Avenged Sevenfold
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Avenged Sevenfold

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“Jimmy’s death was the hardest hit any of us had ever taken in our lives,” he states. “It’s something you can never prepare yourself for. It still doesn’t feel real. In one moment, it was all gone. We went from having the beginning of an unbelievable-sounding album and one of the best years of our touring life and making a decent amount of money finally – to having our entire world turn upside down. Losing Jimmy was horrific and I don’t wish it upon my worst enemy. No pun intended – but it was a nightmare. Nobody could cope with it. We were at each other’s houses 24/7, curled up into a ball, in blankets, crying with our friends. Nobody could be alone.”

The first “ray of light,” as Vengeance puts it, came in the form of ex-Dream Theater drummer Mike Portnoy who encouraged the band to take all the time they needed to recover from the shock, but also offered his services in regards to the album’s completion. While recording was the last thing the band had on their mind after Sullivan’s sudden passing, Vengeance says after much soul-searching Avenged Sevenfold realised the album presented an opportunity to properly honour their late friend in a way they knew best.

“It was incredible,” sighs Vengeance. “We worked harder than we ever had in our lives on anything – the only thing on our minds was ensuring that Jimmy was going to get the best possible send off. The fact that Nightmare turned into a number one album was just a huge weight lifted off our shoulders. It was a big statement to us, to our fans, to the world, really. We’d never had a number one album before and this was the only chance that Jimmy would ever get to be a part of something as special as that. He deserved it more than anyone. It’s his accolade too.”

But it was Portnoy who added drumming duties to many of the songs on Nightmare, stepping in for Sullivan up until 2011 when someone less experienced became a more obvious choice of drummer. Nothing personal against Portnoy, as Vengeance insists, but the chemistry between band members had always been equally as important as the music, and the much younger, much hungrier Arin Ilejay replaced the former Dream Theater sticksman.

“Look, Mike is amazing as a musician, as a person, and for being that ray of light for us at first,” states Vengeance. “He came to us and helped us at a really devastating time. After we put the record down we were satisfied our job was done, we’d done it for Jimmy, and we were finished. It was over for the band. We had no intention of touring the album. Then it got to number one and Mike started helping us get back on our feet and he encouraged us to play the music to our fans. He was right – our first tour got 17,000 people per night in the ‘States, it was insane! We realised we were doing the right thing by continuing with the band. It’s just that Mike is not necessarily the right fit for our band because you’ve got to have the chemistry. We were looking for someone who was young, ambitious; someone real hungry for it.”

Basically someone who embodied all the qualities of Avenged Sevenfold circa 2001’s Sounding The Seventh Trumpet – youth, energy, passion and, yeah, even inexperience. As the guitarist explains, recruiting Ilejay has been rewarding in more ways than one, describing the new drummer as “a little kid playing in the major leagues.”

“We wanted someone who was exactly like we used to be when we started this band,” Vengeance explains. “Someone who took nothing for granted, someone who would kill for the opportunity, someone who would have been a right fit for the band back in the early days. With Arin, we feel like mentors teaching him all the things that we’ve learned in the last 12 years because it’s all so new to him. No offense to him, but he’s completely naïve and he’s never experienced anything like this band. He’s been doing an amazing job though, especially since this album was never even going to get on the road. After everything that happened, it just took on a life of its own. We never intended to make a record that was so dark, cold, sad and emotional right off the bat, but that’s how it ended up sounding when we got those personal feelings out. It was all we could write about. It’s raw and honest and it’s naturally dark with a deep undertone. This is a period of time when we were in the midst of utter devastation and felt all hope was gone.”