Avenged Sevenfold vocalist M. Shadows is very much a proponent of streaming. In an interview with The Bob Lefsetz Podcast, Shadows said streaming is essentially the next logical step in listening to music. Shadows recalled a time when Avenged Sevenfold was burning their CDs and handing them out, and then jumped onto the Napster and Limewire bandwagon when it came around. He adds that "as soon as I was able to get rid of CDs and get a streaming service, I jumped on it," saying that he didn't like dealing with carrying CDs around and dealing with the Discman player.
Shadows also touched on surprise releasing the 2016 Avenged Sevenfold album The Stage, which was originally only available on streaming services. He notes there was plenty of fan pushback, but that streaming is certainly the way to get known and heard in recent times.
"Years after that, we did that surprise release [The Stage], we had the pushback, and it kind of shocked us. I think every time you bring up streaming to people, and you get all these old bands that are bitter about it, and it's very weird. They're still in 2022 talking about how music doesn't make any money, no one's buying our CDs. Maybe you're not relevant? Let's be relevant, let's put our hat in the ring so when they're listening to Bieber or The Weeknd, they can jump over to Metallica and Avenged Sevenfold. We're playing in the same park here.
"That has always made sense to me, but you still get these people that are there, 'Streaming's killed industry, and now we got to do this and we got to do that.' No, streaming kind of saved the industry, It saved the user, I call them the Web 2.0 user. The fan gets to listen to you at any point, so how are you going to get their attention? How are you going to be the best thing that's going to be going through their earholes that day?
"That's what we should be striving and not having an argument if we should put it on CD or vinyl or streaming. The battle has already been won. I don't have a real good answer to it, I just think sometimes we get stuck in our ways, and metal has really dug their heels in on this, 'We're not gonna move along with the rest of the world. We kind of like it this way.'"
