Apparently, M. Shadows of Avenged Sevenfold has never heard any Lamb Of God or Decapitated, or even The Black Dahlia Murder, because according to him, after the 90's it was all downhill for metal.
In a new interview with Kerrang! magazine to hype up his band's new album, Hail To The King out this fall, Shadows discusses the "glory days" and how metal is not as "mainstream" as it once was:
"We feel that metal dropped off after the '90s in terms of production and songwriting," Shadows said after naming the likes of Pantera, Metallica and Megadeth as the new record's main influences. "Metal music isn't at the forefront as much as it used to be."
The vocalist elaborated further, "We wanted to write a record that was highly influenced by the early '90s records and mid-'80s records we grew up on. Then we went back even further and were influenced by [Black] Sabbath and Led Zeppelin. We studied those records, looked at what they were doing and how they were doing it. A lot of them came out of the blues, so we studied the blues and classical music. We just wanted to write a record that was different."
I guess ultimately what he was trying to say is metal isn't as popular as it was in the 90s? While I agree, it isn't as mainstream, I think as a culture, metal is at it's highest point right now. Judas Priest was on American Idol, that's huge!
What do you think about M. Shadows remarks?
