After I draw 2 members of Avenged Sevenfold, now I wanna share you guys about the history of Avenged Sevenfold. So if you guys don't know about them yet, feel free to read my post.
Avenged Sevenfold is an American / metal rock band from Huntington Beach, California, formed in 1999. The band consists of vocalist M. Shadows, lead guitarist Synyster Gates, Zacky Vengeance rhythm guitar, and bassist Johnny Christ.
Avenged Sevenfold emerged with a metalcore genre on their debut Sounding the Seventh Trumpet, which contains many scream vocals. The band changed their style on their third album and major label release, City of Evil, featuring melodic vocals and power ballads. The band continued to explore new sounds by releasing Avenged Sevenfold and enjoying continued mainstream success before their drummer, James "The Rev" Sullivan, died of heart disease and the combined effects of drugs and alcohol on his body in 2009. Despite his death, the band Continued with the help of then-former Dream Theater drummer Mike Portnoy to release and tour in support of Nightmare, their fifth album in 2010 which debuted at the top spot, the Billboard 200 which was in first place.
To date, Avenged Sevenfold has released five studio albums, one live album/compilation / DVD, and sixteen singles. The band has received many awards for their worldwide mainstream success and was specially declared one of the leaders and key bands in New Wave of American Heavy Metal and came second in the Ultimate Guitar Top Ten Band Decade.
Beginning (1999-2004)
The band was formed in 1999 in Huntington Beach, California with original members M. Shadows, Zacky Vengeance, The Rev and Matt Wendt. Named his band whose references come from the Cain and Abel stories of the Bible, however, they are not religious bands. During its formation, each member of the band used a pseudonym which is also their nickname while attending high school. Before the release of their debut album, the band recorded two demos in 1999 and 2000. Their first album, Sounding the Seventh Trumpet, was recorded when the band members were still eighteen years old and also still attending high school. The album was originally released by their first label company, Good Life Record in 2001. After guitarist Synyster Gates joined the band, in late 1999 entered when he was 18 years old. The song "To End the Rapture" was re-recorded by displaying full members of the band. The album was later re-released on Hopeless Records in 2002.
The band then began to receive recognition, they performed with bands like Mushroomhead and Shadows Fall and played on the Take Action Tour. After their fourth bassist, Johnny Christ joined permanently; they released the Waking the Fallen album on Hopeless Records in August 2003. The band received recognition by Billboard and The Boston Globe, and also played on "Vans Warped Tour." In 2004, Avenged Sevenfold toured again on "Vans Warped Tour" and recorded a video for the song "Unholy Confessions" which entered the charts on MTV2's Headbanger's Ball. Shortly after releasing Waking the Fallen, Avenged Sevenfold left Hopeless Records and signed a contract submitted by Warner Bros.
City of Evil (2005-2007)
City of Evil, the band's third album was released on June 7, 2005, and debuted at # 30 on the Billboard 200 chart, selling over 30,000 copies in its first week. This album is more classic metal than previous albums that have been grouped into the metalcore genre. The album is also notable for the absence of screaming and growling. M. Shadows worked with vocal coach Ron Anderson-who once had clients like Axl Rose and Chris Cornell-for months before the album's release to achieve a "grit while still in tone" voice. The album received steller reviews from several magazines and websites and was credited for pushing the band into international popularity.
After playing at Ozzfest in 2006, Avenged Sevenfold beat R & B singers Rihanna and Chris Brown, Panic! At the Disco, Angels and Airwaves and James Blunt for the Best New Artist title at the MTV Video Music Awards, thanks in part to the song "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" - which inspired "Bat Country."
They returned to the Vans Warped Tour, this time they were headlining and then went on their own "Cities of Evil Tour" tour. In addition, their lead single "Bat Country" reached # 2 on Billboard's Mainstream Rock Charts, # 6 on Billboard's Modern Rock Charts and accompanying videos made it to # 1 on MTV Total Request Live.
Driven by this success, the album sold well and became Avenged Sevenfold's first gold record. He then won platinum in August 2009.
