SYNYSTER GATES On AVENGED SEVENFOLD Playing Full Albums On Anniversary Tours: 'It Doesn't Really Interest Us'

In a recent interview with Rolling Stone India, AVENGED SEVENFOLD guitarist Synyster Gates was asked if he and his bandmates had any plans to celebrate 20th anniversary of their third album, "City Of Evil", in 2025, possibly by performing the entire LP on tour. He responded: "We did something [recently] for our Deathbats Club," he said, referencing AVENGED SEVENFOLD's special throwback concert on October 25 at Santa Ana, California's Observatory venue featuring a setlist composed of songs from the band's breakout 2003 album, "Waking The Fallen", and its 2005 follow-up, "City Of Evil". "I don't know if you're familiar with that. It's a really cool fan club that's on the blockchain, and all the rewards and stuff come directly from the blockchain. It's an amazing technology. The NFT cycle just completely plummeted and from the remains rose this really wonderful way to reward fans and spend time with them. We had a really small show where we did all old-school songs and kind of dressed up like half-wits. It was a lot of fun. But I know some bands are making an entire cycle out of that [album-anniversary sets], that it's cool, but it doesn't really interest us. We're just kind of constantly trying to pound the pavement, in hopes of finding new, unique, fresh ways of presenting and creating music."

Gates's comments echo those made by AVENGED SEVENFOLD singer M. Shadows who told Rock Feed about the band's throwback concert back in October: "We're just not a band that wants to go take an old record on tour right now — it's doesn't interest us, it doesn't excite us, but one night does. And it really isn't shots fired, 'cause everyone's doing those tours. Just for us, personally, it doesn't wanna make us get out of bed and go do that. But one night seems really fun to us."

Tickets to the Observatory show were made available in August exclusively for members of the Deathbats Club, a next-generation fan club and community built around AVENGED SEVENFOLD, priced at $25 each.

This past June, AVENGED SEVENFOLD guitarist Zacky Vengeance told NME that he and his bandmates were making plans to celebrate the anniversaries of their albums "City Of Evil" and "Nightmare", which are turning 20 and 15 in 2025, respectively. He said: "I think those albums are really monumental and fans have grown with them. They've meant a certain thing to people at a certain place in their life, so I think it's important that we do something."

Explaining that he didn't want AVENGED SEVENFOLD to be a "nostalgia act", Vengeance added: "I've always wanted to be as proud of whatever we put out today as I was when we put out those albums." But, he said, "I'm totally cool with celebrating those albums because it was such a great place and time. Plus, it's actually fun to relive and play those songs and get those reactions. To bank our entire career off past successes, we can't do it, but we'll definitely do something to celebrate those albums though. For us, the most exciting thing about looking back is recalling where our heads were at when we were young and writing them. Remembering that they're part of who we are."

"City Of Evil", AVENGED SEVENFOLD's third album, produced the singles "Bat Country" and "Beast And The Harlot", while "Nightmare", the band's fifth studio LP, debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 in the United States. Both records have since been certified platinum by the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) for shipments in excess of a million copies in the U.S. alone.

AVENGED SEVENFOLD has spent much of the past year and a half touring in support of its most recent album, 2023's "Life Is But A Dream…"