Fast and heavy metal with a vengeance

Californian band Avenged Sevenfold are rising quickly through the heavy metal ranks.

They play hard and party harder. No wonder young Californian metal band Avenged Sevenfold are on the up and one of the biggest metal bands on the planet.

They've just finished the Ozzfest tour - a 26-date, heavy metal roadshow around the United States - where they were fourth on the bill behind System of a Down, Disturbed, and the man himself, Ozzy Osbourne.

"It's pretty big," says lead guitarist Synyster Gates (real name Brian Haner Jr.). "There's lots of kids, and the bands playing on our stage are pretty big, so they don't really turn up until it's time to go on ... But I hear the second stage is completely beserk," he says, sounding as though he'd prefer to be partying over there.

You see Avenged Sevenfold, who play the Powerstation in Auckland next Wednesday, August 23, with the Bleeders (note the change of date), have a partying reputation of Motley Crue-sized proportions.

After the show they like to indulge in boozing, substance abuse, groupie-shagging and other degenerate behaviour.

But Gates, who does not deny this goes on, is keen to set the record straight: "Our songs are pretty intricate and complex. And we all do vocals, so we have to take care of our voices. We're out here to play music, be professional and that's what we do. After the show we go [expletive] crazy, but not to the extent where it would compromise the next day's performance. Safe partying," he laughs.

And he reckons they haven't had to grow up as the band has got bigger since starting out in 1999 when they were all at high school.

"It's the opposite. We had to start out by being professional because it was all DIY back then. Now, we hire [expletive] to do it for us."

Avenged Sevenfold - known as A7X to its fans - are not your typical metal band. Their songs are generally longer than the norm, most off their latest album, City Of Evil, are between six and nine minutes.

"We're great fans of Guns N' Roses, Metallica, Mr Bungle, and Led Zeppelin IV was the first CD I bought. All those bands have super-long songs," he says.

And at times their punk-meets-metal sound is experimental. In Sidewinder - a seven-minute epic - there's a mid-song interlude with a beefy Latino guitar.

"That's just my style of playing. I never go for the Latin feel, it just comes out naturally. Then we added congos.

"But we don't play that one at Ozzfest," he laughs, knowing the kids don't want interludes at festivals.

The band - made up of Gates, singer M. Shadows, guitarist Zacky Vengeance, bass player Johnny Christ and drummer The Rev - all lived in the same neighbourhood when growing up. "We were all best friends and we've known each other since second grade," he remembers.

Gates says he was always going to play music for a living. Music is in his blood - his father played guitar with freak rocker Frank Zappa.

But he admits his dad never had much time for him and almost everything he knows about guitar playing he taught himself from books and watching music videos.

"And I was never any good in school, I got expelled, didn't get good grades, so there was never any other option than music."

The band released their debut album, Sounding the Seventh Trumpet, in 2001 when they were 18 and they haven't stopped since.

"We did our first record very very young, and went crazy. And we have slowly been escaping the confounds of all the bullshit and finding ourselves.

"I'm just going to write whatever the [expletive] I want because that's what happened on City of Evil. If it made us laugh, and we still loved it, we left it, and a lot of our stuff is tongue-in-cheek.

"And hey," he says, "I'm partying with my best friends, playing crazy good music that I truly want to play and write, and just having an amazing time."

* Sevenfold at the Powerstation, Mt Eden Rd, Auckland, Wednesday, August 23.

* Albums: Sounding the Seventh Trumpet (2001), Waking the Fallen (2003), City Of Evil, out now.