“Those who are not very good at understanding mental health issues are not going to know what other people are going through in depression. You have to kind of put yourself in somebody else’s shoes.”
― M. Shadows
“The reality is you either step into the future, or you become a dinosaur.”
― M. Shadows
“When I was very young, it was Guns N’ Roses and Metallica. I’d play air guitar on my bed. They’ve been the thread throughout my life.”
― M. Shadows
“Everyone has an opinion, and everyone should be entitled to say whatever they want.”
― M. Shadows
“Every once in a while, we can touch somebody’s life in a way just by writing a melody or writing some music, which is always really special.”
― M. Shadows
“I want to stay away from trends and do what we want to do musically.”
― M. Shadows
“I go online, and I love watching heavy metal bands and guitar players play heavy metal versions of the ‘Zelda’ theme, and people do all the ‘Zelda’ music, which is one of my favorite soundtracks.”
― M. Shadows
“We do a lot of things that kind of annoy people and our fan base. We try not to get overloaded on it. For us, that means we don’t do social media stuff – we have an Avenged Sevenfold social media, but none of the band members have Facebooks or any sort of Twitter.”
― M. Shadows
“Always from day one, we were the band on Warped Tour with a fog machine, and our backdrop had to be up – everyone thought we were the biggest idiots for that, total posers. But for us, we wanted to be over the top.”
― M. Shadows
“What made ‘Dark Side Of The Moon’ so great is some of the mystique and where it was coming from and just the authenticity of it.”
― M. Shadows
“The Brexit thing to me just looks like a difference of opinion. I know things were lied about, but that should be a wake-up call to get all the information before you vote about something. Educate yourself.”
― M. Shadows
“The thing about covers is that the first thing you’re going to notice is the vocals, because it’s not the same person.”
― M. Shadows
“We write music because we have to; it’s a part of our very being.”
― M. Shadows
“Someone sent me an article on AI that was written by Tim Urban on the website Wait but Why – that was kind of where I stuck my toes in the puddle, and I said, ‘OK, I’ve gotta learn about this!’ I felt like this is one of those things that our generation is going to have to answer for, eventually, and I just wanted to educate myself on it.”
― M. Shadows
“Personally, I just want to hear good songs.”
― M. Shadows
“For me, ‘Far Beyond Driven’ just had an oomph that kicked it over the edge and just pure aggression. And I always appreciated that.”
― M. Shadows
“I think Kanye West is brilliant at what he does: he’s got a different live show, different merch for every tour, different vibes, and he just puts out great records.”
― M. Shadows
“When I’m by myself asking the questions that many of us do at some point in our lives, I look to the stars knowing that the answers are somewhere out there waiting to be discovered.”
― M. Shadows
“We live in the realm where all the metalheads and rock fans know us, but we’re not giants like Linkin Park or Black Sabbath.”
― M. Shadows
“I was a fan of ‘Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2,’ and I got into ‘Call Of Duty: Black Ops,’ which was my favorite ‘Call Of Duty’ game of all time.”
― M. Shadows
“I’ve had friends who’ve had depression or been on medication because their pituitary glands aren’t giving out enough hormones – so I’ve been around a lot of people who’ve had problems like that. I’ve always been open to talk about that.”
― M. Shadows
“One thing I loved when I was growing up, you maybe saw one review from a magazine like ‘Rolling Stone,’ but now there are 150 reviews before an album even comes out. There are so many opinions out there, but the only one that really matters is your own.”
― M. Shadows
“Music and space collide for me, as I find them incredibly stimulating.”
― M. Shadows
“I’ve always been a really open person around my friends.”
― M. Shadows
“All I can say to people who don’t think depression is a real thing, or say ‘just suck it up and get over it’ – they just really have no idea. You have to give people the benefit of the doubt that they’re doing the best they can to get through it.”
