Avenged Sevenfold will complete the recording of their eighth studio album in February, and frontman M Shadows says that the Orange County quintet’s follow-up to 2016’s The Stage is “very influenced by Kanye West”.
“In January, we’re going in to finish the strings on the record,” Shadows reveals to Metal Hammer. “The record’s been recorded for a year, but we haven’t been able to put the real strings on it, because we couldn’t fly out to Prague. When an orchestra have to social distance and they aren’t sitting next to each other, they can get out of tune, and we have just finally got to a place where we can use this 70-piece orchestra as we intended. We finish the record in February, mix it in March.”
Asked by Hammer’s Stephen Hill for “any little pointers of where the sound of the record is taking you”, Shadows responds “There are so many influences…”
“We're very influenced by Kanye West,” the singer continues. “The thing about Kanye is that he is pulling from such great soul music. I didn’t grow up with that stuff - my dad listened to Boston and Alice Cooper, I didn’t get that taste of black music and old soul. So, diving deep into jazz musicians… we’re not trying to do a jazz record, but the chord changes and progressions are so eye-opening to us.”
Asked what his band learned from the surprise release of The Stage, Shadows hails the album as “my favourite record of ours” and says “I’m so happy we did it that way; we don’t give a fuck about industry metrics.”
“This next record, I don’t know exactly how it comes out, but the record after that, we have no label,” he reveals. “At that point we start implementing all the new ideas of going straight to the base of people that really care more. The new frontier excites us; expect very wacky ideas!”
You can tread more from M Shadows about what lies ahead for Avenged Sevenfold in the new issue of Metal Hammer, which is out now. The issue features four brand new cover stars, the ultimate preview of 2022, and interviews with Rob Halford, Max Cavalera, Tom Morello, Halestorm and more.
