Quotes from 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.

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.

The thing about covers is that the first thing you're going to notice is the vocals, because it's not the same person.

People think this is a competition between bands, when the reality is the more successful bands the better.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Personally, I just want to hear good songs.

I wanna write a classic metal record, a classic rock record, in 2013.

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.

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.

It really does help everyone when there are some big bands leading the charge.

I've never made a comment on a message board in my life.

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.

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.

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.

No. 1 records are fine, but in 2016, they just don't mean as much any more - the currency has changed.

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.

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.'

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.

We're really excited to be even talked about in the same breath as Foo Fighters or Metallica.

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.

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?