“City Of Evil” is the name of Avenged Sevenfold’s new album, the first one for a major label. After two amazing discs on Hopeless Records, “Sounding The Seventh Trumpet” and “Waking The Fallen”, the Californian quintet is back in action with their strongest disc ever: filled with anthems from five minutes to ten minutes of epic metal riffs, piano ballads, flamenco rhythms, an orchestra and even more, “City Of Evil” destroys everything you could imagine these guys play. They play rock! [emo mode on] ps: this is the 100th interview I ever did in my life, so, it means a lot to me. [/emo mode off]

Interview by Carlo Gironi | carlo@staff.truepunk.com | with lead singer, M. Shadows. Hi there Shadows! How are you doing?
Doing pretty decent. About to leave for Warped Tour tomorrow, just got home from Germany and our new CD is out so that pretty exciting.

This is the second time I have interviewed you, so I am going to skip all of the usual questions like “where did you form, what’s your story, etc…” . I hope you are happy.
Very happy.

Your newest record “City Of Evil” just came out on Warner Bros. Can you introduce the record and describe it? How is it different from your previous works?
I feel this record is ambitious and sounds like no one else. That was the point of it. To make a record that stands on its own without a scene behind it. There is no scene for this type of music, just people who love it and people who hate it.

Your new record is also your major label debut: how did you decide to leave Hopeless and why did you choose Warner? What did they have to offer, what did you find in them and did not find in other major labels?
Hopeless couldn’t get our records in enough stores, not enough money for TV ads. Kids in big cities take stuff for granted. Most smaller towns couldn’t get our CD in their stores and every country besides the UK and USA had to get the CD by import, so it was hard for kids to hear us. We want everyone to be able to find our music so the choice was made to move to a major. Warner offered up 100% creative control and that was the difference with them and the other labels. Did you feel any pressure while writing the new songs? Did the label want to make a lot of hit singles and such stuff?
There was a lot of pressure but only pressure we put on ourselves. It was the same for the previous records; we just want them to be the best they can be. The label stayed out of our hair on this one. Of course every label wants hit singles no matter what they say to you. But, we just did our thing and didn’t worry about that stuff. I think singles happen naturally if you’re a true rock band. We can’t just sit down and write a pop single, it just wouldn’t come across right.

Compared to the older songs, the new tunes sound heavier, longer and even less commercial. Why did you decide to write such long songs with so many uncommerically heavy sounds?
We just wanted to make the next Avenged record. There really wasn’t much method to the madness other than to write songs we wanted to write and put them on the new record. Radio, MTV, length and heaviness were not things we were thinking of, we just wrote what we felt like writing. We wanted it to be a creative, ambitious and fun record.

I also noticed that you put a lot of influences in your anthems: from metal to punk, from rock n roll ballads to even flamenco and extreme metal riffs. Also there’s a part played by an orchestra. How did you decide to mash together all of these influences and where do they originate from. Don’t you think your fans are going to look scared in front of the new stuff?
We have so many influences that it’s hard to begin to name them. We listen to all sorts of pop music, metal music, some punk music, dance music, movie scores… we listen to it all and we are not afraid to use those influences and we aren’t ashamed of them. It’s music, and if you enjoy it than there is nothing wrong with that. I know about 10% of our fans just like us because they see our name on T-shirts with a cool logo and we used to scream on our records and it’s a cool scene to be involved in. Those kids won’t dig this. Another 10% just think the band members are cute and it doesn’t matter what we put out, they will say they like it. Another 10% will feel this is too big of a change in style and they just won’t like it. 20% understand us for what we are; an always evolving, ambitious band that’s always gonna throw you a curve ball and they will get this record. The other 50% haven’t heard of us yet… and this record is a perfect introduction.

Why “City Of Evil”? What does it refer to? I saw you mentioned the words “city of evil” in the first song “Beast and the Harlot” … can you describe the city of evil better, and do you think there are a lot of these cities in the world today? Is it a concept album?
It’s not a concept album; the City of Evil was written about the fall of Babylon. Other cities you can compare it to in modern day are Amsterdam, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, and NYC.

What about your new lyrics? What do you sing about in general?
I sing about fun things, over the top subjects. Babylon, Fear and Loathing, Democrats and Republicans, Soldiers in the war, Dimebag, Snakes. Anything and everything. If we can take a subject and put it over the top. then we will.

There are a lot of 80’s sounds in your new album: think that after I heard it, I went and listened to Guns N Roses, Pantera and Iron Maiden as I felt a lot of nostalgia for those good years. What are the best bands that influenced you when you were teenager and that you still remember?
As far as rock records go I still listen to the same records from when I was very young. GnR, Metallica, Pantera, Alice in Chains, Queen, Iron maiden, Megadeth. Those are a few bands that I still listen to and prefer over anything going on today.

Do you consider yourself an emo or punk or hardcore band at all? What do you think of the music scene of nowadays?
I don’t consider ourselves any of those whatsoever. I think the music scene in general is pretty sad. Kids praise mediocrity. How would you describe A7X to a person that has never heard of you?
If it was some sort of scene kid I would call it a heavy rock band. If it was your typical Joe I would tell them we play metal.

I know that for your new record you worked with Mudrock, who already worked with you on “Waking The Fallen”. In previous interviews you told me you wanted to work with Andy Sneap or Terry Date in the future … will it happen soon? How did you find yourself with Mudrock? I think he stresses your influences a lot.
Mud’s a good friend of ours and I think what’s so great about him is he lets us create our vision. We basically produced “City of Evil” ourselves in the way that he didn’t touch the songs and just basically watched over the project, and I think that was the best thing he could have done with this record. I don’t have much interest in working with those other producers in the future. I like doing our own thing and producing the shit ourselves.

Lately there is a lot of hype around “emo” and “screamo” disc, especially the ones that come out on major labels. I think of the latest disc of A Static Lullaby. There was this kind of great expectation but then those records sucked and the fans got screwed up. I do not see these “fake” bands going far away. What’s your opinion on this and what about Avenged Sevenfold? Are you making music for this moment or are you trying to make music that in ten years kids will still listen to? I mean, I see my record collection and see I still listen to my old discs of Bad Religion and Black Flag, but seriously, who is gonna listen to bands like The Used and My Chemical Romance in ten years?
I haven’t actually heard the record you mentioned at first. However, I think we make it quite clear that we are not making music for the moment. We are doing things that no one is doing, we sound like no one else. We are not trying to fit in, we don’t want to be considered cool. This is music that I think kids will grow into and appreciate over their lifespan, the same way you are with Black Flag and I am with GnR.

I read that your talking with Fat Mike was very important to you … what did he tell that you did not know already?
Fat Mike has always been someone I’ve grown up respecting. The guy is obviously smart, his band is fun and great and he has had a huge impact on my life through NOFX before I met him. So, it was great to hang out and talk to him on Warped Tour and he told me if you’re not going to have fun on tour, you’ll never last. Do your own thing and make tour fun if you want your band to last. So I have remembered that and try to have as much fun as possible on tour.

What are some of the bands that you guys in the band regularly listen to?
Faith No More, Alice In Chains, Mr. Bungle, GnR, Pantera, Weezer, Foo Fighters, Sonata Arctica, No Doubt, Ozzy. Too much shit to name.

Have you got some plans of touring to support you new album? If so, where and with whom?
Warped Tour, head over to Europe, Australia, Japan, headline in the USA and after all that we’ll probably do it again.

Do you consider yourself rockstars now, after the great success you had?
No, we just do our thing, we are all best friends and we don’t think about any of that other shit. The City Of Evil was released June 10, 2005 on Warner Bros.