With his legendary deathbat as a backdrop, the most metallic of Californian bands sets the stages ablaze and still draws crowds 20 years after his debut. And they've come a long way from the high school benches where they met. For this band of buddies, who named themselves after the biblical story of Abel and Caën, never stop reinventing genres, blithely jumping from heavy metal to hard rock with sharp riffs and making an eye for punk sounds through overexcited drums!
If some have reproached them for their overly calibrated metal, Avenged Sevenfold quickly silences the rage by counting down the number of albums they've sold. In just a few years, they have gone from the underground scene to the headliners of the most prestigious festivals on the planet, and they surprise their audience with each new opus. Routine is clearly not their thing! And if their first two albums are easily classified as metalcore with an aggressive voice, Mr. Shadows quickly swallowed his scream to work on his vocals and melodies.
Their sources of inspiration range from Guns N' Roses to Iron Maiden, Pantera, Bad Religion or even NOFX. A mix of genres that has earned Avenged Sevenfold a few critics, sometimes even within his fanbase. But the emblematic singer, the band's sheet metal worker, doesn't miss an opportunity to point out that he doesn't owe anything to anyone. "We play music for the love of music, not so that we can be labelled as a metal band. It's like telling us we're not punk enough. Who cares about that? ».
After a first album released when the members of Avenged Sevenfold were just 18 years old and several changes of bassist, it is finally Johnny Christ who completes the quartet for Waking The Fallen, which reveals the band and makes it a reference on the metalcore scene. Their electric performance at the Vans Warped Tour the following year was the first in a long series of exciting concerts.
From 2005 and City of Evil, the band's career took off and gold records followed. The highlight in 2009 was the cover of the Guns N' Roses' It's So Easy at the Nokia Theatre in Los Angeles with the legend Slash as a guest. This was followed by their participation in Iron Maiden's Somewhere Back In Time World Tour. But while the band seems to be in a state of grace, it is suddenly brought back to reality by the death of The Rev, its drummer, founding member and songwriter. An ordeal from which Avenged Sevenfold will come out growing up through Nightmare, a tribute album to their lifelong friend.
After experimenting with punk, rock and even country sounds, Avenged Sevenfold comes back to the roots with Hail to the King, an album in the worthy lineage of Led Zeppelin or Black Sabbath. An opus about which guitarist Synyster Gates will say : " I think our writing has improved by leaps and bounds. This album is our greatest recording in a long time".
In 2016, The Stage is released, a liberation-form album in which we find almost all the influences of the band. It is followed by a world tour with a decadent number of dates. A marathon that Mr. Shadows won't be able to finish since, at the end of his last European show at the Hellfest, he is forced to cancel the rest of the gigs due to a vocal blackout. Fortunately, he is back on the mic a few months later with Mad Hatter, composed for the video game Call Of Duty.