Avenged Sevenfold drummer was 'heavy influence' on album

Avenged Sevenfold's Brook Wackerman (Image credit: Getty)

Avenged Sevenfold’s latest album The Stage was “heavily influenced” by new drummer Brooks Wackerman, according to bassist Johnny Christ.

The release marked the former Bad Religion man’s first recording appearance with the band since he joined the lineup last year – and Christ says they wanted to showcase his ability on the follow-up to 2013’s Hail To The King.

When asked how Wackerman’s playing style influenced the record, Christ tells KLAQ 95.5: “Well, it was heavily influenced by that, to be honest. From the beginning of talking with Brooks, and before we even really started putting the pen to the paper, we knew that we wanted to let him go, we wanted his raw sound.”

He continues: “We knew what he was capable of and his feel on everything, and we loved the way that just the natural-sounding drums sound. Not a lot of hard rock bands are just letting it all be – they’re adding a lot of samples on things, or effects or whatever – and we just wanted the drums to be raw so you could really hear what Brooks Wackerman is capable of.”

Listen to the full interview below.

Avenged Sevenfold feature in the latest edition of Metal Hammer magazine, out now in print and via TeamRock+.

They’ll hit the road across Europe in early 2017.

Avenged Sevenfold tour dates 2017

Jan 10: Glasgow SSE Hydro, UK
Jan 12: Newcastle Metro Radio Arena, UK
Jan 13: Birmingham Genting Arena, UK
Jan 15: Sheffield Arena, UK
Jan 16: Manchester Arena, UK
Jan 18: Nottingham Motorpoint Arena, UK
Jan 19: Cardiff Motorpoint Arena, UK
Jan 21: London O2 Arena, UK
Jan 22: London O2 Arena, UK
Feb 12: Frankfurt Festhalle, Germany
Feb 13: Hamburg Sporthalle, Germany
Feb 15: Berlin Arena, Germany
Feb 16: Dusseldorf Mitsubishi Electric Halle, Germany
Feb 18: Amsterdam Ziggo Dome, Netherlands
Feb 20: Stuttgart Schleyerhalle, Germany
Feb 21: Milan Forum, Italy
Feb 23: Vienna Wiener Stadthalle, Austria
Feb 25: Munich Zenith, Germany
Feb 26: Zurich Halle 622, Austria
Feb 28: Lille Zenith Arena, France
Mar 01: Luxembourg Rockhal, Luxembourg
Mar 02: Paris AccorHotels Arena, France
Mar 04: Copenhagen Valby Hallen, Denmark
Mar 07: Helsinki Hartwall Arena, Finland
Mar 09: Stockholm Ericsson Globe, Sweden
Mar 10: Oslo Telenor, Norway

How Avenged Sevenfold pulled off one of the biggest shocks of 2016

Former TeamRock news desk member Christina joined our team in late 2015, and although her time working on online rock news was fairly brief, she made a huge impact by contributing close to 1500 stories. Christina also interviewed artists including Deftones frontman Chino Moreno and worked at the Download festival. In late 2016, Christina left rock journalism to pursue a career in current affairs. In 2021, she was named Local Weekly Feature Writer of the Year at the Scottish Press Awards.