Self-titled album (2007-2008)
Avenged Sevenfold's success prompted them to tour 2006's Ozzfest on the main stage, aligned with the famous Heavy Metal bands such as Dragonforce, Lacuna Coil, Hatebreed, Disturbed, and System of a Down. In the same year they also completed tours around the world, including the United States, United Kingdom (as well as European mainland), Japan, Australia and New Zealand. After a six-month tour of City of Evil promotion, the band announced that they canceled the 2006 tour for the recording of a new album. M. Shadows stated that their fourth album, self-titled and self-production will not be "City of Evil Part 2" or "Waking the Fallen Part 2," but will incorporate new grittier sounds. For a wave of fans, among the new albums, the band released their first DVD entitled "All Excess" on July 17, 2007. All Excess, which debuted as # 1 DVD in the United States, included live performances and backstage footage that stretched Eight years of band career. Two tribute albums, Strung Out on Avenged Sevenfold: Bat Broken Wings and String and Strung Out on Avenged Sevenfold: The String Tribute was also released in October 2011.
Avenged Sevenfold, the band's fourth album, was released on October 30, 2007, debuting at # 4 on the Billboard 200 with over 90,000 copies sold. Two singles, "Critical Acclaim" and "Almost Easy" were released before the debut album. In December 2007, an animated video was made for "A Little Piece of Heaven." Due to the controversial subject matter of the song, however, Warner Brothers is only released to registered MVI users over the internet. The third single, "Afterlife" and the video was published in January 2008. Their fourth single, "Dear God," was released on September 30, 2008. Despite the critically mixed reception, in general, the self-titled album sold over 500,000 copies and was awarded "Album Of the Year "at Kerrang! Awards.
Headline Avenged Sevenfold on Taste of Chaos tour with Atreyu, Bullet for My Valentine, Blessthefall and Idiot Pilot. They used recordings from their last show in Long Beach for Live in LBC & Diamonds on Rough, a two-disc B-side CD and a live DVD released on September 16, 2008. They also recorded many cover songs, including Pantera "Walk," Iron Maiden's "Flash Blade" and Black Sabbath's "Paranoid." They will also release the Guitar Tutorial DVD, which includes five songs, Afterlife, Almost Easy, Bat Country, Beast and the Harlot and Trashed and Scattered. During sold-out festival performances in Leeds and Reading, the band was forced to shorten their Leeds performances and cancel their Reading performances due to the vocal strains experienced by M. Shadows. A few days later, the band was forced to announce the cancellation of the rest of the September show, with a tour to resume on 15 October.
Nightmare (2010-present)
In January 2009, M. Shadows confirmed that the band wrote a self-titled follow-up, their fourth album in the coming months. They also announced that they would be playing at Rock on the Range, from May 16-17, 2009. On April 16th they performed the Guns N 'Roses' version "It's So Easy" onstage with Slash, at the Nokia Theater in Los Angeles. M. Shadows is a vocal on Slash's solo album in the song "Nothing to Say."
They announced that they plan to start writing in June 2009 and recording in October 2009. M. Shadows also stated in an interview with Loveline that the next recording would be a more traditional Heavy Metal, more oriented rock record because of the self-titled notes Very experimental. He also said it would feature a more progressive, old songs and would be "Avenged Sevenfold's biggest record." Also, he says that they may think about a concept note. On July 15, 2009, their website and MySpace profile were updated with a statement from M. Shadows implying that work on the next album has begun and they are still "throwing ideas." The update was on the same day that Waking the Fallen got Gold in America.
On November 5, 2009, Zacky Vengeance posted a message on the official website stating that they had returned from their tour and immediately began focusing on forming a production team to start recording the album. "We will continue to finish our song until we feel any notes both of you and our justice.We are also in the final stages of strengthening our production teams, studios, and engineers so that both axes fall and the album is written we will spend days and nights in the studio until it is finished. This album will take you on a very dark journey ... "
On December 24, 2009, he announced that Avenged Sevenfold had come in second place
Past Members of Avenged Sevenfold:
- Matt Wendt(Bass)
- The Rev(Drum)
- Justin Sane(Bass)
- Mike Portnoy(Drum)
- Dameon Ash(Bass)
- Arin Ilejay(Drum)
Members of Avenged Sevenfold as of now:
- M. Shadows(Vocalist)
- Zacky Vengeance(Rhythm Guitar, Backing Vocal)
- Synyster Gates(Melody Guitar, Piano, Backing Vocal)
- Johnny Christ(Bass, Backing Vocal)
- Brooks Wackerman (Drummer)
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