Avenged Sevenfold are one of those bands that are constantly working on something cool. The guys recently released theHail To The King: Deathbat video game among a heavy touring schedule.M Shadows recently caught up with Full Metal Jackie to talk about the game as well as how they keep their love of music alive.

When you first discover music, its such a powerful presence in your life. Its pure passion. But, once it becomes a career theres a real danger that your love of music can change. How do you make sure that music never loses the mystique that captured you in the first place?

We do a lot of things that kind of annoy people and our fan base. We try not to get overloaded on it. For us, that means we dont do social media stuff we have an Avenged Sevenfold social media but none of the band members have Facebooks or any sort of Twitter. Its not because we dont want to be around the fans, but its a constant hounding of this is your job, this is what you do, this is what youre known for, talk to us all day about music. It gets away from the music and starts getting into other things like we were talking about earlier. It has no interest to me.

For what we do, we take time off, we re-calibrate. People go surfing, I like to golf. We like to do other things, just get away from it. We dont completely immerse our life in it so much to where the things that arent important become important to us. We try to keep it when were going to write a record, we get into the studio together, we have a great time and we try to write the best songs we possibly can without any other outside influence. Whether it be what fans want or what the label wants, this or that. Thats the way you keep it fresh because as soon as you get bored with what youre doing or not proud of what youre doing or you put out a record or go on tour when you didnt want to, thats when it becomes a job. Our mission since day one was to make sure this never felt like a job. We just keep ourselves sane before we try to please anybody else.

Gene Simmons recent statement that rock is dead really stirred up a lot of passionate reactions from other musicians. Whats your take on his statement? Especially since your band is at the forefront of keeping heavy music alive.

Quotes like that are just click bait for people. People that are in bands that want to play music for the love of music are going to do it regardless of what his quote was. I read his quote, I think some of it is taken out of context. I understand what hes saying, but rock music will never die. We all know that. It doesnt mean its in the forefront of all entertainment and music right now, its obviously not. But I understand what hes saying and I understand everybody and their responses to it. To me its just all drama online and I could care less.

You grew up liking classic bands like Guns N Roses, Maiden, Metallica. Whats the most surreal aspect about the realization that you and your band now inspiring kids to musically express themselves too, just like your favorite bands did?

It feels good, because theres nothing quite like picking up a guitar or getting a drum set or sitting down and creating music with your friends for the first time. You can never replace that now. I can sit there and say I love walking on stage and playing music with my best friend, which I still get to do. But nothing was quite like the early days when you got to that garage and the first time the power cord seems to be in tune and youre locked in with Jimmy playing the drums and Zack is over there and were making music for the first time and youre actually learning your way around instruments. Theres nothing quite like it.

I think that if we can inspire kids to do that and pick up instruments and better themselves and help them be good at something. Whether thats playing guitar or piano, or drums and being good at music. Its really cool because it makes you feel good about yourself, its a healthy thing. To practice really hard and become accomplished at something. If we can inspire a kid to pick up a guitar, and less and less kids are doing so these days, itd be really cool because I know how it felt growing up and how special that was for me.

Now that the video game is coming out, when will the band collectively turn its attention to new music and the next album and touring cycle?

We have a couple of places that we never hit on the Hail to the King world tour and were going to take care of those places first. Right now were really in a recalibration mode where were throwing around ideas and getting excited again, but theres really no point of trying to write a record just to write a record. Theres no point of starting too soon, because you just burn out quickly again.

For us, what we want to do is, get ourselves to the point where we cant stand it any longer and we have to write a record just to get it out. We just started hanging out with our families and being home, doing things weve been wanting to do. The next record and the future of whats going to happen is so much in the infant stage, I really have no clue. But I do know that when the fire is burning again, which I know it will, because its already starting. We like to wait to a point where we have to get in there and write a record because were just so built up.

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