M. Shadows To XR Today: I Hope [Life Is But A Dream...], What We're Doing With Web3, Deathbats Club, And The Weightiness Of This Record Inspires People."

M. Shadows spoke with XR Today about exploring new technologies, the vision the band wanted to capture with their music video for "We Love You," the immersive event they hosted and their performance in Las Vegas, and more.

"XR Today: Change is one of the core elements of A7X, namely as its sound, lineup, and creative directions have undergone significant shifts over its musical career. Do you believe immersive media will become a mainstay of this? M Shadows: We’re always looking for new ways to push things forward that interest us. These are things like Web3, where we’ve seen huge benefits to our fans and keep a ‘connective tissue’ as a band to them with rewards. We like to explore emerging technologies like virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), and mixed reality (MR), and where they’re going. All of these things are really cool ways to push things forward. We also explore artificial intelligence (AI), using it to prompt things."

"XR Today: Anything else you would like to add? M Shadows: The only thing I’d add is that I hope this record, and what we’re doing with Web3, The Death Bats Club, and the weightiness of this record inspires people, even if they don’t love the actual content that we’re providing. I hope it inspires people to want to live outside the box, push boundaries, and see where they can take their own art. If anything, even if you don’t love what we did, we hope that people take inspiration from the chances we’ve taken, the willingness to really start fresh, and throw everything we’ve done before it away, to unify our new art. This was done to get the band in a place where we all feel completely happy. As an artist, you just want to be happy with your output and what you’re providing. Once it gets out to the audience, that’s for them — it’s their record now, and they can decide whether they like it or not. I [would like to see] artists pushing out hundreds more."