Avenged Sevenfold Reveals Unexpected Influence On New Album

Keavin Wiggins | 01-06-2022

Photo credit: Kameron Pollock courtesy Warner Records

Avenged Sevenfold frontman M Shadows spoke about the progress on the band's forthcoming follow-up to their 2016 album, "The Stage", and revealed an unexpected influence.

As we reported earlier this week, Shadows said that the band is focused on finishing the new record. He reiterated that in a new interview with Metal Hammer.

He shared, "In January, we're going in to finish the strings on the record. The record's been recorded for a year, but we haven't been able to put the real strings on it, because we couldn't fly out to Prague.

"When an orchestra have to social distance and they aren't sitting next to each other, they can get out of tune, and we have just finally got to a place where we can use this 70-piece orchestra as we intended. We finish the record in February, mix it in March."

Shadows was asked for "any little pointers of where the sound of the record is taking you", and he explained that "there are so many influences", and revealed, "We're very influenced by Kanye West.

"The thing about Kanye is that he is pulling from such great soul music. I didn't grow up with that stuff - my dad listened to Boston and Alice Cooper, I didn't get that taste of black music and old soul.

"So, diving deep into jazz musicians... we're not trying to do a jazz record, but the chord changes and progressions are so eye-opening to us."