― M. Shadows
“When we were writing the ‘Stage’ album, we realized we’d never really done proper covers, where we were taking songs and making them our own and kind of playing around with them. I came up with the idea of doing a cover of ‘Wish You Were Here,’ but we didn’t really want it on the record.”
― M. Shadows
“I just think that a metal band covering a bunch of metal songs is so boring, so ‘done before.’”
― M. Shadows
“I got an email saying we were nominated for a Grammy, and I instantly thought it was a joke. So I started Googling the nominees, and there we were!”
― M. Shadows
“Honestly, I never thought we’d get a nomination for a Grammy, period. To be honest, we felt that if we were ever going to get one, we thought we had ‘City of Evil’ and ‘Nightmare’ and ‘Hail to the King,’ and those were all big records, and they never even sniffed at us.”
― M. Shadows
“I think ‘The Stage’ is kind of left field.”
― M. Shadows
“I feel like our whole discography up through ‘Hail to the King’ was young, fun, and exciting. It was aggressively driven. ‘The Stage’ was the first step in the band becoming a more mature musical entity.”
― M. Shadows
“Most people know we’re kind of one of the only bands around right now that will admit that we’re Republican.”
― M. Shadows
“I think everyone in the band has had someone that’s served in their family. I wouldn’t say that anybody has a military family, but both of my grandfathers were in the military.”
― M. Shadows
“I know that sometimes we, as Americans, we reach outside of our means, and every once in a while we like to ‘police the world,’ but I think we do a lot of good as well.”
― M. Shadows
“We are ever evolving and never repeat ourselves.”
― M. Shadows
“As we develop, I just see us following our heart on this musical journey.”
― M. Shadows
“A lot of the metal bands that were around when Metallica put out ‘The Black Album,’ now they’re playing clubs, and Metallica is playing stadiums.”
― M. Shadows
“The song ‘Paradigm’ talks about nanobots – and how they can potentially be used to cure diseases and help you live forever. But how much of a human being would you be at that point? If you’re 70 percent machine and 30 percent human, are you going to lose yourself?”
― M. Shadows
“We have this yearning to know the answers to the big questions about space and why we’re here; we can’t evolve fast enough to figure these answers out on our own, but we can do it through artificial intelligence. But there’s also some very scary downsides that could come if we don’t put the right safety precautions in there.”
― M. Shadows
“We kind of reached this point in life where we don’t really want to put out anything just to put something out. We really don’t want it to be like, ‘Two years are up. You’ve had your break; now do another record and get it out there.’”
― M. Shadows
“The more kids that we can meet or kids that are terminally ill, we try to do it because it’s really important, and you can see the hope in their eyes and in their families and their parents.”
― M. Shadows
“I’m kind of a geek when it comes to talking about chord structures or melody, so I always loved in-depth conversations with musicians about things. I also enjoy when a fan can just put something on, and they really know nothing about music other than they like it and it touches them in some way.”
― M. Shadows
“Musically, I just like when people are knowledgeable about music and they can talk to you about it.”
― M. Shadows
“One thing that was frustrating to us, always, was having to do so much press building up an album, and you’re asked so many questions about, you know, is it more melodic, is it heavier, are you doing your old stuff, is it new?”
― M. Shadows
“I think one of the biggest sleepers that people are going to be able to dig into later is ‘Fermi Paradox,’ it’s the song before ‘Exist.’ To me it’s got the coolest, it’s just so bizarre because it’s got one of the most melodic vocal melodies, but we put it over a black metal blast beats.”
― M. Shadows
“We’re trying to change the whole way our merch is viewed, in terms of just not a bunch of skulls interlaced; you know, every album can look the same, so they’re going to be stylized and different.”
― M. Shadows
“We write when the time comes, and we try to be exciting, and stuff that excites us usually makes the record.”
― M. Shadows
“We don’t want to become like country artists where there’s a formula.”
― M. Shadows
“We really like having songs where we think the arrangement is just as important as the melodies, even though they’re typically not.”
