Avenged Sevenfold bassist Johnny Christ says the band are playing the long game when it comes to sales of their new album The Stage.
The band sneak released the album in October with little promotion and after an elaborate ploy to create a smokescreen and, as a result, early sales figures have not been encouraging. But Christ insists the band always knew that would be the case and that they are more interested in long-term results than short-term sales.
He tells Kaaos TV: “When you run that risk, you kind of know it’s gonna happen. For us, it wasn’t so important where we started but, ‘Let’s see where we finish’ kind of feel.
“We wanted to do something cool and different, and we were able to accomplish that. We were well aware of the risk going into it, and now that it’s happened, and now that we’ve seen pretty much where we ended up after the first couple of weeks, now we’re ready to go out there and kick some ass on the road and see where we finish with this thing.
“We had that plan in motion when we were writing the record, pretty much. We wanted to do something different and have a surprise release.
“It went off really well – better than we could have hoped. And there was no leaks. We got to do the surprise release, which I think was an exciting thing for our fans.”
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He continues: “The importance of first-week sales has kind of diminished, in our opinion, in the industry, and we don’t really know what it really means anymore. It is what it is in the industry. And for us, it’s all about the endgame, not where it begins.”
Avenged Sevenfold are the cover stars of the new issue of Metal Hammer magazine. Issue 291 is available now in print and via TeamRock+.
Avenged Sevenfold tour dates 2017
Jan 10: Glasgow SSE Hydro, UK
Jan 12: Newcastle Metro Radio Arena, UK
Jan 13: Birmingham Genting Arena, UK
Jan 15: Sheffield Arena, UK
Jan 16: Manchester Arena, UK
Jan 18: Nottingham Motorpoint Arena, UK
Jan 19: Cardiff Motorpoint Arena, UK
Jan 21: London O2 Arena, UK
Jan 22: London O2 Arena, UK
Feb 12: Frankfurt Festhalle, Germany
Feb 13: Hamburg Sporthalle, Germany
Feb 15: Berlin Arena, Germany
Feb 16: Dusseldorf Mitsubishi Electric Halle, Germany
Feb 18: Amsterdam Ziggo Dome, Netherlands
Feb 20: Stuttgart Schleyerhalle, Germany
Feb 21: Milan Forum, Italy
Feb 23: Vienna Wiener Stadthalle, Austria
Feb 25: Munich Zenith, Germany
Feb 26: Zurich Halle 622, Austria
Feb 28: Lille Zenith Arena, France
Mar 01: Luxembourg Rockhal, Luxembourg
Mar 02: Paris AccorHotels Arena, France
Mar 04: Copenhagen Valby Hallen, Denmark
Mar 07: Helsinki Hartwall Arena, Finland
Mar 09: Stockholm Ericsson Globe, Sweden
Mar 10: Oslo Telenor, Norway
