AVENGED SEVENFOLD's Synyster Gates and Johnny Christ recently decided to surprise one of their fans by hand delivering a signed guitar directly to the fan's house. A video recap of their visit was uploaded to Christ's YouTube channel and can now be seen below. Earlier this month, AVENGED SEVENFOLD frontman M. Shadows confirmed to Metal Hammer that the band will complete the recording of its eighth studio album next month. "In January, we're going in to finish the strings on the record," he said. "The record's been recorded for a year, but we haven't been able to put the real strings on it, because we couldn't fly out to Prague. When an orchestra have to social distance and they aren't sitting next to each other, they can get out of tune, and we have just finally got to a place where we can use this 70-piece orchestra as we intended. We finish the record in February, mix it in March." Regarding the musical direction of the follow-up to 2016's "The Stage", M. Shadows said: "There are so many influences… We're very influenced by Kanye West. The thing about Kanye is that he is pulling from such great soul music. I didn't grow up with that stuff — my dad listened to BOSTON and Alice Cooper [and] I didn't get that taste of black music and old soul. So, diving deep into jazz musicians… We're not trying to do a jazz record, but the chord changes and progressions are so eye-opening to us." AVENGED SEVENFOLD kept a low profile during 2019. A blood blister on M. Shadows's vocal cords forced the band to cancel a summer 2018 tour with PROPHETS OF RAGE and THREE DAYS GRACE. "The Stage" was surprise-released in October 2016. The release of the disc, which was announced the night it went on sale, earned the lowest sales of an AVENGED SEVENFOLD album in 11 years. It sold 76 thousand copies in its first week, 73 thousand of which were physical. "The Stage", AVENGED's debut for Capitol, sold less than half as many copies in its first week as the group's two previous efforts, 2010's "Nightmare" and 2013's "Hail To The King".
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