Zacky Vengeance

“We go out there every night, and we fight the battle. We don't care about people who don't think we're true metal. We hope to change their minds. I have total faith.”

“The first review our band ever got - when I was 17 years old and we had just released our first EP, and this tiny little magazine wrote a review on it, and for that month, we were the best album of the month, and we were also the worst album of the month. We won best and worst album of the month in the same magazine.”

“Mike Elizondo had an incredible array of guitars in the studio, but they were all right-handed.”

“With any success, a lot of voices come out, and you start hearing a lot more opinions on the matter. We've provoked very strong reactions in both directions since day one.”

“With every album, I write above my ability, and my job as a guitarist is to catch up and be able to play it live. The thing about practicing is that once you master something, you don't have to remaster it. You just keep moving forward.”

“We wanted to write the kind of songs that can really cross any language barriers, any borders, and resonate with fans around the world.”

“When we were recording, sometimes I wondered if what we were doing would even be possible to play live.”

“We like to be in touch with our fans, but we're also very private. 'Cause, to us, it's not about Zacky or M. Shadows or Synyster Gates. It's about Avenged Sevenfold; it's more important than any one of us.”

“Basically, we're just a bunch of kids who got together and try to use what we have and try to learn from each other.”

“In terms of content and instrumentation, I feel we have been extremely ambitious on every one of our albums going back to high school. We were the first screaming hardcore band to put a big ballad on our record.”

“We really wanted to create an album that had no boundary or limit to it. There's nothing to say that we couldn't release a song that belongs on 'The Stage' 20 years into our career. We want it to be an album that constantly grows with what we want to do, and that's what we did.”

“Everyone loves to complain that there are no real bands on MTV, yet no one wants to step up to the plate and try to change that.”

“There's people that have never heard our album. The most they've seen is either our video on 'TRL' or our picture on the cover of magazines.”

“Once you can get a fan to listen to an album a handful of times and really have a lot of substance for them to grasp, then you're looking at having a fan that really appreciates what you do for life and can appreciate coming to see it live.”

“My dad played some guitar, and both my parents are fans of music and have huge record collections.”

“We're not a Screamo band.”

“I remember when I was a kid, every time the Beatles were on the radio, my dad would say he'd give me a dollar if I could tell him what band it was. So by the time I was about nine, I knew to just say 'The Beatles,' and I'd get a dollar out of it.”

“I remember what it felt like when I was young, and I looked up to someone, and they would pay me just an ounce of attention. And some of the bands I listened to when I was young probably never even sold any albums, but it didn't matter to me. If I'd go up and say, 'Great show,' it would be amazing that they even would acknowledge me.”

“I think there's a whole group of kids out there that don't relate to the glitz and glamour of hanging out in clubs and partying all the time. So I think some people are just more real than that, and I think our fans are those kind of kids that need something to relate to, and I think we're the band to do it.”

“It was a big deal for us to be on Ozzfest, especially as one of the main headliners and being the band that wasn't announced: the mystery band. We'd never played the second stage at Ozzfest, and all of a sudden we're on the main stage.”