Historically, Avenged Sevenfold wasn’t necessarily a band to dive too far into politics.  And they still haven’t, yet with their newest Self-Titled release came “Critical Acclaim;” a song, which sounds angry and outspoken.  It’s obviously about war, soldiers and America’s perceptions of war so our newest contributing writer Karma Jensen, who has a brother serving in the armed forces, decided to chat with M. Shadows, not only about the band's recent Self-Titled release, but about his feelings regarding our troops who give their sweat, blood and lives so we can enjoy basic freedoms like A7X's music and even this article.     

  

KM:  First I'd like to thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to talk with me for the troops.

 

MS:  Oh, absolutely.

 

KM:  My first question concerns your new release "Critical Acclaim," which has been generating a lot of buzz.  What was the inciting moment that compelled you to write the song?

 

MS:  I guess a lot of complaining that's been going on in our country a lot lately.  Picking up a newspaper, living in Southern California, you see very...

 

KM:  Liberal?

 

MS:  The media is very one sided.  Yeah, very very liberal media that's always complaining, thinking that everyone's against them and they kind of lose sight of the human nature and the human element.  There's actually people fighting for our country, defending our country, there's people in our country growing our food...fruits and vegetables.  They're getting our food and driving them through on trucks just so people can eat.  Everywhere in this country and I think they forget about the human element and it just got to the point that I got pissed off enough.  I have enough friends in the military and fighting for this country and it pissed me off enough that I wanted to write a song about it.  And I'm so sick of all these bands that their political view is always one sided and when I listen to bands I don't really want to hear that kind of stuff so I wanted to make a song that [explains] our opinion and our side and that's where "Critical Acclaim" came from.  It's an angry song I guess.

 

KM:  It's a great song.

 

MS:  Thank you.

 

KM:  Touching on that, you mentioned some of your friends are serving in the military.  Has that intensified or enlightened your perception of events?

 

MS:  Oh, totally.  Some of my best friends are some of the craziest, best people you can imagine. Being in the middle of a war, if there has to be a war or defending our country are some of the ones that signed up with the military willfully acknowledging all that. My best friend went to Iraq.  He's been there twice, he might go back a third time and he was our chief of security for us on Ozzfest when he came back for awhile.  Our production manager Art, has been to Iraq twice and might get called back again.  We have a lot of people who are close to us, most of my friends are in the Navy, military, and so when they come home and I get to hang out with them and know they're back safe all that stuff hits really close to home on a more personal level.

 

KM:  I understand, my brother is on his second tour in Iraq.  That being said, when I mentioned I would be interviewing you, he said it was weird because they were listening to your music just a few days before.

 

MS: Oh that's so cool.  That's so awesome to hear.

 

KM: During your tour you had the opportunity to visit other countries.  What were some of your experiences and how has that affected your perception of life in the U.S.?

 

MS:  Well to me...we just got back from Asia, Southeast Asia and places like Jakarta, Bangkok and Singapore.  Places like Jakarta and Bangkok are third world countries and it's so crazy because you have not seen poverty in America...you've never seen poverty until you've seen poverty there.  You live in America, you could be homeless sleeping under a bridge, but you can get up and go get a job at McDonald's, you can make a living and kind of work your way up.  That's why they call America the land of opportunity.  It's really crazy to hear people in the states complain that they have it this bad and have it that bad, but when you go to a third world country and see there's a corrupt government and they're taking all the people's money and there's no water to drink and no food and people are living in shacks on the side of the road you realize that world wise, America's the greatest country in the world.   And you realize that there's a lot of   things that need to be done to help these people in these other places, you know they're good people and there's bad governments...there's corruption going on and you realize, wow anyone who lives in America really doesn't have anything to complain about.  These people would leave and come live in America in a heartbeat if they could but they can't even get enough money to get a plane ticket here and even if they could they wouldn't be allowed in.  It's kind of a crazy concept that, just the perception to me.  You know my friends complain about stuff and I tell them they have it a lot better than people in seventy percent of the world who are living in poverty.  It's a really crazy perspective, you know, you get to see people there's great people living everywhere and hopefully, someday, no one will be living in poverty.

 

KM:  Yes, it's really easy to take things for granted when they're readily available to you and you don't have to struggle for them.

 

MS:  It is and even me, I really didn't have the perspective until I went there and saw it for myself.

 

KM:  I have a request from my brother and some of the other soldiers stationed in Iraq.  They want to know if A7X has any plans to perform at Camp Striker.

 

MS:  You know what, two years ago we were trying to get over there to play a show but they told us we needed a corporate sponsor and we were like, "People like Kid Rock go over and play shows and other celebrities."  And they said they were at a different level, but I feel that we're finally reaching a level where we can fly in and do a show.  We want to do that more than anything.  I still bug our manager about that to this day, so hopefully we can do that. I would love to do it, the whole band would love to do it.  We'll be in the line of fire if we have to.  We would love to go and support our troops.

 

KM:  I'm surprised there are limitations like that.  I would think they would say, "Great you want to come perform?   No problem!"

 

MS:  Yeah, it's crazy.  I wish it was like that, if it was we would have been over there already.

 

KM:  Well that's great that you want to do that.  The soldiers will be glad to know you're trying to make that happen.

 

MS:  We're definitely going to keep trying.

