Avenged Sevenfold's M Shadows slams 'childish' Warner Bros

A picture Avenged Sevenfold
Avenged Sevenfold (Image credit: Getty)

Avenged Sevenfold frontman M Shadows says Warner Brothers’ upcoming A7X Best Of release is “childish on a whole new level.”

Warner and Avenged Sevenfold are locked in a legal dispute and the band recently sneak released their new album The Stage via their new label Capitol Records.

But as rumours – led by a social media post from Fozzy frontman Chris Jericho – circulated that Avenged Sevenfold were about to reveal details of the new album, Warner announced a 2CD compilation called The Best Of 2005-2013, which is set for release on December 2.

Shadows previously described the move as a “cash grab” designed to confuse casual fans, and he has now gone further and blasted it as “childish.”

Shadows tells 101.1 WJRR: “We’re not promoting that at all. That has nothing to do with us. They, basically, saw the date that Chris put up, and, from what we understand, they are trying to undercut our new record, so they were trying to put it out the week before.

“And as childish as things can be behind the scenes with lawyers and stuff, as I’m sure you can imagine, this is childish on a whole new level.

“You’re gonna try to put this record out right before our new record just to undercut us and try to confuse the casual fan, like, ‘Is this the new record? Or is that the new record?’ Or parents buying stuff for Christmas.”

He continues: “So it’s just really childish. It doesn’t even have a good pick of songs. And it’s a record label, basically, digging themselves into a deeper hole, as far as I’m concerned, because it doesn’t look good to other bands who are potentially gonna sign there, and it doesn’t look good to fans.”

Meanwhile, Shadows has also posted a comment on Facebook in which he addresses how it was reported that The Stage is A7X’s slowest-selling album since 2005’s City Of Evil.

He says: “When I said I had ‘mixed feelings’ about the results I simply meant that there is a part of me that knows a traditional release would have been easier and we could all parade around with another meaningless number one.”

His statement can be read in full below.

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

How Avenged Sevenfold pulled off one of the biggest shocks of 2016

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.