Metal Anarchy

Avenged Sevenfold frontman M. Shadows has commented on his decision to record a video message for two Israeli hostages, who were recently freed from Hamas. According to him, it wasn’t about “making a political stance.”

Shadows told Rolling Stone the following:

“It’s not something that I’m going to worry about; I know that it’s the right thing to do. I think you have to stick to your moral compass, but I’ve definitely heard it from both sides. To me, that video is just a human doing something for another human. It’s not making a political stance. It’s not sticking it in someone’s eye. It really is about two human beings that have been through hell. And if we can’t agree on that, it’s really hard to agree on anything.”

He later continued:

“You know the hammer’s going to come down from the other side. But if you worry about that, then you’re just going to live your life scared and … in an untruthful sort of place. We’ve done things for a lot of different people across different cultures and different religions. And at the end of the day, if they’re fans, we really want to reach out and we want to support them in some sort of way. And so it just seems unfair — [this idea that] ‘if you’re not on my side, then you’re an enemy.’ It’s really kind of gross.”

He went on to say that the conflict actually impacted people the band knew personally:

“On October 7th, two cousins who we hung out with when we played in Israel, were, you know, murdered. So the whole thing hit home hard. Again, it wasn’t anything political. It was two girls that we know — sweet, innocent people. Terrible things happened to them and they didn’t make it out. I made a post then that was very neutral — just our hearts are broken and this happened. I mean .… words seem so cheap, right?”

Shadows also revealed that fans came up with the video:

“If I just got released after two years, the last thing I would care about is a video from a singer of a band [laughs.] But I was like, if you think it would help, of course I’ll do it. We know they care deeply about our band, and we wanted to do anything we could to give them some sort of reprieve, some sort of a relief, or some sort of joy. So that’s really what it all came down to.”

He also discussed past lyrics he wrote about war:

“The songs we had about war around 2005 and 2006, a lot of it had to do with our friends going off to Iraq, being some of the first people into Fallujah. We’ve played Iraq, Kuwait, and further over into Abu Dhabi. Our whole thing is that we’re not some militant band that has this line in the sand. We want to play music for every human that wants to come to our shows.”

He also expressed respect for Disturbed frontman David Draiman, whose fierce support of Israel saw him signing an artillery shell in the country last year:

“I really respect David, not just for where he stands, but that he believes in something and he’s full-force into it.”

Despite this, Shadows tries to look at things from a humanitarian standpoint:

“There’s a lot of people that fall on both sides of this thing. I heard from Jewish people in the music community, and from a lot of fans in Indonesia and Malaysia, places where we do well that are much more Muslim-dominant, who are extremely disappointed that we would make a video for Israeli prisoners. This was just a humanist approach — these people have been through a lot.”

He also added that he hasn’t actually spoken to the freed hostages who received the video:

“I’ve not heard from them yet, but I’m sure we will play over there and do something for them.”