― M. Shadows
“If there’s something I really like or a chord progression, I write a note in my Blackberry, and maybe a year later, I’ll revisit it and ask, ‘What did I like about that?’ I really don’t try to think too much about it. I like to be fresh.”
― M. Shadows
“To me, a lot people really get wrapped up in the technical side of metal and what’s metal and what’s not and more double-kick and more blast beats and more technicality, but for me, I’m a song person. So I think you can write good songs in any type of style of rock and any type of style of metal, and that’s kind of what I’m a fan of.”
― M. Shadows
“A lot of times, people just want to be more extreme than the next band or the next person, and that’s all they focus on. That’s kind of lost on me.”
― M. Shadows
“I listen to a lot of Pink Floyd, the Doors, Elton John, Sabbath, Metallica, GN’R, Megadeth – just classic rock, classic metal stuff.”
― M. Shadows
“The metalcore has been left behind. It’s not something that any of us find enjoyment in listening to, so it’s obviously not the direction we would write songs in.”
― M. Shadows
“It really does help everyone when there are some big bands leading the charge.”
― M. Shadows
“People think this is a competition between bands, when the reality is the more successful bands the better.”
― M. Shadows
“When we were growing up, we listened to all sorts of music, but the first band that really grabbed all of us live was AFI.”
― M. Shadows
“Our band has always been really big on imagery. We’ve kind of used that as one of our strengths; we tend to do that pretty well.”
― M. Shadows
“’This Means War’ is up there with ‘Hail to the King’ in terms of crowd reaction and kids chanting for it.”
― M. Shadows
“We love the idea of putting out music in a non-conventional way.”
― M. Shadows
“The idea of turning an album into a living piece of art and adding new installations is really intriguing. It expands the journey.”
― M. Shadows
“We always want to do covers, but we found it kind of boring to do covers of bands in our genre, and we were always asked to do those.”
― M. Shadows
“The world is changing, and the way we consume music is obviously changing. I was one of the biggest CD advocates you will find, but when Apple music and digital options came out, like for everyone else, it was more conducive to my lifestyle.”
― M. Shadows
“If people respect us as artists, they know we’ll give them something different every time; they know we’re pushing ourselves.”
― M. Shadows
“It’s important to know the ins and outs of the music business, but you can also dive too deeply into it and forget that you’re really here to make music.”
― M. Shadows
“Usually, when you’re putting out a record, you have reviews from people a week before, and you have a vibe ’cause everyone’s heard it – you’ve heard feedback from everyone, and they’ve listened to your single for a couple of months. Radio’s playing it.”
― M. Shadows
“People want things now. People in the rock world seem to not want to give it to them – they want to keep doing things the old way – and one thing that has always bummed me out is when we get a single three months out, and then you have to keep getting fed with bread crumbs.”
― M. Shadows
“If you’re going to put out a record just to get a No. 1 and then forget about it after the first week, it’s the tail wagging the dog: it doesn’t make any sense.”
― M. Shadows
“We want metal to be dangerous again. How cool would that be?”
― M. Shadows
“I recall us selling out L.A.’s 5,000-capacity Gibson Amphitheatre and flying straight to Germany to play a 300-capacity room where we’d only sold 120 tickets. This was when ‘City Of Evil’ was really taking off in the U.S., but it seemed like Europe was less interested.”
― M. Shadows
“We go out there and kill it every night, and you can see what this means to people.”
― M. Shadows
“I’m glad that we can add something new to the fold that Metallica’s not going to bring to the table, and they’re going to do what they do.”
― M. Shadows
“When you think of rock and roll and metal, a lot of it is based around the riff. If you can sing over the riff and what the arrangements are going to be like, you have to leave space for what most people consider one of the most key essential parts, which is the vocalist.”
― M. Shadows
“We like to wait to a point where we have to get in there and write a record because we’re just so built up.”
