In the mid-2000s, Avenged Sevenfold became one of the biggest bands in all of metal, so naturally, they were offered the rite of passage to open for Metallica. However, as crazy as it might sound to turn down such a monumental opportunity, A7X passed on the opening offer multiple times before ultimately accepting a supporting slot with the thrash lords.
Since then, they've played with Metallica several times, including a major stint on their 2017 WorldWired tour, but in a new interview with Audacy Check In, Avenged Sevenfold frontman M. Shadows explained why he and his bandmates declined to open for Metallica so many times before they eventually did.
"One of the things we heard early in our career, and one thing we respected immensely about certain bands is, if you headline, people think of you as a headliner — and if you go and open for people constantly, they'll always think of you as second fiddle," Shadows said. "The idea of opening and taking all the toys away, everything everyone had ever seen — my question to [Metallica's Lars Ulrich] was, 'I don't think this is the right look for new people getting into Avenged Sevenfold. This isn't where we're at.'
"But to a lot of mainstream people, it was 'Oh, you're the band that opened for Metallica,' which put us on a higher pedestal, which was weird to me … I still walked away from that tour extremely grateful but extremely, I think right, about taking that tour. It did put us in that weird position of, 'You're second fiddle to this.'"
Elsewhere in the interview, Shadows revealed what it actually feels like to play for Metallica's audience — a group of fans who are mostly there to see the headliner and who could care less about the opening act.
"Well that was definitely a little bit more uncomfortable because you're not in your setting and you're in the daylight and you don't have your toys with you and you're playing a quick set," Shadows explained. "And you're the opening band, right? It's a different thing because when you're headlining, everybody's in the palm of your hand before it even happens. When you're opening for Metallica, and the place is slowly filling up, half the venue's full, you're in the daylight getting hit by the sun.
"So you almost have to go to war. You might have some people in the pit that are into this, but there's a lot of skeptical arms crossed, like, 'I don't like these new bands. I don't want anything to do with this. I'm waiting for the real metal gods to show up.' It's really a lot more feeling like you're going to war."
Watch a clip of the podcast interview below and listen to the full episode right here.
