Sep. 06, 2006 - Issue #568: Sex in the City

A7X’s Johnny Christ isn’t just another party face

California band wins moonman at video music awards

Just a few months after Avenged Sevenfold’s lead singer, M Shadows (not, if you can believe it, his real name) publicly worried about their prominence on MTV—pointing out that the metal fivesome didn’t really make music for the “little girls” who presumably make up today’s MTV generation—they walk away from the MTV Video Music Awards with the coveted Best New Artist Moonman, a viewer-voted category that’s been won by the likes of the Killers, Eminem, Nirvana and Avenged Sevenfold’s personal heroes, Guns N’ Roses.

“We really don’t expect to win. It’d be more of an honour to our fans than us, since they’re the ones voting” says A7X (it’s their preferred abbreviation) bassist Johnny Christ when we talked the morning of the VMAs (Christ, of course, shouldn’t be confused with Danzig guitarist John Christ—there are, after all, only so many truly bitchin’ rock names to go around). “Either way, [label] Warner will be having a full-catered, open-bar party, so we’ll have a good time.” Of course, in light of their newfound success, they might want to change some old habits. Though Christ’s assertion that there would be a party fits with the band’s image as the new party boys of rock—their award-winning video, “Bat Country,” is a paean to the band’s wild parties in Vegas—he also says that the band is getting a little tired of being painted as nothing but a bunch of party boys doing shots off of strippers, even if they do include stripper stories in their own bio.

“Sure, we like to party and stuff, but you can’t eat mac ‘n’ cheese everyday, you know?” Christ offers as metaphor. “It seems like every time we come into a town and do an interview with a radio station or something, it has to be in a strip club, and after a while it just gets kind of old. I mean, tits are cool and stuff, but that’s not really what we’re all about.

“I think it just sort of benefits the press to just put us up as the next Mötley Crüe, with drinking and strippers and all that stuff,” he adds. “It’s not a very cool story to say, ‘Oh, look, these guys are normal people, and have moms and dads and have barbecues,’ or something like that. It’s just easier to only look at one side.” V

Sun, Sep 10 (7pm)
Avenged Sevenfold
With Protest the Hero, 3 Inches of Blood
Shaw Conference Centre, $29.50 - $35

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