Avenged Sevenfold to make China debut

Matthew Charles Sanders (right) and other three members of American heavy metal band Avenged Sevenfold. The band will debut in China later this week. [Photo provided to China Daily]

American heavy-metal band Avenged Sevenfold will debut in China, with shows in Beijing and Shanghai later this week.

The exciting band from California has released six studio albums so far, including Hail the King in 2013, which topped the US Billboard 200 album chart. Audiences in China could expect a long list of songs to be played by the band that was formed in 1999.

"We have been playing a lot all over the world, so playing somewhere for the first time is always special. People in America can't believe we are playing in China so it truly is an honor," says Matthew Charles Sanders, the band's lead vocalist and co-founder, who is better known by his stage name, M. Shadows.

"We are going to perform all songs the fans want to hear," he tells China Daily ahead of the shows.

While fans of metal music are still growing in China, the biggest such event to draw the youth here was Metallica's first performance in the country in 2013.

Sanders considers the album, Nightmare, as the most important record for the group and describes it as "a love letter" dedicated to James Owen Sullivan, nicknamed "The Rev", the band's drummer who died in 2009, aged 28.

"He passed away just before we were going into the studio to record the material. It had to be done right," says Sanders.

Nightmare was the band's first No 1 album on the US Billboard 200 album chart when it was released in August 2010.

With the current lineup, including guitarists and backing vocalists Zacky Vengeance and Synyster Gates, bassist Johnny Christ, and drummer Arin Ilejay, the band performed at a number of musical events in 2014, including the Download Festival in Britain in June.

"So much was made out of a new band taking the step and I'm glad we nailed it. Also it feels like something we have been aiming for our whole careers," says he.

Influenced by rock and metal groups such as Guns N' Roses and Metallica, Sanders formed Avenged Sevenfold along with Vengeance, Sullivan and past member Matt Wendt when they all were teenagers, recording their first album, Sounding the Seventh Trumpet, as high-schoolers.

According to Sanders, they wanted to be cool so they named the band, Avenged Sevenfold, from the book of Genesis in the Bible. There's never been a defining moment for the band's success but a "gradual steady climb", he adds.

In the past 15 years, the band's members have built up a big fan base with their energetic sounds and live onstage performances.

People would also be surprised to know of the many hobbies that the members have offstage, including being big sports and video-games fans.

In October, the band also released its original mobile role-playing game, Hail to the King: Deathbat.

The band members have "made appearances" in games such as EA Sports, Guitar Hero and Call of Duty Black Ops 1 and 2.

The band's new studio album may be ready for release in 2016.

Sanders says that all the albums they have made were different because they easily get bored with old sounds and are always looking at ways to evolve.

"Whether that's good is up to the individual listener," he says.

"We just do the opposite of what people expect from us. We do what interests us at the time. We have no interest in working on a sound for a couple (of) years and then touring on that album and then getting back in the studio and doing the same sound all over again."

If you go

8 pm, Jan 8. Huiyuan Space, MasterCard Center, 69 Fuxing Lu (Road), Haidian district, Beijing. 400-610-3721.

8 pm, Jan 9. The Mixing Room, B1 Mercedes-Benz Arena, 1200 Shibo Dadao (Avenue), Pudong, Shanghai. 021-5239 9192.