Avenged Sevenfold Very Influenced By Kanye West - 2022 In Review

Keavin Wiggins | December 05, 2022

Photo credit: Kameron Pollock courtesy Warner Records

Avenged Sevenfold frontman M Shadows earned a top 22 story from Jan. 2022 when he revealed that Kanye West as an unexpected influence on the band.

Shadows made the comments while he was discussing the progress on the band's forthcoming follow-up to their 2016 album, "The Stage", for an interview with Metal Hammer.

He shared, "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."