Though it's mostly remembered as a staple of teeny-bopper culture, MTV's video countdown showTotal Request Live was not without its harder-hitting moments: After all, no one loved Korn or Good Charlotte quite like the kids.
Sometime in 2005, the show's producers came across Avenged Sevenfold, a then-rising California outfit who'd recently transitioned from a free-wheeling metalcore outfit to a sinister sleaze-metal band reminiscent of Guns N' Roses. That year's breakout album City of Evil — bolstered by the gold-selling smash "Bat Country," the video to which A7X-adoring "TRL" viewers voted to No. 1, and high-profile stint on the Vans Warped Tour — had only raised their profile further.
In January 2006, M. Shadows, Synyster Gates, Zacky Vengeace, Johnny Christ and the Rev cemented their newfound stardom by delivering an explosive rendition of their beloved "Bat Country" at TRL's New York City headquarters.
"It was a decision-making process," Shadows said of the lead-up to the band's TRL stint in an accompanying video interview. "It wasn't just, oh, you guys are playing TRL. They asked us and we dogged on it for a while, because for a metal band it's a dangerous thing sometimes."
Ultimately, Avenged Sevenfold accepted the invitation as a show of appreciation for their younger fans. "Kids voted us to the top of the countdown. They obviously wanted to see us, [we] wanted to show the world we could play our instruments and do our thing," he explained. "So we decided to do it."
Find Avenged Sevenfold's entire behind-the-scenes TRL interview below:
