AVENGED SEVENFOLD's ZACKY VENGEANCE: 'We Always Lean Into Heavy Music, 'Cause That's Just What We Love'

In a new interview with the Nik Nocturnal Podcast, AVENGED SEVENFOLD guitarist Zacky Vengeance (real name Zachary Baker) spoke about the band's musical evolution leading up to the group's latest album, 2023's "Life Is But A Dream...". He said in part (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "We always lean into heavy music, 'cause that's just what we love; it's in our DNA. But being huge fun fans of bands like [MR.] BUNGLE —I mean, just anything, really, anything. I love Western music. Matt [singer M. Shadows; real name Matthew Sanders] loves DAFT PUNK. Brian [guitarist Synyster Gates, real name Brian Haner Jr.] loves different pop bands. We love everything, and everyone's different. And so we just incorporate kind of everything, but our core DNA, from when we were 14 years old, it's METALLICA, PANTERA, BAD RELIGION, MISFITS, punk rock stuff, AFI, all the stuff we grew up really loving. That's always gonna be there. So we always kind of go back to that. And then we push the limits, we expand, we incorporate all sorts of shit — basically, anything that's gonna piss off fans and get their minds working in no matter what direction it is."

He added later during the chat: "We still try and push the boundaries, and people are, like, 'Fuck this. Fuck this band.' And it's been like that every single album ever. And the funniest part is we did not have a blueprint. We wanted to be a hardcore band. I wanted to be a punk band. Then we wanted to be a metal band. Then we wanted to do GUNS N' ROSES rock shit. And then we wanted to be MR. BUNGLE. We wanted to be influenced by DREAM THEATER. It was just like anything and everything. Whoever was driving the van [in the band's early days] had control of the tape deck, and they would put the cassette tape in of what they wanted to listen to and torture us for the next 10 hours of a drive. And that's literally what shaped our sound. It was everyone adding their influence of what they wanted AVENGED to be and what they thought it should be, and respecting everyone else's opinions, and we put it all together. We didn't know what we were doing. And we just took it and ran with it, and people would love it, they would hate it. And all of a sudden it became kind of accepted as its own genre, because people that liked THE USED or liked MY CHEM[ICAL ROMANCE], it was okay to like us, or [people that] liked THRICE or AFI, it was okay to like us. And then the hardcore bands like EIGHTEEN VISIONS and BLEEDING THROUGH, they were kind, like, taking us under their wing too, and, like, 'Hey, it's okay for us to like you guys. We don't wanna beat you up anymore. This shit's cool.' And then, all of a sudden, it was just, like, off to the races. It was a weird thing. You went on Warped Tour, you played the best shows you could, the shows started getting bigger, you went from clubs to bigger clubs. And before you knew it, it was, like, MTV [picked up on it]."

"Life Is But A Dream…" was 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.

AVENGED SEVENFOLD and GOOD CHARLOTTE will join together this summer for a North American tour. Promoted by Live Nation, the 16-city trek will kick off July 25 in Ridgedale, Missouri, with additional stops in Shakopee, Chicago, St. Louis, Detroit, Toronto, Montreal, New York, Boston, Charlotte, Dallas, and more before wrapping August 27 at Talking Stick Resort Amphitheatre in Phoenix, Arizona.

Last September, AVENGED SEVENFOLD postponed its fall 2025 Latin American tour due to M. Shadows's vocal injury. The band was scheduled to to kick off the tour on September 25, 2025 in Buenos Aires, Argentina but ended up calling off the trek after M. Shadows was diagnosed with vocal fold hematoma, a condition where a blood vessel in the vocal cord ruptures and leaks blood under the lining of the vocal cord.

"Life Is But A Dream…" reportedly 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.

Last December AVENGED SEVENFOLD released a new song, "Magic". AVENGED SEVENFOLD debuted the song in a season of "Call Of Duty" Black Ops 7, and released the track fully independently, continuing the ambition of the band's current work. The band once again partnered with the world-renowned fine artist Wes Lang for the single artwork. "Magic" was the first new AVENGED SEVENFOLD release since "Life Is But A Dream…"

Zacky will release a solo album, "Dark Horse", under his real name, Zachary Baker, on April 3 via his label Vngnz Records.

Photo credit: Silken Weinberg (courtesy of Big Hassle Media)