Avenged Sevenfold is currently trekking across the U.S. on their Life Is But a Dream… tour along with Sullivan King and Poppy. The tour is named after the band’s new album, released in 2023, and features portions of the band’s new VR concert, . PopCulture.com recently had a chance to chat with A7X frontman M. Shadows who offered some insight into how they put their new stage show together.
“We just create, and then sometimes things are just super obvious and easy,” Shadows explained when asked if they considered how their new songs would be performed for a live audience when crafting them, “and then sometimes things are like, ‘Well, I don’t know what we’re going to do.’ And you try to figure things out and ideas.”
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Shadows also shared a question from a good friend who, when the band announced their VR concert, asked, “When you have this tool now, does it change the way you write the next?” This, he says, sparked his own curiosity. “Do you think differently because there’s now, instead of sitting home at night and putting headphones on and being in your own head, now you have this medium where you could write a record and the visuals and the VR all go together, and that’s the record?”
“The art sort of influences what the music is going to be in the music,” Shadows continued, then comparing the music industry’s approach to technological evolution with another medium. “So it was a really good question, because if you think about how the video game industry has adapted to technology, they’ve done it incredibly well. They make more money now, and they give more value than just about any company that’s around or any sort of industry that’s around.”
“The music industry has really struggled,” he added. “They’ve sued a lot of people. They’ve had to get in bed with people after the fact of disruption. They’ve really dragged their feet. So, you wonder if the play really is embracing some of these new technologies and changing the art from the ground up of how we create and using things like VR or these different mediums as a way to sort of bring the music industry into the next chapter.”
Coinciding with the new tour, Avenged Sevenfold has announced the A7X Season Pass, a fan loyalty program allowing the band to reward its community. Structured similarly to a gaming pass — a tiered system of possible rewards that allows players to collect XP and unlock new tiers — the A7X Season Pass is like this but with concerts, vinyl, streaming, events, and merchandise as the XP. Fans earn points from actions they’re already doing.
Click here to learn more about the A7X Season Pass, and click here for a full list of Life Is But a Dream tour dates and tickets.
