Avenged Sevenfold

Avenged Sevenfold is an American hard rock band formed in 1999 in Huntington Beach, California. The band has achieved mainstream success with their 2005 album City of Evil, which included singles such as "Bat Country," "Beast and the Harlot" and "Seize the Day." The band's success followed with their self-titled album, Avenged Sevenfold with singles such as "Almost Easy," "Afterlife," and "Dear God".

The band was formed in 1999 in Orange County, California with original members M. Shadows, Zacky Vengeance, The Rev. and Matt Wendt. Avenged Sevenfold's first album, Sounding the Seventh Trumpet, was recorded when the band members were just Eighteen years old and in high school.It was originally released on their first label, Good Life Recordings in 2001. After Lead Guitarist Synyster Gates joined the band, the introductory track "To End The Rapture" was re-recorded with the Removal of the Piano track and have Gates playing Guitar and the album was re-released on Hopeless Records in 2002. Their follow-up album, entitled Waking the Fallen released 2004, (now on a settled 4th bassist Johnny Christ) was also purchased on Hopeless Records. Shortly after its release, Avenged Sevenfold were signed to Warner Bros. Records.

The band's name is a reference to the Book of Genesis in the Bible - specifically Genesis 4:24, where Cain is sentenced to live in exile for murdering his brother. God marked him so that none would kill him on account of his sin; the man who dared to kill Cain would suffer "vengeance seven times over" (KJV). The abbreviation for Avenged Sevenfold came from Zacky Vengeance as A7X, in which the 'A' stands for 'Avenged' and '7X' stands for 'Sevenfold'(the X means fold in math).The title of Avenged Sevenfold's song "Chapter Four" refers to the fourth chapter of Genesis, in which the story of Cain and Abel takes place. The song's subject also appears to be this story. "Beast and the Harlot", yet another song derived from the Bible, comes from the book of Revelation only it is written in the first person and refers to the punishment of Babylon the Great, world empire and seat of false religion. Another biblical reference occurs in the song "The Wicked End". In this song, several times it is said "dust the apple off, savor each bite, and deep inside you know Adam was right." making reference to Eve eating the forbidden fruit. Although the band's title and members' stage names make references to religion, Shadows stated in an interview that they are not a religious band. "Anyone that reads the lyrics and really knew anything about us, they would know we're not promoting either," he said. "That's one thing about this band that I love is that we never really shove any kind of, like, political or religious beliefs on people. We just, the music's there to entertain and maybe thought-provoking on both sides, but we don't try to, like, really shove anything down anyone's throat. There's too many bands that do that nowadays, I think." The band has a few songs that are somewhat political in nature like "Critical Acclaim" and "Blinded In Chains".

The band sports a logo known as the "Deathbat". It was originally designed by an artistic high school friend of Avenged Sevenfold, Micah Montague, as seen on the bands first DVD, All Excess, though Cameron Rackam has done many more pieces for the bands albums. The Deathbat has appeared on all of the band's album covers, as well as the covers of a number of singles such as "Bat Country", "Almost Easy" and "Critical Acclaim."