AVENGED SEVENFOLD Frontman: 'We're Holding Ourselves To A Really High Standard'

AVENGED SEVENFOLD frontman M. Shadows was interviewed on a recent edition of the "Sixx Sense" radio show hosted by MÖTLEY CRÜE and SIXX:A.M. bassist Nikki Sixx. You can now listen to the chat below. A couple of excerpts follow (transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET).

On whether the band took chances with their new album "The Stage":

M. Shadows: "I would say we dug in. We went a little more out. As a musician, I'm sure you know what I'm talking about. The vocal melodies are a little stranger. We wanted to make something that would catch your ear, vocally and melodically, and not necessarily be things you've heard before. It took a lot of influence from a lot of crazy artists like Mike Patton [FAITH NO MORE] and the TOOLs of the world, and the Chris Cornell [SOUNDGARDEN] vocal stylings. We tried to make our own little 'soup' with this record."

On what the band has been up to since the release of 2013's "Hail To The King":

M. Shadows: "We took a break. We've all started families. There's kids in the AVENGED SEVENFOLD camp now. We wanted to be home and hang out with our kids and take a break from all of the touring. Then about a year ago, we made a change, drummer-wise. We were secretly working with Brooks Wackerman and jamming with him, and starting to throw around riffs. The whole thing started coming together and we figured we had some music we dug. We took the last six months and wrote every single day. We're holding ourselves to a really high standard."

On the band's social media presence:

M. Shadows: "We don't want to do things unless it means something. A lot of times you're getting a lot of these bands trying to stay in the limelight and desperately get attention. For us, we don't want to do that unless there's something to announce or something cool is going on. We like our private lives to be private. But when there's something to talk about or we're excited about, then we turn up the heat a little bit. The way this record has been released, we wanted to do something new and exciting that we haven't seen done in the rock world."

On the idea behind the spotlights that displayed the band's logo in major cities before the album's release:

M. Shadows: "As a band, we said, 'We have to get people's attention if we're going to release a record out of the blue.' Between management and the label and ourselves, we said, 'That will get people's attention as long as it's spread throughout social media.' It's not about the city per se, it's about people seeing it online and knowing that something is going on. That was more to pique people's interests so that they were paying attention to AVENGED SEVENFOLD so that when we dropped the record, it wasn't a tree falling in the forest and no one hears it. We wanted to make sure people knew that something was coming."

On the band's 2017 European tour plans:

M. Shadows: For the U.K., we are taking out IN FLAMES and DISTURBED. In Europe, we're going with CHEVELLE and DISTURBED. That's going to be about six weeks of shows over there."

On the band's 2017 North American tour plans:

M. Shadows: "We'll be doing March, May, all summer. We'll skip out on the European festivals this year and maybe do them in 2018 so we can take care of our friends in the United States. It's long overdue."

On how he will juggle family responsibilities with the band's touring workload:

M. Shadows: "We've put a lot of things in place in terms of our touring schedule. We have a couple weeks off in between the U.K. and Europe and that's purely for families. We won't do more than two and a half and three weeks for any particular tour. And so we'll bring the families out. In the United States. it's a lot easier than sending a two-year-old over to Europe, but we do make it work and we make sure that mentally we're in the right spot so we can put on good shows and not get burnt out. When we first started, we were definitely burning ourselves out. It becomes a negative thing to be on the road after two years and everyone is at each other's throats. At this point, we have things put in place for family time. Happy band equals happy fans. You can tell when we're having fun onstage and you can tell when we're miserable. When you have your family out there and you know you're going to be home to watch soccer games or whatever you want to do with your kids, it makes you a lot more appreciative and happy to be on tour."

On whether he thinks fans can tell when the band is in a bad mood:

M. Shadows: "Oh yeah. I think we've got five guys that aren't good at faking it. When we're having a good time, we're having a great time. There's times when your mind is somewhere else and you can look over at your guitar player and he's going through the motions, or your drummer is going through the motions. And that's not a good thing for the fans. You might as well be home. We're doing this because we want to be there. The family thing is put in place to make sure we are doing shows we want to do. Fans will know if we're there and and playing, we're happy to be there and playing."

AVENGED SEVENFOLD and the band's former record label, Warner Music, are locked in a legal battle that will go to trial sometime early next year, with the label claiming that the band breached its contract and left owing the company one more studio album. AVENGED, meanwhile, has invoked a California law stating that no contract can last more than seven years.

AVENGED SEVENFOLD issued its seventh studio effort, "The Stage", last month as a near-total surprise, with the band announcing the disc on the night of October 27 and the record arriving the next day (October 28). It marked the band's debut for Capitol.

Shadows insisted that there was "no way" Warner would have supported the unorthodox marketing scheme.

Just a few days earlier, Warner Music declared that a two-CD compilation called "The Best Of 2005-2013" would arrive on December 2.