Disorderly Conduct For avenged Sevenfold

Avenged Sevenfold are flag-waving, former high school delinquents looking for the good life

He swears it's in check now, but Avenged Sevenfold frontman M. Shadows had such serious anger-management problems as a kid that he was kicked out of two different Huntington Beach, California, schools. The first time was for smashing a woman's car windows after a sixth-grade pizza party. The second, in seventh grade, ended with the mysterious death of the school principal.

As Shadows (real name Matt Sanders) tells the story, he'd been slammed by the principal for leaning on a newly planted tree on school grounds. What really lit his fuse, though, was when the principal called Shadows a "punk" -- and not as in "punk rocker." That night, Shadows returned to the campus and ripped up every new tree. Someone ratted him out, but before he could be punished, the principal keeled over from heart failure. "He'd been a big steroid user, but they blamed me and kicked me out," says Shadows. "After that, everyone said I was 'the kid that killed the principal.' "

Six feet two and all muscle, Shadows cuts an intimidating figure, but these days he's found a less destructive, and more profitable, outlet for his rage. Avenged Sevenfold -- the goth-metal band Shadows leads, along with guitarists Zacky Vengeance and Synyster Gates, bassist Johnny Christ and drummer the Reverend -- were the hottest act on last summer's Warped Tour. Their major-label debut, City of Evil, is tunefully pummeling thrash, full of songs about demons and harlots, as if Metallica were starring in a cartoony horror movie.

A7X thrive on their contradictions: Their name is biblical (it comes from the promise that Cain's slaying of Abel will be avenged seven times over), yet their breakthrough video for "Bat Country" is a bacchanalian romp inspired by Hunter S. Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Their politics are pretty conservative, but they are just as staunch in their belief that "the good life" includes access to large supplies of strippers, sports cars and controlled substances. In fact, they are bent on reviving the metal excess of their beloved Guns n' Roses.

The band members -- who range in age from twenty-one to twenty-four and have known each other since childhood -- grew up middle-class in Huntington Beach. For years, they were downwardly mobile -- not long ago they were touring in a van and eating ramen noodles without water, "just for a change of texture," says Gates. But things have turned around in the past year, and the guys are unapologetically gleeful. "We enjoy the finer things in life," says Gates. "We want money. We want nice cars. We want beautiful women."

"Only difference is," adds Vengeance, "we're not afraid to admit it."

That's not the only difference between Avenged Sevenfold and their Warped Tour peers. There's also their politics. Among the T-shirts they sell on tour is one with the A7X skull-and-bat-wings logo in front of an American flag, above which reads LOVE IT OR DIE. Gates is a gun collector who spends some of his downtime at a shooting range. "We're an American band, and we take pride in that," says Shadows. "A lot of kids are anti-America for no reason, and they live in the best country in the world."

Like the group's two previous indie releases, City of Evil incorporates epic guitar solos, a bowel-rumbling bottom end and the gloomy imagery of vintage British metal like Judas Priest and Iron Maiden. The songs clock in, on average, upwards of six minutes.

"We're bringing back long songs," says Shadows, noting that Alice in Chains had six-minute songs too. And that's not all the bands share: Shadows works with Ron Anderson, vocal coach for the late Alice frontman Layne Staley, one of his idols. Following A7X's last album, Waking the Fallen, Shadows required surgery on his vocal cords for a broken blood vessel. Once he recovered, he started vocal training with Anderson.

"At first, I was like, 'Whatever,'" says Shadows. "But then I find out he's done Axl [Rose] and Chris Cornell and Kylie [Minogue] and Enrique Iglesias." Shadows worked with Anderson six days a week leading up to the recording of City of Evil. "I started using all my money from my advance," Shadows says. "He saved my life, vocally." Even on tour, the singer connects with Anderson for online or phone lessons every couple of days.

His bandmates may enjoy their indulgences, but Shadows has only one addiction: self-discipline. Between his vocal exercises and his regular workout, he follows a strict throat-friendly diet that excludes dairy, caffeine, spicy foods and even -- gasp! -- alcohol. "As soon as I start gaining any weight or looking different, I flip out," he says. "I'm just really competitive. I hate losing more than anything. So I definitely stick to my regimen, which is good because it keeps me on the straight and narrow. The other guys are pretty much out of their minds."

Though things are fairly tame in San Diego on the first night of their current headlining tour, Avenged Sevenfold claim that the "Bat Country" clip is simply a glamorized version of their real lives. "Going crazy in Vegas, parties, gambling, strip clubs -- we do all those things," says Gates.

"If a girl wants to show a band her tits," Vengeance chimes in, "she's having a good time. She's in the moment."

"Yeah, we're not gonna say, 'Stop! Don't do that!'" says Shadows, his diamond-encrusted fake teeth catching the light as he smiles. "That stuff has become so taboo. It didn't used to be that way. We love rock & roll from the late Eighties and early Nineties. We love the rock stars, and all the shit that goes with it. We're trying to take what we know from that era, bypass this whole anti-rock-star era and take people into the next one."