How Wes Lang and M. Shadows Pushed Each Other to New Creative Zones for Avenged Sevenfold’s New Album

Wes, what did that process look like for creating the artwork?

Lang: I made 20 pieces in about 12 to 15 hours spread over three days to make the whole thing. I get in zones, and I just go, and time stops. My studio has no windows, so you’re in a weird time-stop, but it was frantic and fast. It’s acrylic on paper. They’re two and a half by three and a half feet each, something in that area.

It’s probably the fastest group of work I’ve ever made, to do 20 works of art that I’m not only proud of but willing to put into the world on this scale in the amount of time I did it. That’s just letting God happen. I had nothing to fucking do with that shit. The older I get, the easier it is for me to let go and know my purpose and use my physical body to execute my purpose, so time is meaningless. It was really fast, really fucking fast.

You have both played with themes and symbols commonly associated with death. Dark imagery can have double meanings, whether symbolizing a celebration of life or a recognition of mortality. Matt, do these symbols go deeper than just providing dark, gothic imagery? What does the artwork mean to you?

Sanders: Earlier in our career, it was very surface-level. I experienced a deep, months-long existential crisis in the middle of this record. I hate the headlines about this, but it was brought on by [the psychedelic] 5-MeO-DMT. I did that a few times, and I had to work out things in my life in terms of time, purpose, or meaning. So on the new record, the way we play with death is, for me, almost like absurdism, meaning finding purpose in your own life and celebrating the time we have here.

You can take it two different ways. For me, going that deep into that fear [can give you] total freedom to create your purpose, and when I see the things that Wes writes, and I see the things that he’s pulling from, that spoke to me so much more. This is finding the light because nothing matters. Your purpose doesn’t have to be what everyone else’s purpose is, whether it’s love or your family or creating bold art, or just existing and wanting to be and not suffer. More than any other, this record needed this artwork to accompany it because it does come from a deeper, different spot than [whereas] I would say earlier in our career we were  playing with these themes at a more surface level. This one tugs at the heartstrings a little deeper because it’s very meaningful to me, and I think a lot of people go through this at some point in their life.