ZACKY VENGEANCE Says AVENGED SEVENFOLD Fans Will 'Both' Love And Hate 'Life Is But A Dream…' Album

In a new interview with Meltdown of Detroit's WRIF radio station, AVENGED SEVENFOLD guitarist Zacky Vengeance discussed the experimental nature of the band's upcoming 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.

"Everything we do, we do it with a purpose," Zacky said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET). "And that's the thing that I see… I see what fans are saying and I see comments. A lot of people just think we're taking stuff and throwing it at the wall, and in some cases we do that, but it's still done with a purpose. And we knew full well that these songs, in their exact order, tell a really interesting story and paint all sorts of pictures — straightforward, abstract, dark, haunting, hopeful. Just everything — everything but cliché. And it's exactly what we feel as people at this point in our life, and we really captured all of that in this album.

"Do I think that people are gonna love it or hate it? Yes. Both. I fully embrace that too," he continued. "And to catch people off guard with a song like [first single] 'Nobody'… That song is like a black hole. It's heavy. It's filled with gravity that pulls everything towards it. It's very weighty. It kind of just puts you in a mood and a vibe. And it's different than just a riff and a verse and a hooky chorus and then throw in some dueling guitars. We've done that before. This, we tried to do something different. We wanted to make a great, intriguing song that can get better with multiple listens and add some weight to this record and add some weight to what we've done in the past. And then with [second single] 'We Love You', we incorporated a bunch of different styles, took what we typically do and kind of reversed the process and tried totally different things. And the album is just us doing that over and over again."

According to Vengeance, AVENGED SEVENFOLD's musical experimentation was born out of necessity.

"We can't do what we've already done," he explained. "It would be boring to us. Fans think that they want it, but eventually it would get boring to them. We can't just try and ride another big metal band's coattails or stay in the shadows forever, because that's not what we were meant to do; that's not where our hearts are at."

"We don't wanna be the next IRON MAIDEN. We don't wanna be the next METALLICA. We want to be AVENGED SEVENFOLD," he continued. "And that's what we've always wanted to be. And in order to do that, you have to do what you do. And we're blessed and fortunate that whatever we do sounds like AVENGED SEVENFOLD. Matt's [singer M. Shadows] vocals are extremely unique. The guitar tones and sounds that we use are very much us. Nobody drums like Brooks [Wackerman]. And to have all those tools and to not use them in the way we were meant to use them would be a shame — if it was just us trying to be a watered-down version of another successful band. And I see so many bands that try and do that — bands that try and be the next LINKIN PARK or try and be the next METALLICA. There's a little bit more of that when you're younger and trying to find your place, but when you really break it down and you go back to what made you wanna start a band in the first place, that's where you find yourself. We were mixing metal, we were mixing ballads and classic rock and punk rock and all sorts of stuff. That's what AVENGED SEVENFOLD is. And we love THE BEATLES and we love Billy Joel and we love Johnny Cash — we love everything. That's what we are. And that's we still are. At 41, we've come across different influences. But that's where our hearts are at and that's the kind of music we wanna make. And we did it pure and true with this album."

AVENGED SEVENFOLD made its first festival appearance in five years last Friday night (May 19) at Welcome To Rockville at Daytona International Speedway in Daytona Beach, Florida. The band's setlist included three songs from < "Life Is But A Dream…", which will be released on June 2 via Warner: "Game Over", "We Love You" and "Nobody".

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

Last month, 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. Fans will have the opportunity to hear the group's first single in seven years, "Nobody", and their new album "Life Is But A Dream…" for the first time live during the 30-show outing.

The first leg with support from ALEXISONFIRE includes thirteen cities across the U.S. and Canada, such as Mansfield, Québec City, Tinley Park, Calgary, and more. The group kicks off their 2023 solo touring run with two unique one-night-only arena shows in New York and Los Angeles this June.

To date, AVENGED SEVENFOLD has sold over 10 million albums worldwide and earned two consecutive No. 1 albums on Billboard's Top 200 Albums chart (2010's "Nightmare" and 2013's "Hail To The King") to go along with over a billion video views and a billion-plus Spotify streams, as well as multiple No. 1 singles on rock radio. The band is equally known for their spectacular live shows, selling out arenas and headlining the world's most prestigious rock festivals.