Avenged Sevenfold’s Johnny Christ Admits ‘We Don’t Know if We’re Going to Do a Full Album Again’

Avenged Sevenfold are getting a lot of attention for the journey that the Life Is But a Dream album takes listeners on, but bassist Johnny Christ admits in a new interview with Full Metal Jackie that the album format may not be their approach for releasing music going forward.

While appearing on the host's KLOS-FM show Whiplash, the bassist revealed, "We want this to be a full experience as an album. We don't know if we're gonna do a full album again, to be honest. We might do singles and eventize those later on in our career."

"At this moment, this is our body of work that we want everyone to get kind of at the same time and experience it from track one to track eleven," continued the bassist. "And I think that that's what has always been important to us, is the way we release things to the public. And it's not because we're hoity-toity and think we're better than other artists or anything like that. It's just we have a certain way that we communicate with our fans and have [done] for the last 20-plus years. And we like to keep that intact and always come up with a new, fun way of releasing it."

But, he continues, "Just like with our music — we're always challenging ourselves and trying to do new things in our music. Why stop there? Let's think about how we can do something fun in the releases and stuff like that."

Even within the album format, Christ reveals their approach was a little different than what most audiences are getting from bands these days in the rock and metal genre.

"We decided at that moment [in] 2016, we were tired of the same rollout from the label, or whoever was involved — 'You've gotta release this single, and it's gotta live there for that long, and then you've gotta come out with this and then that and then that and then that, and then you get the album,'" says the bassist. "We were, like, 'Why can't we just shake things up a little bit and try something new?,' knowing full well, to be honest, that we probably wouldn't have a great first week or whatever and it would kind of shock some people. But we thought that that shock would eventually start a snowball effect that would get people to come around the record and at least get eyes on it. And I think we're always just kind of pushing the envelope that way, to be honest."

"I mean, even the release of this record, to this day you'll see that it wasn't a traditional drop. We did a really cool scavenger hunt with the guys over at the Deathbats Club through some Web3 stuff, and then it was all to get to 'Nobody', the first single, and then flash forward a few months later, it's gonna be the only song you really hear until we release the whole album. And that's a little different these days, at least for our genre, it seems," says Christ. "A lot of the bands are dropping three, four, five singles before the album even comes out. To us, we just feel like this album in its entirety is too special to single out. We called 'Nobody' the single, but it's really just our first [track to be released]; it's not really the traditional idea of a single that represents the whole album. It's just, like, 'This is your toe in the pond of what is 'Life Is But A Dream…."

READ MORE: We Answer the Most Searched Questions About Avenged Sevenfold

One thing the band is doing that is traditional is getting out and supporting the new album with tour dates. The band just kicked off their touring in support of Life Is But a Dream... Be sure to get your tickets to see them live here.

Avenged Sevenfold's Johnny Christ on KLOS-FM's Whiplash With Full Metal Jackie