Avenged Sevenfold frontman M. Shadows says that the rock genre needs to update its default settings, and adopt a more progressive mindset in line with other musical genres in order to compete.
The Californian singer was speaking with music industry commentator Bob Lefsetz on the latter's podcast, and made his comments in relation to the group's experiences with streaming, and the old-fashioned reactions they encountered.
"We did that surprise release [with 2016's The Stage], we had the pushback, and it kind of shocked us," Shadows admits. "I think every time you bring up streaming to people, and you get all these old bands that are bitter about it, and it's very weird.
"They're still in 2022 talking about how music doesn't make any money, no one's buying our CDs," he continues. "Maybe you're not relevant? Let's be relevant, let's put our hat in the ring so when they're listening to [Justin] Bieber or The Weeknd, they can jump over to Metallica and Avenged Sevenfold. We're playing in the same park here."
For Shadows, this reluctance to embrace streaming in the modern age seems self-defeating.
"You still get these people that are, 'Streaming's killed industry, and now we got to do this and we got to do that'," the singer tells Lefsetz. "No, streaming kind of saved the industry, It saved the user, I call them the Web 2.0 user. The fan gets to listen to you at any point, so how are you going to get their attention? How are you going to be the best thing that's going to be going through their earholes that day?"
Shadows also mentioned the fact that we will have to wait a little longer before receiving the new A7X album in our earholes.
He said: "We kind of took some time off for family, COVID, weird touring circumstances, some changes within our team… And we are still currently with one record left on Warner Brothers Records. We'll be finishing that record up – I think we have May locked out [for when] our producer can get back to work on it, and then we're going to mix with Andy Wallace in August.
"And then we're going to figure out if it's the first quarter, or fourth quarter, or what we're going to do. So, the status is that, and then we're going to be booking tours, put the tickets on sale when the record comes out, and the whole nine yards."
Listen to the full interview with The Bob Lefsetz Podcast below:
