Avenged Sevenfold released The Stage on October 28, 2016, revealing their seventh studio album after a livestreamed performance from the rooftop of the Capitol Records Tower in Hollywood. Their first album for Capitol arrived with physical copies available alongside the digital release. Inside was a substantial change in direction: a new drummer, increasingly elaborate arrangements and songs wrestling with artificial intelligence and humanity’s place in the universe.
The title track had already offered a substantial preview. Running more than eight minutes, “The Stage” arrived with a Chris Hopewell-directed video that used a puppet theater to depict humanity’s recurring violence and the figures controlling it.
Keeping the album itself under wraps was deliberate. M. Shadows told Rolling Stone that the band had become frustrated with lengthy promotional campaigns that explained a record before listeners could hear it. They initially considered a digital-only release, then decided physical copies needed to be available immediately for fans who wanted them. That made secrecy harder, but preserved the experience they were trying to create.
The music had developed through a change in the band’s working chemistry. The Stage was their first album with former Bad Religion drummer Brooks Wackerman, whose contribution extended into writing. Synyster Gates told Metal Hammer that Wackerman’s drum ideas helped inspire the group as they began jamming again. Shadows had wanted a more collaborative relationship with a drummer, and those sessions opened up different possibilities for the songs. Recording began in April 2016 with Joe Barresi, who co-produced the album with the band.
Barresi also changed how Shadows approached recording his voice. Speaking with Full Metal Jackie on KLOS in January 2017, the singer described performing complete songs in uninterrupted takes. Continuing through the difficult passages let the effort of the performance become part of the recording, much as it would onstage. Shadows said the band applied that approach to drums and guitars as well. For music dealing with technology’s growing capabilities, the recording process placed considerable weight on what the musicians could physically perform.
The questions driving the lyrics were just as important to the arrangements. In the Metal Hammer interview, Shadows described a record concerned with whether artificial intelligence might expand human understanding or threaten it, whether reality could be a simulation, and why humanity hadn’t found other life in the universe. Those ideas connected technological speculation with recognizable human problems, including political manipulation, conflict and an inability to see beyond individual interests.
“Exist” expanded that perspective into a 15-minute-and-39-second finale. Shadows explained to Rolling Stone that the band wanted to represent the Big Bang through music. He initially envisioned an instrumental, while Gates argued for vocals; their compromise made the entrance of the voice represent life emerging on Earth. Neil deGrasse Tyson supplied the closing spoken passage after the band approached him about contributing a scientific perspective. They reviewed essays he had used at the Hayden Planetarium, selected ideas and worked with him as he developed the material.
The recognition that followed came through the album’s opening song. In a 2018 Recording Academy interview, Gates reflected on the unexpected response to such an extended, progressive track, saying “you don’t think GRAMMYs or radio” when writing it. “The Stage” earned Avenged Sevenfold their first Grammy nomination, appearing in the Best Rock Song category at the 60th annual awards.
