Will AVENGED SEVENFOLD Release Music Independently In The Future? M. SHADOWS Responds

In a new interview with Overpriced JPEGs, AVENGED SEVENFOLD frontman M. Shadows spoke about the band's plans for releasing new music following the completion of AVENGED SEVENFOLD's deal with Warner with the arrival of the "Life Is But A Dream…" album in June. Asked if AVENGED SEVENFOLD will go the "independent" route for its future releases, Shadows — whose real name is Matt Sanders — said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "Imagine writing out like a bullet point of things that we're not willing to budge on, and then we will… We wanna make music whenever we want, put it out, we wanna surprise-release things if we want, we wanna do this and that. Sometimes artists sign into a label but it's a distro deal where the label gets eight to 10 percent and then they'll distribute the record. They might even pay for the record to get done, but the band takes care of the other things. So there's so many ways to kind of slice this pie. We just know what we're not willing to do. And what we're not willing to do is just sign into the same kind of thing we have going on now. Now if the next record says Warner Brothers or Universal on it, it doesn't mean that we re-signed with a label; it means that maybe we're using them for distribution, maybe we're doing a licensing deal."

The singer continued: "We don't know what we're gonna do. Maybe we go to all the streaming services and make our own relationships with them and do our own thing. But at that point, when you're talking about an eight percent cut, you have to weigh and balance how much you wanna take on. Do we wanna pay for the record and the publicist and the radio people and all that stuff, or do we let the label do it and have a much better deal? One thing I've learned is that don't make decisions a year and a half out. Right now the record's not out. We have 18 months to live with them, see how they do on this record. And there's certain things we'll never do again, and there's certain things that I'm gonna look at. What we're gonna do is just make the best deal we can for where we're at. So, maybe [we'll be] independent, maybe not."

Back in April 2022, M. Shadows spoke to "The Bob Lefsetz Podcast" about the fact that Warner sued AVENGED SEVENFOLD in late 2015 after the band left the label by citing the California Labor Code's "seven-year rule." The rule allows for parties to exit contracts after seven years if certain unfavorable conditions exist. The band then moved on to Capitol, which issued "The Stage" as a surprise release in October 2016, promoted with a concert on top of the Capitol building.

The singer explained how AVENGED SEVENFOLD ended up returning to Warner, saying: "There's a lot that goes into that. We pulled the old seven-year clause that we were trying to get out of our deal, but the reality is we wanted our masters back — we wanted to make some sort of deal and be able to own our recordings, or possibly re-sign and get a check, all the things you can do. And then we started thinking about the seven-year clause and we actually wanted to see if we could help artists out in a way.

"The people that we had a problem with at Warner Brothers that simply weren't engaged in the band had left, and some new people came in and they flew out and we basically broke bread and said this record we did with Capitol Records, come back to Warner Brothers, finish up your deal and we'll deal with it from there. So, obviously a lot of rabbit holes in there."

Elaborating on why AVENGED SEVENFOLD was so unhappy with Warner Bros. before going back to the label, M. Shadows said: "[When] our 2014 record, 'Hail To The King', came out, we just noticed that no one at the label cared about our band. Basically, they'd come to the recordings, they'd come and check out the record, and it was just everyone's on their phone, and there was just no support. So we tried to get a better deal or at least get our masters back and get out of there. We went over to Capitol Records and put out a record. I think we're the only band that actually put out an album while we were still in some sort of litigation over the seven-year clause which caused a huge uproar between the labels and ourselves."

Pressed by Lefsetz about how Capitol feels about AVENGED SEVENFOLD returning to Warner Bros. after the band released only one album through the former label, M. Shadows said: "We went to Capitol and they knew the situation we were in, obviously. They're not dummies — they're not gonna sign us and say, 'We're getting into some long-term deal here.' We were under the idea that we would get our record back. They were basically putting one record out for us, and then we'd be free. So I think they kind of probably expected something like that to happen. When the regime change happened with Warner Brothers, and obviously the amounts of money we were spending arguing with them back and forth, it was obviously… the smart thing to do was just kind of put it to bed. So I think Capitol, they're fine. They got their one record, and we went out and worked it — we toured for a long time on it. And now we're back to finishing up our contract."

A provision in the California Labor Code's "seven-year rule" allows labels to collect money that would have been made on undelivered albums. In its lawsuit against AVENGED SEVENFOLD, Warner Bros. sought damages based on the fact that the band had one album left on its contract, while the group argued that extensive turnover in the label's staff led to an unsatisfactory working relationship. Had it lost the case, AVENGED SEVENFOLD would have faced a verdict between $5 million and $10 million. Warner Bros. was also allowed to seek its attorney fees — which by 2018 had amounted to more than $1.5 million.

"The Stage" debuted at No. 4 on The Billboard 200 album chart in November 2016. The surprise release of the disc 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.

A few years ago, M. Shadows told The Pulse Of Radio that AVENGED SEVENFOLD was aware of the risks in such an unusual release. "One thing that we knew, you know, all the analytics proved that, you know, we shouldn't do this because of the way that rock fans consume music," he said. "You know, it's very physical-heavy, and one thing we knew is that we had to get records in stores, but we were gonna be basically setting ourselves up for a leak, which would have been a huge disaster. But Capitol Records did an amazing job of being able to get these records into stores, so we were able to be the first band to actually have a physical and digital release that was a surprise."