Avenged Sevenfold: We’re anxious to get back to work

Avenged Sevenfold’s Zacky Vengeance says the band have “lots of ideas floating around” for new material.

The guitarist says they've been sifting through concepts throughout the summer due to downtime caused by frontman M Shadows vocal issues, which saw him sidelined for two months and resulted in A7X pulling the plug on 25 shows.

Vengeance tells WRIF’s Radio Chatter podcast: “I think we're all pretty anxious to get back to work. None of us expected to be sitting on the sidelines for the entire summer, so that started this next process early.

“It's been great being home, but to be honest, a band like us, we don't like being on the sidelines for too long. We like to get back out there, get back to doing what we love to do – and especially get out there and give some new music and some new concerts to our fans.”

Last month, Avenged Sevenfold release the Black Reign EP, which featured the track Mad Hatter. It’ll feature on upcoming video game Call Of Duty: Black Ops 4 – out on October 12 on Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC.

It's been great being home, but to be honest, we don't like being on the sidelines for too long
Zacky Vengeance

However, following the launch of Mad Hatter, the band took the unusual step of going back into the studio to improve the sound quality on the track after complaints from fans.

Vengeance explains: “If you had asked us a few years ago, we would have been against anything like that and we’ve never even brought up the idea of remastering any of our albums because some of their imperfections make them great.

“But in this day and age, because people listen to music on their phones and streaming on their computer, it’s different from having something that just sounds awesome out of speakers.

“We listen to our fans. We want our fans to enjoy the song. It’s a lot of fun but we don’t want it sounding bad so we listened, heard their complaints and said, ‘Let’s go fix this so they can enjoy it when they have their ear buds in.'"

Mad Hatter is joined on the Black Reign EP by Not Ready To Die from Call Of Duty: Black Ops, Carry On from Call Of Duty: Black Ops II and Jade Helm from Call Of Duty: Black Ops III.

Scott has spent 37 years in newspapers, magazines and online as an editor, production editor, sub-editor, designer, writer and reviewer. Scott joined our news desk in 2014 before moving into e-commerce in 2020. Scott maintains Louder’s buyer’s guides, highlights deals, and reviews headphones, speakers, earplugs and more. Over the last 12 years, Scott has written more than 11,500 articles across Louder, Classic Rock, Metal Hammer and Prog. He's previously written for publications including IGN, Sunday Mirror, Daily Record and The Herald, covering everything from news and features, to tech reviews, video games, travel and whisky. Scott's favourite bands are Fields Of The Nephilim, The Cure, New Model Army, All About Eve, The Mission, Cocteau Twins, Drab Majesty, Marillion and Rush.