sighs. “was go and tell my wife, and she gave me a kiss and we hugged. It was quite a poignant moment. And she said ‘Go get ‘em tiger!’ ha ha. Then I called my father and told him, who’s a music educator but wasn’t familiar with the band. So I showed him and few of the videos and he’s just my biggest supporter. I think just telling my family of what I was about to do was an exciting element.”

The first of many no doubt, welcome to the family Brooks.

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Stephen joined the Louder team as a co-host of the Metal Hammer Podcast in late 2011, eventually becoming a regular contributor to the magazine. He has since written hundreds of articles for Metal Hammer, Classic Rock and Louder, specialising in punk, hardcore and 90s metal. He also presents the Trve. Cvlt. Pop! podcast with Gaz Jones and makes regular appearances on the Bangers And Most podcast.