In a recent interview with Bradley Hall, M. Shadows talked about the making of ‘Hail To The King’ and the decision to simplify their sound.
The band chose to move forward with simplifying the album even though it felt ‘unnatural.’ Their goal was to create a hard rock and heavy metal album that could become an album similar to Metallica’s ‘Black Album.’
“‘Hail to the King’ was a response to the fact that we were a big band, but none of our songs could be played anywhere in a bar. We had nothing that lived up to AC/DC, or Metallica’s ‘Black Album’, or all these albums that we love. All of our stuff’s a little too complex, a little to neoclassical,” the singer admitted.
He added: “So, we started really cutting close; wearing our influences very much on our sleeves in this sort of dumbed-down version of rock music. And that’s not a shot at those bands, ’cause they do it brilliantly. They do it better than us. But we wanted to try our hand at doing something like that. It’s very unnatural for us, it’s not what we do.”
While they wanted to achieve more of a ‘Black Album’ side of their own album, this wasn’t the case in their earlier albums. “With each album we’re becoming a little more fearless,” Shadows said during a 2007 interview.
He added: “The scene’s also stagnating. There are five million shitty, disgraceful heavy metal bands. What would be the point of being just another imitator of Iron Maiden or Metallica?”
After finishing their festival gigs in 2025, Avenged Sevenfold is going on tour in June, starting on the 14th of the month in France. The band will make stops in Slovenia, Italy, Germany, and more countries before wrapping it up on June 29 in Sweden.
