|
|
|
By Waleed Rashidi A Greater Evil Pedal steel guitars, large choirs, nashville backing vocalists, oingo boingo alums and 808 rhythms aren’t exactly the things that come to mind when one thinks of an Avenged Sevenfold album. But for its fourth, self-titled album, the Orange County-based metalcore fivesome eschewed established scene bounds and ask fans to embrace its new musical menagerie… From Tim Burton soundtrack-ish haunting harmonies (“Little Piece of Heaven”) to barren, lonesome country vibes (“Dear God”) to blasting punk-tinged anthems (“Critical Acclaim”), Avenged Sevenfold’s latest album truly fires away from all sides of contemporary music. Such diversity came to fruition after spending years of service in the touring circuit, both as an underground, up-and-coming act that got its first whiff of the business through its 2001 indie debut, Sounding The Seventh Trumpet, and as the established, gold-selling hitmaker the band is today. “I grew up [in Orange County] and was really involved in the punk scene,” says vocalist M. Shadows. “I was always grabbing your magazine [Mean Street] and grabbing Skratch and going to all the punk shows. So, we had this crazy idea when we were coming up. We said, you know, ‘I love heavy metal, I love hardcore music and I love punk as well,’ and that’s why our first record was kind of a punk record with hardcore influences. But it was a big mixture because we didn’t feel comfortable doing one thing and writing the same song over and over. And then when Waking the Fallen came out, it took off for us, and a lot of bands started copying that style, and that started becoming the new punk rock. And you hear so much of it, that’s the last thing you want to write.” To break new ground, the Huntington Beach-bred band, for its 2005 Warner Bros. debut, released City of Evil, an epic, hybrid punk-metal album that spawned the heavily requested radio single “Bat Country” and an incredibly large following. Months of touring ensued, all of which Shadows says helped inspire what would ultimately become Avenged Sevenfold — which hit stores Oct. 30. “Going around the country, you get into all styles, like country, hip-hop and R&B,” he says. “We just really sat down this time and said, ‘Let’s do our own thing.’” “Crazier and crazier and crazier” And their own thing Avenged Sevenfold did. But their first obstacle was getting the label to allow the band to self-produce their album — of which they were ultimately successful — having learned a few album-making tricks from Mudrock, who had produced Waking The Fallen and City of Evil. “There’s something about five guys, five best friends in there that are egging each other on to get crazier and crazier and crazier,” says Shadows. “And with no one there to rope you in, I think you can come up with some creative ideas. On this record, it was nice not having someone there, having to run things past [them]. It’s like, we’re going to do it, we’re going to try, we’re going to have the time to do it, and if we don’t we’ll have to make the time to do it, because all five of us believe in it.” Enlisting help from all ends — including the hiring of notable engineers Fred Archambault (who had worked with the band on earlier recordings) and David Schiffman — was an important step in getting the right sounds down. “We’re trying to get people that know a little more than us,” Shadows adds. As the process went forth, the members of Avenged (Shadows, guitarists Synyster Gates and Zacky Vengeance, bassist Johnny Christ and drummer The Rev) reached for their respective Rolodexes, calling up names like country guitarist Greg Leisz, Boingo’s Steve Bartek and Marc Mann and the Musik Mafia’s Shanna Crooks. “She’s from Nashville and she wanted to come down, she’s a fan,” says Shadows of Crooks. “We wanted a gospel feel in the middle of the song [‘Gunslinger’], and she nailed that for us. She also sings on ‘Dear God,’ on backing vocals.” Ten best songs Shadows says the band wrote 24 songs for the album, of which 18 were recorded, and only ten making the final cut. Shadows alludes to the fact that album could’ve been even more diverse, had the band included songs that didn’t make the final sequence. “At the end of the day we told ourselves that if the 10 best songs happen to be a country song, a movie soundtrack, a groove track, a track with 808s blasting all over it, or if the 10 happen to be the 10 heaviest songs, we wanted the 10 best songs, we don’t care what style they are,” he says. “That was just a part of really wanting the album to be eclectic. We wrote songs that we didn’t record or release, that sound like hip-hop songs but are rock-oriented, but song-wise they just didn’t cut it. We wrote songs with a Talk Box [effects pedal] over the whole thing. They were very cool, but at the end of the day, we write the same. You always get a feel for how people write. It doesn’t matter what kind of song it is, the vibes are different on this record.” The album’s first single, “Critical Acclaim,” is one of the release’s most focused tracks, and for the uninitiated, could easily peg Avenged Sevenfold as getting on its political high horse. The songs lyrics include: “So how does it feel to know that someone’s kid in the heart of America/Has blood on their hands, fighting to defend your rights/So you can maintain the lifestyle that insults this family’s existence.” But Shadows notes that the song is more an exercise in simply saying what he believes needs to be addressed. “I consider it more like social commentary,” he says. “I’m not trying to really get on anybody, the President, the war, who’s right or who’s wrong. Traveling around the world and throughout the country, you see a lot of great people in the middle of the country that work real hard. They’ve got their kids in Iraq or in the Navy in Japan, or at our embassies, and they’re protecting our country. On the coasts, sometimes you’ll see people who have this chip on their shoulder, like they know better than everyone else and that the middle of the country is uneducated and they’re dumb, when really you have all these great people in the middle of the country that do so much for our country, they’re the heartbeat of our country. And half of the time it made me so upset seeing so much stuff about people and hearing so many bands, bands that would just write songs that were just, to me, totally ignorant. I think both sides can be ignorant. So I wanted to write a song that was on the opposite side. I wanted to get up there with some balls, say what we had to say, give our side, and that’s where that song came from.” “For now, I’ve said my peace,” he adds. “Right now, if I had to write another song, it would definitely not be about politics.” Just winging it One aspect of the album that doesn’t take any real stance is the artwork — a simple white backdrop with the band’s trademark death-bat logo, no album title, no band name. In fact, the band consciously opted to self-title the album to avoid being pigeonholed. “We felt that this record really encompassed what we were trying to do as a band on an eclectic level,” says Shadows. “We were trying to get people to see that we were not just a metal band or a rock band. We could do a lot of things. We felt that this record, when people say the name ‘Avenged Sevenfold,’ we wanted them to think of this record…We wanted them to sit there, put it on, and they’d have to figure it out for themselves what they think of this record.” But ultimately, the judge and jury for Avenged Sevenfold will be just that — the record-buying public. Shadows and Co. appear to understand that releasing such an eclectic album makes for a higher-stakes battle in a commercial music climate that’s already experiencing plummeting sales across the board. “The stakes are higher but you know what, we’re in a different world now,” Shadows says, noting that he sympathizes with the industry’s issues. “If we scan 100,000 records the first week, or 50,000, no one will know how to judge that, because no one sells records anymore. Kids are downloading and I’m a firm believer that as long as kids get our music, I don’t care how they do it, I just want them to enjoy it. And we’re going to go on the road to play for them, and I know we’re going to be fine. Industry standards don’t mean anything anymore. If you can’t sell out shows, then you’re f*cked. But if you can’t sell records, well, who can sell records nowadays, besides Kanye and 50 [Cent]?” On the web: avengedsevenfold.com |
|||||||||||||||||
|
Copyright © 2002 Mean Street Magazine, LLC |
||||||||||||||||||
