AVENGED SEVENFOLD's JOHNNY CHRIST: 'We Don't Wanna Make The Same Record Twice Ever In Our Career'

At this weekend's Louder Than Life festival in Louisville, Kentucky, AVENGED SEVENFOLD bassist Johnny Christ spoke to Louisville's ALT 105.1 radio station about the experimental nature of the band's latest album, "Life Is But A Dream…" Written and recorded over the span of four years, it was produced by Joe Barresi and AVENGED SEVENFOLD in Los Angeles and mixed by Andy Wallace in the Poconos, Pennsylvania. The album is a journey through an existential crisis; a very personal exploration into the meaning, purpose and value of human existence with the anxiety of death always looming. He said: "It's really just what we were into at the time. This record took a long time, so where we were at the beginning to when we actually released it changed a little bit over that time, just getting it more focused — it just gave us more time to cut out all the fat. We had some extra stuff on there, and we were just, like, 'No, it's not really necessary for this song or for the vibe of the album.' So we just cut all the fat. It gave us a lot of time to do that."

He continued: "As far as direct inspiration, it's all over the place, man. It's just a bunch of artists that we listen to and take inspiration from and composers and all sorts of different crazy stuff. But we just don't wanna make the same record twice ever in our career.

"There's always gonna be a DNA, if you will, in our writing style, but each album has gotten us to that point," Johnny added. "So then when you go in and write, you're just writing from within. It's just, like, 'This is my sound and this is what I want it to do this time around.' And then you just start tinkering with your friends and coming up with ideas. And that's why you get 'Life Is But A Dream…'."

"Life Is But A Dream…" sold 36,000 equivalent album units in the U.S. in its first week of release to land at position No. 13 on the Billboard 200 chart. AVENGED SEVENFOLD's previous LP, "The Stage", debuted at No. 4 on The Billboard 200 album chart in November 2016. The surprise release of "The Stage" earned the lowest sales of an AVENGED SEVENFOLD album in eleven years. It sold 76,000 copies in its first week, less than half the tally of its previous two efforts.

AVENGED SEVENFOLD made its first festival appearance in five years on May 19 at Welcome To Rockville at Daytona International Speedway in Daytona Beach, Florida.

AVENGED SEVENFOLD's first concert since June 2018 took place on May 12 at AREA15 in Las Vegas, Nevada.

In April, AVENGED SEVENFOLD announced the second leg of its extensive "Life is But A Dream…" North American tour featuring support from FALLING IN REVERSE. Produced by Live Nation, leg two includes stops in Nashville, Denver, Austin, and more before concluding at Fort Worth's Dickies Arena on October 15.

The first leg with support from ALEXISONFIRE and KIM DRACULA included thirteen cities across the U.S. and Canada, such as Mansfield, Québec City, Tinley Park, Calgary, and more.