How Avenged Sevenfold Fooled Us All With Decoys & Chatbots

Avenged Sevenfold's mega-selling 2013 record Hail To The King was widely derided and even (not unjustifiably) mocked in some quarters for being derivative of hard rock's forebears. However, the Californian metal titans opted to blaze a trail within the heavy music realm - at least regarding delivery - for the follow-up. Seventh studio album, The Stage (their first featuring new drummer Brooks Wackerman) landed on October 28. High profile artists within other genres have unleashed records without prior notice, but Avenged Sevenfold became the inaugural rock act to issue an unannounced album in digital and physical format.

They revealed all during a live-streamed performance from the Capitol Records tower in Hollywood. It's a stirring feat that all parties kept it under wraps; axeman Zacky Vengeance explains how they utilised various means of misdirection. "We see what other bands do, and you can have a big lead-up to an album and release a bunch of singles and it just gets so boring at a certain point. For us it was like, 'what's the exciting thing to do?' For us it was secretly record an album, then release it in the most grandiose fashion we could.

"We had our friend [Fozzy frontman/WWE superstar] Chris Jericho post a picture on Instagram with a fake album title [Voltaic Oceans] with a fake [December] release date."

"We had to send out decoys all along the way. We literally broke down every single day leading up to the album [of] what we had to do to push people's attention away from searching for the album, searching for the leak. We had our friend [Fozzy frontman/WWE superstar] Chris Jericho post a picture on Instagram with a fake album title [Voltaic Oceans] with a fake [December] release date. That caught people's attention, and sent 'em in one direction. We set up an Artificial Intelligent chatbot on our website, that would answer people's questions and that would send them in a different direction."

Although a potential game-changer for heavy outfits, staying tight-lipped seemingly has its cons. The lack of pre-release press campaigning and online teaser content likely detracted from all-important first week numbers, with sales noticeably down Stateside. Vengeance admits many fans remain unaware of The Stage. "We knew that due to the surprise release it was going to take extra work once the album came out and we were definitely prepared to do it. We just wanted to be the first rock/metal band to do something different. No one had ever released an album streaming, digitally and physically at the same time. We've had #1 records in the States and some other countries, but we've never been the first band to try and push the boundaries of what we can do for our fans. So far our fans are loving it. And it's up to them to spread the word and keep it going. For us, this is only the beginning."

The Stage is a 70-minute concept effort; a musically more expansive affair examining topics far removed from their metalcore origins. "Having travelled the world, we were a lot more aware of our surroundings," Vengeance enthuses. "We started reading different books and talking with each other. Coming across different articles that were written on stuff like artificial intelligence, the universe, evolution. It's all stuff that we've always been aware of, but this is the first time that it was really, truly intriguing [to us]."

After unsuccessfully approaching astronomer/author Carl Sagan's estate, the LP features a spoken word guest appearance by astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson. "Neil has written some incredible books that we've all spent a lot of time talking about to each other. He was just the perfect choice."

Despite the criticism levelled at Hail To The King, Vengeance also believes "at this point in our career there's really nothing to prove". "Our first single's eight and a half minutes long, which is pretty much unheard of at this point," he chuckles. "Our last song on the album goes for 15 minutes. We just wanted to make great music that we were really proud of, for our fans."

Avenged Sevenfold is however contending with a legal tussle involving former label Warner Bros, who are claiming breach of contract. The quintet has disavowed an upcoming 'best of' compilation via Warner, suggesting devotees instead create playlists of songs featured on said product themselves. "We never gave them permission, we never agreed to anything," the guitarist offers.

"Any break-up is never fun... But it was about doing the right thing for the future of Avenged Sevenfold.

"[They] wanted to try and trick our fans, and quickly put out a 'best of' album for, funnily enough, a fake release date we had sent out," he laughs of the red herrings. "And try and undercut what they believed would be our first week. If that's the games that they want to play, it's sad. Because for us it was never about trying to fuck them or anything. It was trying to do right by our fans and to do what we felt was right in our heart."