Avenged Sevenfold are currently putting the finishing touches on their next album, their first since The Stage came out in 2016. In a new interview with Metal Hammer, vocalist M. Shadows claims the band channeled rapper Kanye West as a big influence on their music this time around.
Shadows explained:
“There are so many influences… We’re very influenced by Kanye West. The thing about Kanye is that he is pulling from such great soul music. I didn’t grow up with that stuff — my dad listened to Boston and Alice Cooper. I didn’t get that taste of black music and old soul. So, diving deep into jazz musicians… We’re not trying to do a jazz record, but the chord changes and progressions are so eye-opening to us.”
Shadows also reiterated a previously stated assertion that one of the main hold-ups on finishing the album was the inability to get an orchestra together due to Covid-19 restrictions. The band can now proceed with doing that, he says:
“In January, we’re going in to finish the strings on the record,” he said. “The record’s been recorded for a year, but we haven’t been able to put the real strings on it, because we couldn’t fly out to Prague. When an orchestra have to social distance and they aren’t sitting next to each other, they can get out of tune, and we have just finally got to a place where we can use this 70-piece orchestra as we intended. We finish the record in February, mix it in March.”
Shadows also said previously that the band wanted to wait for the Covid-19 situation to clear before releasing new music:
“It’s just that we have to be very careful about getting everything going, building a whole new stage set, hiring everybody, renting buses and then having one person get sick and the tour gets canceled and we get to be on the hook for everything. And it’s not that we don’t wanna do it.
“People compare us to bands that are going and playing clubs. It’s not the same thing. Getting an arena tour going and playing these festivals, it’s just not the same thing. And also we wanna be mentally ready.
“These are all gonna sound like crazy excuses, but these are real. We have a huge stage that we wanna get built. We can’t get people to work. We can’t get the supplies we need to build it, which there’s a supply chain problem as well. Go look at the Long Beach, at the port right now, and these boats are just stuck out there. And so we have all these things going on where we’re not gonna come back on stage and have the stage from ‘The Stage’ record and then just go, ‘Well, same show four years later. Sorry, guys. The record’s not done ’cause we couldn’t finish it.’
“So, I would just say starting in January, we are gonna put our nose to the grind and we are gonna finish this record. And then we’re doing a couple of shows in Europe. And then I would love to — and I don’t wanna step on [festival organizer] Danny Wimmer’s toes here — but I would love to start at Aftershock [festival in October 2022] and then book a tour out from there.
“So, we’re gonna be doing stuff. But, yeah, it’s just kind of making sure we’re mentally there and we put our best foot forward when we do come out and make sure that it’s all good.”
We will keep you updated on developments concerning new music from Avenged Sevenfold.