Last October, Avenged Sevenfold released their new album The Stage without any warning or prior promotion. They attempted to do something different to get their fans to buy the new album without overloading them with excessive content leading to the release. However, this surprise resulted in one of the lowest first week  in sales since 2005’s City of Evil, and many had no idea a new album existed. In a brand new interview with Full Metal Jackie, frontman M. Shadows discussed their decision on the surprise stating (transcribed by Blabbermouth):

“We’re just trying to figure out new ways to get music to people, to excite the fanbase. Also, people have shorter attention spans now with the way information comes and goes so quickly on the Internet. We’re just trying to figure out the puzzle. And one thing that we really didn’t wanna do was be months out and just keep releasing singles and really just getting on people’s nerves with all the promotion. So this was just another way to do it. I don’t know if it was the greatest plan in the world, but I know it was a plan, and it was different, and it was exciting to us.

But I just talked to a few radio stations today and there’s radio DJs that got“God Damn” for the first time, and they’re, like, ‘Yeah, so the new record’s coming out, huh?’ And I go, ‘No. The record came out four months ago. And they’re, like, ‘Really? Why are we just getting a single now?’ So there’s a lot of explaining to do, I guess. Part of this Metallica tour is gonna be us getting in front of the people and making our case for, ‘Hey, this is a cool record and you should check it out.’ Or that it exists at all.”

Shadows has a good point on “trying to figure out the puzzle.” It’s no secret that the music industry is an ongoing evolution, which makes things more difficult to find out the most profitable approach. Hopefully, surprise releases won’t be an ongoing thing.

Listen to the full discussion below: