Chris Jericho explains Avenged Sevenfold new album troll job

A picture of Chris Jericho
Chris Jericho (Image credit: Getty)

Chris Jericho has revealed how he and M Shadows plotted to keep the release of Avenged Sevenfold’s new album a secret.

The Fozzy frontman and WWE wrestler appeared to accidentally leak the title and release date of the seventh Avenged Sevenfold album. His Instagram post led to speculation that the record would be called Voltaic Oceans and that it would launch on December 9.

In fact, the album is titled The Stage and it was ‘sneak released’ last week.

Jericho admits that his Instagram post was a deliberate attempt to throw people off the scent of the album’s actual release details.

On his Talk Is Jericho podcast, he says: “It worked so perfectly, we fooled everybody. We were the masters of puppets pulling the strings for all of the media and throwing everybody off the scent of The Stage.

“I just posted this Deathbat with December 09, 2016, and then I put a hashtag of ‘voltaicoceans’ which people were then deciding that would be the name of the record – ‘Voltaic Oceans is out December 9, 2016.’

“And then I pulled it a couple hours later after posting it and suddenly it went viral.

“I made up the whole thing. Voltaic Oceans, I just made it up.”

The Stage is the follow-up to 2013’s Hail To The King and is Avenged Sevenfold’s first album on Capitol Records after their split with Warner Brothers.

Avenged Sevenfold released a video for the album’s title track earlier this month after their ‘deathbat’ logo started appearing in various cities, hinting at the upcoming release.

Avenged Sevenfold tour dates 2017

Jan 10: Glasgow SSE Hydro
Jan 12: Newcastle Metro Radio Arena
Jan 13: Birmingham Genting Arena
Jan 15: Sheffield Arena
Jan 16: Manchester Arena
Jan 18: Nottingham Motorpoint Arena
Jan 19: Cardiff Motorpoint Arena
Jan 21: London O2 Arena
Jan 22: London O2 Arena
Feb 12: Frankfurt Festhalle, Germany
Feb 13: Hamburg Sporthalle, Germany
Feb 15: Berlin Arena, Germany
Feb 16: Dusseldorf Mitsubishi Electric Halle, Germany
Feb 18: Amsterdam Ziggo Dome, Netherlands
Feb 20: Stuttgart Schleyerhalle, Germany
Feb 21: Milan Forum, Italy
Feb 23: Vienna Wiener Stadthalle, Austria
Feb 25: Munich Zenith, Germany
Feb 26: Zurich Halle 622, Austria
Feb 28: Lille Zenith Arena, France
Mar 01: Luxembourg Rockhal, Luxembourg
Mar 02: Paris AccorHotels Arena, France
Mar 04: Copenhagen Valby Hallen, Denmark
Mar 07: Helsinki Hartwall Arena, Finland
Mar 09: Stockholm Ericsson Globe, Sweden
Mar 10: Oslo Telenor, Norway

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Stef wrote close to 5,000 stories during his time as assistant online news editor and later as online news editor between 2014-2016. An accomplished reporter and journalist, Stef has written extensively for a number of UK newspapers and also played bass with UK rock favourites Logan. His favourite bands are Pixies and Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. Stef left the world of rock'n'roll news behind when he moved to his beloved Canada in 2016, but he started on his next 5000 stories in 2022.