{"id":127804,"date":"2025-11-11T16:49:10","date_gmt":"2025-11-11T16:49:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/127804\/"},"modified":"2025-11-11T16:49:10","modified_gmt":"2025-11-11T16:49:10","slug":"avenged-sevenfold-the-story-behind-a-little-piece-of-heaven","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/127804\/","title":{"rendered":"Avenged Sevenfold: the story behind A Little Piece Of Heaven"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sounding like the soundtrack to the greatest Tim Burton movie that never was, A Little Piece Of Heaven was the point where Avenged Sevenfold<\/a> finally went full Oingo Boingo, channelling the eccentric art-rockers to the max by bringing former members Steve Bartek and Marc Mann along for the ride. The result? One of metal\u2019s most, um, unique love songs ever.<\/p>\n

Roping in spooky piano tinklings, violas, trombones, clarinets, a choir \u2013 hell even a saxophone or two pops up \u2013 the 2007 song bounces along with equal parts mischief and melancholy, eventually exploding in a blizzard of demented horns, drum rolls, screams and strings. You may not be too surprised that this song, like so many of Avenged\u2019s more unique moments, came predominantly from drummer Jimmy \u2018The Rev\u2019 Sullivan<\/a>.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a conjuring of Jimmy\u2019s genius,\u201d confirms guitarist Synyster Gates. \u201cHe had these parts in his mind and he was always playing piano. Whenever there was a fucking piano, he\u2019d always be playing it and it would always be original stuff. He\u2019d draw a fucking crowd of all of our friends and we couldn\u2019t wait to hear it, the new shit.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen he wanted to finish it because it started picking up momentum and he really got a kick out of the chorus. Jimmy wasn\u2019t the guy who needed a pat on the back, but he was really proud of that chorus. It was a little bit of a joke, too; when he\u2019d sing it, kind of like Scooby-Doo. He thought it was such a cheesy kind of jingle, so catchy and so syrupy. He just thought it was so funny to juxtapose that with the lyrics. We all loved it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Avenged Sevenfold – A Little Piece Of Heaven [Official Music Video] – YouTube
\n\"Avenged<\/p>\n

Watch On <\/a><\/p>\n

Ah, yes, the lyrics. If A Little Piece Of Heaven sounds like a forgotten The Nightmare Before Christmas<\/a> sequel, it reads like something from a full-blown torture porn horror flick, telling the story of a man who murders his significant other, preserving her body for his nefarious needs. Except she then comes back from the dead and kills him. Then he comes back from the dead and the two join in unholy matrimony to go on a big, romantic killing spree. Look, this shit ain\u2019t Coldplay, alright?<\/p>\n

\u2018Must have stabbed her 50 fucking times, I can\u2019t believe it. Ripped her heart out right before her eyes. Eyes over easy, eat it eat it eat it!\u2019 screams The Rev in the pre-chorus, the band clearly having an absolute blast curating the kind of comically violent narrative that would cause certain sections of Twitter to have a meltdown if it was released today.<\/p>\n

Amazingly, despite being one of the standout songs on their self-titled album<\/a>, the track nearly didn\u2019t even make the cut at all, M Shadows having to really push the rest of the band to bring one of their most elaborate undertakings to life.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe wanted to put it on a Halloween EP, so we started working on it,\u201d explains Syn. \u201cBut we had so many songs and we were self-producing the record\u2026 to be honest, Jimmy and I didn\u2019t want to work on it because the arrangements were such a monumental undertaking. We sort of gave up on it, and credit to Matt, he kept pushing and pushing and pushing. He wanted it for Halloween. I didn\u2019t really want to do a Halloween EP, to be honest. I just wanted to finish that fucking album, and Jimmy was on the same page.\u201d<\/p>\n

Finally, with the rest of the band convinced by Shadows that it was a task worth pushing ahead with, things started to fall into place in the studio, and the band realised that they had struck gold.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe song started taking life,\u201d remembers Syn. \u201cThe minute we started recording it, everybody knew we had something special. When the stars align like that and you have Steve Bartek and Marc Mann \u2013 the Oingo Boingo guys \u2013 then you know you\u2019re doing something fucking crazy and big.\u201d<\/p>\n

As soon as those around the band heard the completed song for the first time, they knew this couldn\u2019t just be an EP track \u2013 it needed to be a cornerstone of the next album.<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember the label hearing it and they said, \u2018This is not a Halloween EP song. This has to be on the record,\u2019\u201d says Syn. \u201cWe were a little intimidated to put something like that on the record, but our whole motto and ethos at the time was fucking fearlessness. The [self-titled] album is a fucking compendium of ridiculousness! Ha ha ha! There are auto-tuned vocals and country songs and shit like that, so we would have been betraying ourselves and acting like the biggest hypocrites of all if we didn\u2019t do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

More than a decade on, Syn looks back at A Little Piece Of Heaven as one of the benchmarks against which Avenged Sevenfold will always be measured, and he\u2019s perfectly happy for that to be the case.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m so thankful that we did it because to me, I feel like we have a song that stands the test of time and is one of the greatest songs ever written, like a Bohemian Rhapsody or a Stairway To Heaven. Even though I didn\u2019t write it, I\u2019m probably even more proud that I got to witness that from a fan\u2019s perspective and it was my best friend that created it.\u201d<\/p>\n

This article was originally published in 2020.<\/p>\n

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