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venged Sevenfold frontman M. Shadows easily remembers exactly where he was and what he was doing when he received the remarkable news a few weeks ago. And it was the last bulletin on Earth he was expecting.“ I was laying in bed, and I was checking my morning e-mails when I saw a‘ Congratulations’ from our manager,” says the SoCal-based singer, who was quickly jolted completely awake that day, no coffee required.“ And I was like,‘ What the heck?’ I thought it was a joke at first, but I jumped online, Googled the information, and there we were. And we’ ve had a few # 1 records and some big singles, but never once had even a hint of anything like this. I just thought it was never going to happen.”
Yet here the band is, prominently featured on the recent list of Grammy nominees, up for this year’ s Best Rock Song for the squealing title track to its latest sonically-adventurous outing for Capitol, The Stage. And the usually unflappable Shadows was duly dumbfounded. Over a career spanning 18 years and seven studio albums, he was grateful for all the acclaim he’ d gotten from diehard fans, plus a booming merchandise business revolving around the group’ s canny winged-skull logo the Deathbat, a go-to T-shirt design for any serious metalhead.“ But we kind of thought that we had just been forgotten by the Grammys, that we just weren’ t in the Grammys club,” he sighs.“ But then to get the nomination all of a sudden, on a record that was critically-praised but difficult for the fans to digest? It was justification for us – or verification – that we’ d made a cool record, that people in the industry liked it, and they proved it to us with their vote to put us in the Grammys. It was a huge honor.”
VERIFICATION
By Tom Lanham photos by Jeff Forney
And The Stage certainly stands out among 2017 hard-rock releases. Clocking in at over 73 minutes, it’ s an ambitious concept album with planet Earth as the socalled stage and narcissistic, artificial-intelligence embracing humankind as its ostensibly doomed protagonists. With cold, clinical precision it examines esoteric subjects like nanotechnology( a chugging“ Paradigm”), still-looming atomic-age implications( the punchy“ Fermi Paradox” assault, a Middle-eastern-filigreed“ Sunny Disposition”), plus the Richard Dawkins / Christopher Hitchens-inspired case for clear-headed atheism( a bluest“ Angels,” the snarling“ God Damn” anthem, the slow / fast metalcore staple“ Creating God”), and a 15:41 Rush-exotic centerpiece,“ Exist,” that’ s rooted in the Big Bang theory – the real universe-spawning one, not the goofy TV series. To underscore its deep-thinking points, the disc even employs prickly horn sections, velvety strings, and a just-issued expanded edition showcasing the group’ s equallyelevated musical influences with covers of Del Shannon’ s“ Runaway,” Mr. Bungle’ s“ Retrovertigo,” The Rolling Stones’“ As Tears Go By,” The Beach Boys’“ God Only Knows,” and Pink Floyd’ s“ Wish You Were Here.” Also included: Four Stage tracks, recorded in concert at London’ s sprawling 02 Arena.
“ Well, I like our taste in music,” explains Shadows, 36, of the new bonus cuts, which might surprise some thrashminded followers.“ And as songwriters, one thing we’ ve never stopped doing was dissecting great songs, and seeing how the chords are put together, the key changes, the modulations, and how much an arrangement helps the song. And I think sometimes in heavy metal we get so focused on throwing heavy guitars into everything that you lose a lot of those dynamics. You lose that real human feeling that humans connect to.” And when you break down a“ Runaway” or a“ Wish You Were Here” to its most skeletal elements; he adds, only then can you appreciate its true splendor.“ And you can see that, beneath it all, those songs do everything right, everything perfectly. And there’ s a method to that madness – it’ s not just these crazy musicians throwing together whatever they want. They know this way to do things correctly, so I think you can only learn from those guys.”
Ergo, there’ s a great deal of artistic growth within Avenged Sevenfold, which started out back in 1999 as a bunch of California buddies from Huntington Beach, with their current – and sounddefining – guitarist Synyster Gates only joining after Sounding the Seventh Trumpet released in 2001. By its third set, 2005’ s City of Evil, the initially-indie outfit was snapped up by major imprint Warner Brothers, leading to a Best New Artist trophy at the 2006 MTV Video Music Awards. On its self-titled 2007 follow-up, the group was already tongue-in-cheek mocking the illusion of music-industry popularity with singles like“ Critical Acclaim.” But the pitbull-gnashing Shadows( born Matthew Charles Sanders, who adopted his stage name to cultivate an air of mysterious menace) had already begun upping his vocal game by regularly seeing a top-flight vocal coach who had tutored two of his heroes, Axl Rose and the late Chris Cornell( whose signature primal wail Shadows’ often closely resembles on The Stage).
“ I’ ve been working on my vocals for the last 12 years with Ron Anderson, and I’ ve finally gotten to a place where I’ m singing more in the‘ head voice,’ which is a much safer place to sing from than the bottom, in singer-speak,” says the rocker. He underwent vocal surgery in 2003 after repeatedly bursting blood vessels in his vocal cords.“ And once that( operation) happened, I had three weeks of no talking and about six months of recovery, so I went to Ron, which was the greatest thing I ever did in my life. It took me years and years, but I learned the true technology of how to sing, so now I’ m singing from the top, and I have much healthier vocal cords – it’ s all about dealing it in and treating your voice more like an athlete; like a sport. You’ ve really got to take care of it.”
From the iconic Deathbat insignia alone(“ They call it the‘ Nike swish’ of hard rock, but we just always enjoyed bands with logos, like Megadeth, Iron Maiden, and The Misfits, and we wanted to be represented by a logo, not necessarily the band name,” Shadows elaborates) you might expect Avenged Sevenfold’ s leader to be a bit vampire-like himself, or at least as ominously spooky as his name implies. He is none of these things. In fact, he’ s far less Tim Burton’ s neighborhood-rattling Edward Scissorhands and more like the warm, friendly pastel neighbors depicted in the film. A real backyard-barbecuing, family guy whom you wouldn’ t mind living next door to. Okay, well maybe a cookout is pushing it. But the man is well-read, conversational on almost any subject, and admits that collecting Bitcoin is his only real vice.“ I’ ve really gotten into cryptocurrencies, so I’ ve been collecting Bitcoin for about 20 months now, and obviously it’ s really been taking off recently, so it’ s been fun,” he says. Shadows and his wife Valary( whose sister
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22 illinoisentertainer. com january 2018