M Shadows, Zacky Vengeance interview (excerpts)

How did Mike Portnoy become involved in the recording process?

M Shadows: “We kept talking about the record and we were throwing around ideas. I’d been talking to Mike a lot lately. He’s a fan of Avenged Sevenfold and he was in touch with me a lot after Jimmy passed away. He sent one of his cymbals to the funeral and signed all this stuff and sent it to Jimmy’s parents, and he was very sympathetic to the situation so we decided to ask him to help us out. Jimmy had already laid down all the drum parts for the record. We did it on an electronic drum kit in my home studio, just so that the demos sounded good. The drum tracks weren’t really usable for the record because of the tones and the triggers and stuff, so basically we asked Mike to record it all again for us. That’s how we got to the point of doing the record. Mike was a little bit of saving grace for us at a really, really dark time.”

It must have helped to know that you had one of the best drummers of the planet reproducing Jimmy's work...

M Shadows: “Definitely. We didn’t want to put out a record and not have it up to the standard that we were used to having with Jimmy playing drums, you know? So Mike had a couple of weeks to learn the drums and bring a little of his own flair to it, but we kept it really close to how Jimmy wanted it and we even saved some of Jimmy’s vocals from the demos. So in the end it was one of those things, it was kind of therapeutic but also really hard to get through.”

At such a difficult time for you all, did it help to have someone else in the studio?

Zacky: “Mike’s such a good person. When something like this happens, how you react really shows what kind of character you are. He was a fun guy to be around, an absolute blast. If he wanted to play on the album, how could we refuse? There’s no one else who could do Jimmy justice at this point.”

M Shadows: “Mike was such a cool guy to hang out with. He was so fun. He came into the studio and was very sympathetic and he just said, ‘You guys, just tell me what to play’ and he’d sit there for hours, spend 10 hours on a song, because he wanted it to be right. Everything was very meticulous and very respectful to what Jimmy wanted. He brought a real lightheartedness to the process, which was great because the last thing we wanted was a bunch of stress. Honestly, Jimmy had a lot of huge influences, everyone from Lars Ulrich to Vinnie Paul and Paul Bostaph and Dave Lombardo and all those guys, but Mike is the one guy that I could really hear in Jimmy’s sound. He’s probably the only guy that could get it right. Not that those other guys couldn’t play the stuff, but Portnoy could really do it all.”

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How do you feel about the future of the band now? Do you intend to tour and will Mike Portnoy be able to play drums for you?

M Shadows: “Originally we didn’t know if we were going to tour or not. We were actually thinking about not touring. Right now, the idea of touring makes me feel sick to my stomach, but I know it’s the next step and I know that we have a few months to think about it and figure out what we’re gonna do. Right now, we don’t want to audition people. We don’t think anyone else could ever make us happy on stage. Mike has offered his services, which is awesome. He said that if we wanted to go on the road, he’d help us out and we’d make it work somehow. But the whole touring thing is going to be really hard. We really want to tour because we want people to hear this record and hear the last piece of music that Jimmy wrote, and we realise that if we don’t tour it’ll be hard to get the message out there. So that’s why we’re doing it, and I’m sure we’re all going to puke a few times before we get on stage, when we turn around and Jimmy’s not there. It’s baby steps for us right now. We’ll tour but we’re not sure where or for how long.”

Zacky: “What we’re going through is so hard to describe, and touring is going to be really fuckin’ hard. We love making music together, we love being in Avenged Sevenfold, we love our fans... but first and foremost we’ve lost our best friend. Jimmy was an amazing person. Now we get to show the world the music that we wrote together. We’ve got to get out there and tell our story.”