 

KM:  Now the bands managed to successfully blend ecclectic styles into your music.  Is there a particular style that you refuse to tackle like say, Polka?

 

MS:  (laughs) I definitely think one style of music I definitely don't like is ska.  Ska music to me is sometimes too weird.  I don't know, anything done tastefully is cool.  We don't really try, we just do it and look at it later and say, "That sounds good."  There's a song on the new album, "Dear God" which is more country, definitely country influenced.  There's some hip-hop elements, rock elements,we just like to keep it tight and  try a lot of different things. We've tried a lot of things that don't work out so we didn't put them on the album.  So we're always experimenting and have a good time with it.

 

KM:  You had us fooled because I thought you could take anything and make it sound great. Now you're telling us there is stuff out there that's crap that you're hiding from us.

 

MS:  (laughs) I don't know, maybe, yeah, there's crap that we didn't put on there.  There's this wacky wacky song that I'm sure will be released someday as a joke, but yeah, there's some stuff

that's pretty bad.

 

KM:  I've heard some critics, mostly earlier Avenged Sevenfold fans, who have referred to your later projects as 'sellouts,' which I think is a dirty term.  However, I felt this to be contradictory, especially considering the fact that your latest album was self-produced so there was no outside interference from producers or the label.  You guys went into the studio, said this is what we want to put on the album and if people like it great, but if not at least we were true to ourselves and our vision.  How do you respond to that?

 

MS:  You're responding to it like a smart person would.

 

KM:  (laughs) Thanks.

 

MS:  These people, well, it reminds me of when I was thirteen years old and used to call bands sellouts.  And to me, we just write what's in our hearts and do the best thing possible.  We're not Microsoft, we're not trying to make Ipods and cater to every person.  We're gonna write what's in our hearts in our souls for people to listen to and just enjoy it.  That's what we're here for.  We're just a band, we're just five kids having a good time and putting our hearts on the line. And we would never, in a million years, put something out there that didn't come from our hearts, just to put it out there.  When kids call us "sellouts," they're usually young or they're confused or just mad because it doesn't sound like the record before.  Maybe one day they'll get older and think, "Wow, this is actually a band that's the farthest thing from a sellout that I could possibly imagine."  We've always done what we wanted and the label's never going to tell us what to put on an album.  So, maybe one day they'll grow up and realize they didn't like the album but they don't need to call us "sellouts."  I guess being called "sellouts" is a normal everyday thing.  People are going to call you "sellouts", regardless of what you do.

 

KM:  Well I've listened to a lot of A7X and the new album (Avenged Sevenfold) extensively.  I think everyday I have a new 'favorite' song.

 

MS: (laughs)

 

KM:  I started with "Critical Acclaim," then it was "Afterlife" and now I think my favorite is "A Little Piece of Heaven," which reminds me of an R-rated Tim Burton fantasy.

 

MS:  Yeah, definitely.  That one's crazy.  You know we actually had Danny Elfman's...all his musicians came and played on that record.  So we had all the guys who actually play for Tim Burton's movies come in and play for that song, like all the strings and horns.  It's cool stuff.

 

KM:  When I listen to it I have this little cartoon running through my head.

 

MS:  We actually have a cartoon for it and we're going to release it in a few weeks.  It's pretty awesome.  It wasn't allowed to come out with the album because it was too graphic and Warner Bros. didn't want to add it but the kid's have been demanding it so we're going to give it to them.

 

KM:  Earlier we talked about the critics and the changes in style, but I feel with each album that the band is not totally making itself over, but rather revealing a little more of itself.  Especially with the new album, I really feel we're really being allowed intimate glimpses into your individual personalities.

 

MS:  I definitely agree and you're a very insightful person.  It's definitely more us because it takes all of our influences growing up as little kids listening to Mr. Bungle and just taking all these when we were growing up and all the crazy influences.

 

KM:  Well it definitely sounds authentic, not contrived in any way.  So, congratulations!

 

MS:  Thank you very much.

 

KM:  So what is the possibility of a concept album, like Queensryche's Operation Mind Crime or Pink Floyd's The Wall?  Are you interested in doing anything like that in the future?

 

MS:  We were actually interested in doing that with the City of Evil record but it kind of fell to shit.  We were listening to Scenes From a Memory by Dream Theater, one of my favorite concept records and it just fell to shit and we couldn't do it.  Then on the new record, so many bands were coming out with concept albums, and they did a good job with them, and we just felt like it wasn't a good time and we wanted to keep it different from everyone else. This record was all about not having a concept at all but possibly in the future.  We've always been intrigued by the idea.

 

KM:  Great, look forward to that.  Do you have anything you'd like to add?

 

MS:  This is for the military, right?

 

KM:  Yes.

 

MS:  I just want to say we support the troops and we love every one of them.  Even if they...I know a lot of my friends that are in the military that they don't agree with...Some of them are total, total liberals or this or that, whatever they are and I just want to say that we love all the troops.  We don't care what they believe in, they're defending our country and we love them for that.  And they're the biggest bad assses in the world and we just want to thank you.  We hope they enjoy the music and we'll keep pumping it out and just keep staying bad asses!

 

KM:  Thank you again for your time and thoughts.

 

By: Karma Jensen - Contributing Writer

 

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