It was back in December when the band announced that they would no longer be using the services of Mike Portnoy (who recorded and toured with the band after the death of Jimmy “The Rev” Sullivan). The band explained that they wanted to move forward as a band and not as “Avenged Sevenfold and Mike Portnoy” in a joint statement. However, singer M. Shadows hinted beforehand that the way Portnoy handled his departure from Dream Theater played somewhat of a role in their decision. Well, though he didn’t say it was a sole reason, M. Shadows did admit in a new interview with Ultimate-Guitar that the way Portnoy “runs his camp” definitely conflicted with the band.
In response to whether the band is still on good terms with the famous drummer, M. Shadows had the following to say:
“Yeah, we’re on good terms—it just got a little out of hand for a while there with us. And the way he runs his camp is a little different than we run ours. It couldn’t co-exist in that way and I’m really happy for him—I’m happy on a bunch of different levels. The Rev wrote those parts, Mike elaborated on them, and the record did really well. To me that’s a success all the way around. Mike helped us out in a time of need and he really stuck true to what Jimmy’s parts were, which we were really thankful for that. ‘Cause he could have come in there and been like, ‘No, I’m not playing that—why don’t we do this?’ So he did exactly what Jimmy had written down and what we wanted him to do and kudos to him for doin’ that.”
Guess this confirms that Portnoy’s constant press-releases didn’t help him last in A7X, and rightfully so. As we’ve said before, some Dream Theater fans became somewhat wary of Portnoy after the over publicized split. Furthermore, it wouldn’t be unjustified for some fans to lash out against A7X (the band who some could have argued Portnoy left DT for, despite denying such). Besides, A7X are big enough where they don’t need to cash in on their association with a famous musician like Portnoy. Take a look at this past year’s Revolver Golden Gods if you don’t believe us.
You can check out the rest of Shadow’s interview, where he also talks about the band’s current drummer Arin Ilejay and a possible future with him, over at Ultimate-Guitar.
[picture via]
