“Every decision that could mess up that song was done”: M. Shadows on the mistakes made releasing this classic Avenged Sevenfold single
Avenged Sevenfold’s 2007 self-titled album sits as a diamond in their discography, playing host to some of their most standout tracks and sporting RIAA-certified platinum status in the US.
But frontman M. Shadows has some thoughts about how the album was rolled out, and the decisions made regarding some of its singles.
READ MORE: “Not every artist deserves to be rich”: Avenged Sevenfold’s M. Shadows on Spotify revenue and why Web3 is the future
In a new interview with Ryan J Downey of FIRE (Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression), Shadows – real name Matt Sanders – recalls the heightened level of involvement their at-the-time label Warner Bros. had in the album’s release schedule compared to previous records.
“I love Tom Whalley [former Warner Bros. CEO who helped sign A7X in the early 2000s]. I think he did amazing things for our career,” Shadows says. “He’s still a friend – a close friend – [A&R executive] Andy Olyphant as well.
“But we brought them in to hear the white album [the self-titled record], and we thought, Afterlife, no brainer, this is a massive song. This is a huge single. This is where we wanna roll.
“We played it for Tom Whalley and he turned around and he said, ‘That’s a little Warped Tour isn’t it?’
“And so, that just took everybody else in the room, everyone in the label, off of it. You could see it shift. Then it started going to these other things that were clearly not the right play.”
He explains that while the band were insistent on the big singles from their previous two records Waking the Fallen (2003) and City of Evil (2005) being Unholy Confessions and Bat Country, respectively, the self-titled album was the “first time we said, ‘Alright, what else is there?’ We were like Almost Easy, then we went to something else and we were all over the place”.
He continues: “But if you actually have the macro of time, Afterlife and A Little Piece of Heaven are the two that sit atop that record, and they’re just the lights.
“And then when we finally did get around to Afterlife – it was the fourth single – they cut the solo out. And so it’s one of those things where it’s like, every decision that could be wrong to completely mess up that record and that song was done.”
Of course, the full version of Synyster Gates’ Afterlife solo remains on the album version of the track, but the single version, which is heard in the music video, features a trimmed down version with several bars at the beginning cut.
Avenged Sevenfold have a series of live dates scheduled in North and South America for the rest of the year.
Visit avengedsevenfold.com/tour for more info.
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