AVENGED SEVENFOLD's M. SHADOWS No Longer Regrets 'The Stage''s Surprise Release: 'I'm So Proud Of The Way It Was Released'

AVENGED SEVENFOLD frontman M. Shadows says that he longer regrets the way the band's 2016 album "The Stage" was marketed. The surprise release of the disc, which was announced the night it went on sale eight years ago, earned the lowest sales of an AVENGED SEVENFOLD album in eleven years. It sold seventy-six thousand copies in its first week, seventy-three thousand of which were physical.

After M. Shadows marked "The Stage"'s eighth birthday with a post on X (the platform formerly known as Twitter),one of his followers chimed in: "I remember this, M. Shadows said he liked how Beyonce secretly released her album, so he wanted to follow suit but ultimately regretted it and said he'd never do it again lol." This prompted Shadows to respond: "I take that back now…. It couldn't have happened any other way and I'm so proud of this album and the way it was released."

M. Shadows addressed AVENGED SEVENFOLD's decision to secretly release "The Stage" in a 2017 interview with Revolver magazine. He said at the time: "I think it came down to being off for two and a half years, and sitting at home and watching what other people were doing. And I hate throwing other bands under the bus, but with a lot of bands I would get excited by the announcement that a new record was coming — but then there would be teaser after teaser after teaser after teaser, and there would be three or four singles before the album came out. It just became one of these things that we didn't want to do. We were, like, 'Well, we're going into the studio, but we don't really want to put up an Instagram pic, because what does that really do for us?' All it does is get a bunch of people hyped up about that you're in the studio, and saying things like, 'Look at the guitar they're using — it must be a thrash record.' And then that takes off in the press, and all of these things get so blown out of proportion… Eventually, we got so far down the line with the record that we were, like, 'Let's just put this thing out as a surprise.' It was exciting to us; you had five guys who were actually excited about releasing a record, instead of dreading [having to do] all the advance press and everything that comes with a record release. It's not that we didn't want to do the work — it's that you get asked a bunch of questions by a bunch of guys that have never heard the record. 'Is it fast? Is it melodic? Is it heavy? Are you screaming?' I feel like it's been easier to let people hear it first and form their own opinions on it, and then talk to them about it."

"The Stage", AVENGED's debut for Capitol, sold less than half as many copies in its first week as the group's two previous efforts, 2010's "Nightmare" and 2013's "Hail To The King".

The group made the album available at midnight on October 27, 2016 with almost no promotion beforehand, save for the arrival of a new song one week earlier.

In October 2017, M. Shadows admitted in an interview that the band "definitely dropped the ball in terms of the casual fan" when it came to the marketing of "The Stage". Shadows told ABC Radio: "Do I think it was a good strategy for the casual fan? No, it was horrible for the casual fan. Most casual fans don't even know about it, or they've written it off as… 'Why would you release a record secretly? It must not be good.' And we weren't expecting that at all."

The singer admitted that it's unlikely AVENGED SEVENFOLD would ever do the surprise release again.

"If we were to do it over, I would've tried to do something that encompasses the casual fan that's not living and breathing what bands like us are doing," he said.

Shadows told The Pulse Of Radio that the band did the surprise release partially out of a desire to let fans hear it and form their own opinions. "It's almost like the jury has already, you know, decided if they like a record or not before it even comes out, because there's so many reviews and opinions," he said. "And we just wanted people to hear it for themselves and make their own opinions."

The deluxe version of "The Stage" arrived in December 2017. This edition featured seven additional studio songs plus four previously unreleased live tracks recorded during the band's shows at The O2 arena in London. Among the seven bonus tracks was the band's cover of the PINK FLOYD classic "Wish You Were Here".

Shadows defended "The Stage" in a 2018 issue of Metal Hammer magazine. He said at the time: "I think it will stand the test of time in terms of AVENGED's legacy and I think that at some point it will be a lot of people's favorite record. I just think that when you're in the middle of the process of writing a record and you know that things are going to be a little complex or a little over people's heads, then you've got to know that a backlash is coming. And it did. But you know that going into it. I just wish that we didn't do so many crazy things at once."

He continued: "I feel that all of the initial backlashes that we've had, people have grown into it. They try it on and see how it fits. The backlash to 'City Of Evil' was insane — and then the next one was insane because it wasn't 'City Of Evil'. The next one was actually fine because Jimmy ['The Rev' Sullivan, drums] had died. We didn't get much of a backlash because I think that people felt bad for us. But then when 'Hail To The King' came out, there was a huge backlash. The different thing on the backlash with 'The Stage', though, was it was the first time that we had a great critical response and more of a fan backlash."