Zacky Vengeance

“This country is filled with remarkable people. One of my best friend's families is from Iran, and they're the most American family of all time. Some of the best people that I've ever met are immigrants.”

“We didn't say, 'Hey, we're gonna pick a bunch of cover songs,' or, 'We're gonna write an original song that has to sound like this, because we're a metal band, so we're gonna cover some metal songs.' We did the opposite. We just said, 'We're gonna have fun with these songs, and we're gonna try different things.'”

“We've shown everyone we are musicians first and foremost: we'll produce our own albums and play The 100 Club. We earned people's respect. We're not the band on MTV, wearing a bunch of makeup. We've proved we're the real deal.”

“If we were to find a drummer that we were comfortable with and who we felt could really become a part of what we're about, it'd be great. But would we ever rush to find a guy just get back on the road? No. I think we'd rather go down with the ship.”

“You carry on knowing that there's something so much more important than yourself to deliver to millions of fans across the world, to all your friends, and to yourself.”

“I have no formal guitar training whatsoever, so it's been fun learning sweep-picking techniques. Working on these types of licks has thrown a whole new collection of tricks into the mix.”

“Even when we were at that point when we had very few fans, we never felt like a small band. We always felt like we had a big purpose.”

“One of our biggest pet peeves is listening to bands that use harmony guitars for the sake of it. If you can't figure out how do something different than Maiden, UFO, or even Boston, then what's the point?”

“Not everyone is going to love you. Not everyone is going to like what you do, and you see a lot of people don't want to let go of the bands that they love. They don't want to move forward. They don't want to let new things come in; they're scared of change. They're scared of new bands taking over their genre. They're just scared of change.”

“We've never tried to write radio hits. If I hear our song on the radio, it's cool, and I'm proud, but it's never a goal.”

“We're focused on making our fans happy, keeping each other happy, so we can do this forever.”

“A lot of people have ideas and opinions on what Avenged Sevenfold should be or what we should do, and I think our No. 1 rule is to always make sure we never listen to any of that and to always do what we believe.”

“I can't honestly say with a straight face that every Avenged Sevenfold album is my favorite.”

“Our first radio single, 'The Stage,' was eight-and-a-half minutes long. Unabashedly, we wanted to push the limits musically, lyrically, and instrumentation-wise.”

“There's always going to be haters, but those people are few. We're not too worried about it.”

“We're not the kind of people to just take a break and say everything's going good, you know, let's rest on our laurels, act like rock stars - we take it very seriously, and we certainly aren't just celebrating and doing a victory lap.”

“To be honest, we never, ever let business weigh down the creativity of this band.”

“After 'City of Evil,' the world was still kind of apprehensive about Avenged Sevenfold. They didn't know if we were a serious band or just some kids trying to play really ambitious music with crazy guitar parts that would be here one minute and gone the next.”

“For us to dial back a little bit and have a little more straightforward, singalong appeal was a challenge. In order to do that, we had to throw away a lot of stuff.”

“From day one, we've always gotten backlash for certain outlandish ideas that we've had and presented. That's also kind of been the driving force that's pushed us forward.”