AVENGED SEVENFOLD Singer: 'I've Never Made A Comment On A Message Board In My Life'

In a recent interview with Front magazine, AVENGED SEVENFOLD singer M. Shadows was asked if the band "gets lots of shit from old fans" for changing its sound.

"Every record we get shit," he replied. "We get shit if we stay the same and we get shit if we change.

"When we put out 'City Of Evil' after 'Waking The Fallen', there was a shitstorm. We thought it was really great but people were going, 'This fuckin' sucks!' They were calling us sellouts. Probably eight of the eleven songs on that record are over eight minutes long, that's like the least sellout move ever. You can't really win."

Regarding whether he ever ended up getting involved and telling people online to "get fucked," M. Shadows said: "I've never made a comment on a message board in my life. Unless someone physically tries to attack me, I don't care what anyone does. I don't want to be that douchebag on Xbox Live shouting, 'I've got your fuckin' IP address, I'm coming to your fuckin' house!' It's not important to me."

M. Shadows also spoke about whether he ever misses the lack of glamor in the early days when it was a buncha dudes in a van.

"Obviously, I wish [late AVENGED SEVENFOLD drummer] The Rev was still here, because then we had the old crew and would be drinking 40s, fucking with each other, driving twelve hours to the next city, selling some shirts and doing it again. It was fun. You miss it sometimes, but at the same time, we're getting older. I'm 32, I have a newborn son, and I'm not gonna be a dad who's away on the road all the time, I'm gonna be a dad who brings his son with him, so he gets to live on the road. If you make money, what's it worth if you can't be with your family?"

On the topic of AVENGED SEVENFOLD's goal to be the biggest band in the world, M. Shadows said: "Sometimes we get asked loaded questions, like 'MAIDEN and METALLICA can't headline [U.K.'s] Download forever, so are you guys next?' I'd be a pussy to say no, because I'd like to do that, yet I'm an egotistical dick if I say yes. The honest answer is, the fans are going to decide if they want to see us take up that mantle. Somebody needs to do that, because you can't have MAIDEN headline every festival, and you can't have obscure metal bands headlining the second stage at a festival where the headliners are MUMFORD & SONS and THE LUMINEERS. Metal needs to be exposed to more people, so it's good for rock if there's bigger bands. American radio rock bands aren't gonna cut it, it's got to be real, classically influenced metal that stays true to what metal is. If we're that band, I'm up for it."