After adding nimble lead guitarist Synyster Gates, Avenged Sevenfold achieved this goal (and then some) with their frantic, aggressive 2001 debut full-length, Sounding the Seventh Trumpet. Shadows (real name: Matt Sanders), guitarist Zacky Vengeance, and drummer James “The Rev” Sullivan co-founded the Huntington, CA, band in 1999 while still in high school, with the goal of fusing together punk, metal, and hardcore. “We were going against Britney Spears and Rihanna on TRL.” Finding success while recalibrating audience expectations has always been an Avenged Sevenfold trademark.
“We were pretty much one of the only new breed of rock bands being played on MTV,” he recalled to Apple Music.
with 2005’s pulverizing twin-guitar assault “Bat Country,” their sudden popularity was akin to “madness,” according to frontman M. When Avenged Sevenfold broke through in the U.S.
