Zitat des Tages von M. Shadows:
I've always been a really open person around my friends.
The idea of turning an album into a living piece of art and adding new installations is really intriguing. It expands the journey.
I was talking to my dad about the stuff he grew up listening to, and 'Operation: Mindcrime' is a record that he had always talked about around the house. He always talked about it as the 'greatest concept album of all time.' One day, I started listening to it, and it just hit me. I was like, 'These songs are all hits. They're all huge songs.'
I listen to a lot of Pink Floyd, the Doors, Elton John, Sabbath, Metallica, GN'R, Megadeth - just classic rock, classic metal stuff.
We have this yearning to know the answers to the big questions about space and why we're here; we can't evolve fast enough to figure these answers out on our own, but we can do it through artificial intelligence. But there's also some very scary downsides that could come if we don't put the right safety precautions in there.
We love the idea of putting out music in a non-conventional way.
Personally, I just want to hear good songs.
I want to stay away from trends and do what we want to do musically.
For me, 'Far Beyond Driven' just had an oomph that kicked it over the edge and just pure aggression. And I always appreciated that.
All I can say to people who don't think depression is a real thing, or say 'just suck it up and get over it' - they just really have no idea. You have to give people the benefit of the doubt that they're doing the best they can to get through it.
The 'Black Album' was my real first introduction to Metallica. I was, like, 12 or 13 at the time. We were just getting into music, and I liked that album a lot, but it didn't necessarily change my life. But when I started picking up all the other Metallica records, 'Master of Puppets' was the one to me that stuck out with its songwriting.
If we can inspire a kid to pick up a guitar - and less and less kids are doing so these days - it'd be really cool because I know how it felt growing up and how special that was for me.
Everyone has an opinion, and everyone should be entitled to say whatever they want.
People think this is a competition between bands, when the reality is the more successful bands the better.
We don't want to become like country artists where there's a formula.
I've never made a comment on a message board in my life.
It's important to know the ins and outs of the music business, but you can also dive too deeply into it and forget that you're really here to make music.
It really does help everyone when there are some big bands leading the charge.
We go out there and kill it every night, and you can see what this means to people.
The world is changing, and the way we consume music is obviously changing. I was one of the biggest CD advocates you will find, but when Apple music and digital options came out, like for everyone else, it was more conducive to my lifestyle.
The reality is you either step into the future, or you become a dinosaur.
When you look at metal, it's probably one of the healthiest genres when you look at it in a worldwide perspective - every single country listens to metal.
Sometimes, I feel like my lyrics meander a little bit, and our songs are so big I need to write more words than are necessary.
A lot of times, people just want to be more extreme than the next band or the next person, and that's all they focus on. That's kind of lost on me.
I used to get a huge kick out of walking into a record store and finding something I didn't know was out.
We write when the time comes, and we try to be exciting, and stuff that excites us usually makes the record.
If there's something I really like or a chord progression, I write a note in my Blackberry, and maybe a year later, I'll revisit it and ask, 'What did I like about that?' I really don't try to think too much about it. I like to be fresh.
Honestly, I never thought we'd get a nomination for a Grammy, period. To be honest, we felt that if we were ever going to get one, we thought we had 'City of Evil' and 'Nightmare' and 'Hail to the King,' and those were all big records, and they never even sniffed at us.
One thing I loved when I was growing up, you maybe saw one review from a magazine like 'Rolling Stone,' but now there are 150 reviews before an album even comes out. There are so many opinions out there, but the only one that really matters is your own.
We like to wait to a point where we have to get in there and write a record because we're just so built up.
I recall us selling out L.A.'s 5,000-capacity Gibson Amphitheatre and flying straight to Germany to play a 300-capacity room where we'd only sold 120 tickets. This was when 'City Of Evil' was really taking off in the U.S., but it seemed like Europe was less interested.
I've said the Grammys messed up metal because it's not on TV. What I'm saying is when you're in a metal category, it's not televised, and it doesn't move the needle forward for metal artists, and I wish they had more respect for the genre.
No. 1 records are fine, but in 2016, they just don't mean as much any more - the currency has changed.
I think 'The Stage' is kind of left field.
If I was to play any song for anybody asking, 'What is metal about?' I'd just play 'Master of Puppets.' The progressions and the bridge are brilliant.
The first Maiden record I ever got was 'Piece of Mind,' and I only got it because I thought the artwork was cool, and everyone talked about Iron Maiden. But they weren't necessarily the most popular metal band in America for a 12-year-old kid when I discovered them.
