When Avenged Sevenfold surprise-released The Stage, it might not have resulted in the sales bonanza they were hoping for, but it was certainly an interesting way to roll out an album, and it’s probably the first time ever that a wrestler wound up trolling a record label. By posting a fake release date on his Instagram account, Chris Jericho perhaps unintentionally got Warner Bros., the band’s former label, to rush-release a double-disc Greatest Hits album. Of course, the label probably would have done that anyway, but the fake released date led them to push it up to December 2nd, the week before Jericho’s “leak” said it was coming out. The band actually released The Stage on October 31st.
In an interview with The National Student, guitarist Zacky Vengeance spoke about Warner Bros.’ release of the greatest hits album, which has already fallen off the charts:
“As far as our old label is concerned,” Zacky says, “we had no idea they were even going to attempt any of that. We didn’t know about that until the album was coming up; we actually thought it was quite hysterical when they were misled by a fake tweet that [Fozzy singer and close friend] Chris Jericho sent out, and that just kind of shows what kind of a label they were in the first place that they were led on by that rumor. And that’s, obviously, why we wouldn’t want to be with a team of people that were – I mean, I hate to use the word ‘imbeciles’ but I’ll go ahead and use the word – imbeciles.”
It’d be hard to call the label imbeciles for trying to cash in on one of their most successful rock acts. However, the band told fans not to buy it, and the fact that The Stage has sold upwards of 150,000 copies so far and the double-disc compilation is already off the charts proves that at least Avenged Sevenfold’s fans aren’t imbeciles.
[via]
