M. Shadows on Why A7X Decided To Release The Deluxe Edition of ‘The Stage’
Hitting stores today (December 22) is the deluxe edition of Avenged Sevenfold‘s The Stage.
Originally surprise-released during October of 2016, the set now features all of the cover songs A7X released digitally this year as well as one outtake, “Dose” and five live tracks. A7X conceived the projecting as an “evolving album,” according to frontman M. Shadows, but he tells us that the group learned its fans ultimately wanted a physical product that would encompass everything related to the album:
“All these things make me really happy we did the surprise release and have rolled things out with the evolving record this way, because I feel like the fans are really engaged and they just don’t know what we’re gonna do next and I think that’s fun for them and it’s also fun for us…The rock fan just really wants a product at some point, and we got a lot of pushback online and we said, ‘Hey, why don’t we just put out the product? We got the stuff there, so we’ll put this out in one big package, throw in some live stuff we’ve been doing last year when we started The Stage Tour and kinda make a cool package’ and decided to put it out right before Christmas.”
A7X is taking the holiday off before hitting the road for a North American headlining tour on January 12 in Nashville, with Breaking Benjamin and Bullet For My Valentine opening.
Gary Graff is an award-winning music journalist who not only covers music but has written books on Bob Seger, Neil Young and Bruce Springsteen.
