Avenged Sevenfold: how a Huntington Beach band became metal headliners

On 18 June 2025 Avenged Sevenfold played Križanke, the open-air summer theatre in the old town of Ljubljana, as one of the dates on their European run that month. The Avenged Sevenfold gallery has photos from the show.

A band from Huntington Beach

Avenged Sevenfold formed in 1999 in Huntington Beach, California. The founding members were Matt Sanders, who became M. Shadows, James Sullivan, known as The Rev, Zacky Vengeance and Matt Wendt. The name comes from the Cain and Abel story and the phrase appears in Genesis 4:24, although the band itself is not religious.

From City of Evil to number one

Their breakthrough came with City of Evil in 2005. The song "Bat Country", inspired by Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, got its video to number one on MTV's Total Request Live and helped the band win Best New Artist at the 2006 MTV Video Music Awards. The self-titled album followed in 2007 and debuted at number 4 on the Billboard 200. Nightmare, released in 2010, gave them their first number one with 163,000 copies sold in its first week.

Losing The Rev

Nightmare was also the first album after the death of The Rev, the band's founding drummer, who died on 28 December 2009 at the age of 28. Dream Theater drummer Mike Portnoy played on the record, and Nightmare won Album of the Year at the 2011 Golden God Awards. Arin Ilejay later played drums on Hail to the King, and since 2015 the drummer has been Brooks Wackerman, formerly of Bad Religion.

Hail to the King and The Stage

Hail to the King (2013) topped the Billboard 200 in the US and the UK Albums chart. Three years later came The Stage, their first concept album, which debuted at number 4 in the US. Its title song was nominated for Best Rock Song at the 2018 Grammy Awards. In August 2016 the band also supported Metallica at U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis.

Festivals and video games

Avenged Sevenfold headlined the Friday night of Download Festival in 2014 and returned to the festival circuit in 2018. They have also written songs for the Call of Duty: Black Ops series, including "Carry On" for Black Ops II in 2012 and "Mad Hatter" for Black Ops 4 in 2018.

Life Is But a Dream... and the 2025 tour

Their latest album, Life Is But a Dream..., came out in June 2023. On the June 2025 European tour the new songs sat next to the old favourites: at the Istanbul show on 4 June, Kerrang reported a 13-song set that included "Game Over", "Mattel", "Nobody" and "Cosmic" from the new record, alongside "Hail to the King", "Nightmare", "Bat Country" and "So Far Away". The tour then moved through Athens, Milan, Ljubljana on 18 June, Budapest, Berlin and Wrocław.

Today the band is M. Shadows on vocals, Zacky Vengeance and Synyster Gates on guitars, Johnny Christ on bass and Brooks Wackerman on drums. See the full Avenged Sevenfold photos from Ljubljana.