― M. Shadows
“If we can inspire a kid to pick up a guitar – and less and less kids are doing so these days – it’d be really cool because I know how it felt growing up and how special that was for me.”
― M. Shadows
“The first Maiden record I ever got was ‘Piece of Mind,’ and I only got it because I thought the artwork was cool, and everyone talked about Iron Maiden. But they weren’t necessarily the most popular metal band in America for a 12-year-old kid when I discovered them.”
― M. Shadows
“The ‘Black Album’ was my real first introduction to Metallica. I was, like, 12 or 13 at the time. We were just getting into music, and I liked that album a lot, but it didn’t necessarily change my life. But when I started picking up all the other Metallica records, ‘Master of Puppets’ was the one to me that stuck out with its songwriting.”
― M. Shadows
“If I was to play any song for anybody asking, ‘What is metal about?’ I’d just play ‘Master of Puppets.’ The progressions and the bridge are brilliant.”
― M. Shadows
“I was talking to my dad about the stuff he grew up listening to, and ‘Operation: Mindcrime’ is a record that he had always talked about around the house. He always talked about it as the ‘greatest concept album of all time.’ One day, I started listening to it, and it just hit me. I was like, ‘These songs are all hits. They’re all huge songs.’”
― M. Shadows
“When you look at metal, it’s probably one of the healthiest genres when you look at it in a worldwide perspective – every single country listens to metal.”
― M. Shadows
“If I ran the Grammys, it would probably go bankrupt.”
― M. Shadows
“I used to get a huge kick out of walking into a record store and finding something I didn’t know was out.”
― M. Shadows
“We just found that in 2016, if you announce a record, and it’s coming out in three months, and you’re just giving people breadcrumbs, it’s the most boring, drawn-out experience.”
― M. Shadows
“For me, a band like Gojira brings something really cool and new to the table.”
― M. Shadows
“Games helped me a lot when The Rev died. It was something I able to go do and stay in the house and not have to be outside and deal with people. But I also found a community online that I was able to escape the feeling I was having of losing a best friend.”
― M. Shadows
“I wanna write a classic metal record, a classic rock record, in 2013.”
― M. Shadows
“No. 1 records are fine, but in 2016, they just don’t mean as much any more – the currency has changed.”
― M. Shadows
“Sometimes, I feel like my lyrics meander a little bit, and our songs are so big I need to write more words than are necessary.”
― M. Shadows
“I went to this vocal coach, Ron Anderson, who has worked with Axl Rose and Chris Cornell, to train my voice and learn a whole new way of singing.”
― M. Shadows
“We’re really excited to be even talked about in the same breath as Foo Fighters or Metallica.”
― M. Shadows
“I’ve said the Grammys messed up metal because it’s not on TV. What I’m saying is when you’re in a metal category, it’s not televised, and it doesn’t move the needle forward for metal artists, and I wish they had more respect for the genre.”
― M. Shadows
“We grew up with every type of band from Primus to Mr. Bungle to Elton John to pop music to metal, and we try to throw it all in a blender. And whatever comes out of that is more Avenged Sevenfold than metal or metalcore.”
― M. Shadows
“I’ve never made a comment on a message board in my life.”
― M. Shadows
“Unless someone physically tries to attack me, I don’t care what anyone does.”
― M. Shadows
“If you make money, what’s it worth if you can’t be with your family?”
― M. Shadows
“Metal needs to be exposed to more people, so it’s good for rock if there’s bigger bands.”
― M. Shadows
“I think the cool thing about being alive in 2017 is that you can literally put out music as soon and as frequently as you want to because of streaming services.”
― M. Shadows
“Ever since ‘Hail to the King,’ we’ve been more cognizant of our chord progressions, our key changes, drama in songs, a lot of dynamics – we’ve really added a lot of that in there.”
― M. Shadows
“Growing up, I was always playing with video games.”
― M. Shadows
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