{"id":246964,"date":"2026-01-19T22:24:17","date_gmt":"2026-01-19T22:24:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/246964\/"},"modified":"2026-01-19T22:24:17","modified_gmt":"2026-01-19T22:24:17","slug":"the-story-behind-avenged-sevenfolds-unholy-confessions-and-the-meaning-of-the-song","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/246964\/","title":{"rendered":"The story behind Avenged Sevenfold’s Unholy Confessions – and the meaning of the song"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chances are, if you came to Avenged Sevenfold<\/a> on the Waking The Fallen album, it would be thanks to Unholy Confessions. And with good reason; as well as being the biggest single from their breakthrough record, it\u2019s an absolute, iron-clad anthem, still the only track from that era to remain a live staple and, for many Avenged fans of a certain age, the definitive A7X anthem.<\/p>\n

While there were certainly still elements of the metalcore<\/a> tag that Avenged had thus far earned themselves \u2013 some screamed vocals here, a chuggy breakdown<\/a> there \u2013 make no mistake about it: this is a heavy fucking metal song. Twin guitar leads, harmonised choruses\u2026 hell, even the lyrics were metal, managing to make a story seemingly about a shitty relationship sound like something out of a power metal track: \u2018When sin\u2019s deep in my blood, you\u2019ll be the one to fall.\u2019<\/p>\n

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\u201cI wouldn\u2019t say Unholy Confessions is a well-written song by any means,\u201d suggested frontman M Shadows<\/a> years later. \u201cBut at the time it worked, and it became what it is\u2026 nostalgia!\u201d<\/p>\n

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I wouldn’t say it’s a well-written song by any means<\/p>\n

M Shadows<\/p>\n

There are many things that make Unholy Confessions stand apart in the canon of Avenged Sevenfold, but the actual creation of the track was something that particularly stood out as the frontman reminisced on the song\u2019s conception. Indeed, Shadows went as far to suggest that the making of Unholy Confessions was, by Avenged Sevenfold standards, something of \u201ca weird one\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cZack had a riff that he had been playing over and over and over in the garage,\u201d revealed the singer. \u201cWe would jam on it a little bit but we didn\u2019t really know what to do with it. Then we left for tour \u2013 it was some sort of [suicide awareness initiative] Take Action tour or something. We were staying at our booking agent\u2019s house in Chicago and we said, \u2018Let\u2019s write a song.\u2019 So we all wrote in separate rooms.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"Avenged\n<\/p>\n

(Image credit: Jason Squires\/WireImage via Getty)<\/p>\n

It was a method that had been untested by the band to that point and, looking back, was not a formula they ever ultimately looked to replicate \u2013 \u201cWe\u2019ve never done that since!\u201d Shadows laughed.<\/p>\n

\u201cI came up with the chorus for Unholy Confessions and we kind of put it on the backburner,\u201d he said of the eventual fruits of that unusually fractured jamming session. \u201cWhen we got back home to Orange County, we had that riff and we had the chorus; we just needed some stupid, meaty breakdown! Ha ha ha!<\/p>\n

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“And that part of the song came together. We put the dumb-dumb breakdown with the riff, and then we [already] had this chorus\u2026 it\u2019s funny how those things happen; it\u2019s like a moment in time.\u201d<\/p>\n

A simple song it may have become, but the fact is that Unholy Confessions struck a chord with a young metal crowd that had so far been weaned on nu metal<\/a> and shiny, Gothenburg-influenced metalcore. Even at that early stage, Avenged felt just a little different from those around them, and the hype train began to roll.<\/p>\n

We just needed some stupid, meaty breakdown<\/p>\n

M Shadows<\/p>\n

While Unholy Confessions remains the most famous of the Waking The Fallen cuts, Shadows always insisted it was never really meant to be a single at all\u2026 and technically, kinda still isn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

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\u201cHonestly! It wasn\u2019t really a single!\u201d he stated. \u201cI think Chapter Four and Eternal Rest were the first two songs we put out, it wasn\u2019t Unholy Confessions. But we were in a bidding war for the next record, which would be City Of Evil, and whoever we signed with wanted to do a music video for a song on Waking The Fallen. So, when we signed with Warner Brothers, they said, \u2018Let\u2019s make a music video that we\u2019ll put out, and that\u2019ll kind of boost Waking The Fallen before you guys drop City Of Evil.\u2019 That\u2019s how it happened. It was [released] well after that album had come out!\u201d<\/p>\n

The plan worked. The official promo video – one of two actually put together for the track – stapled live footage to shots taken backstage at gigs and segments featuring some of their biggest fans, raising Avenged\u2019s profile considerably in the ranks of the MySpace generation. Soon they had become the hottest young band in the metalcore scene. Not bad for a track with \u201cdumb-dumb\u201d breakdowns and heavy metal lyrics pulled from angsty teen woes.<\/p>\n

Avenged Sevenfold – Unholy Confessions (Official Music Video) – YouTube
\n\"Avenged<\/p>\n

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

\u201cI don\u2019t think it was a real-life inspiration,\u201d said Shadows of those aforementioned lyrics, \u201cother than things I was dealing with. When you\u2019re a kid, you are just pulling from your own angsty little heart, and that\u2019s kind of what that was.\u201d<\/p>\n

The band may be somewhat lovingly dismissive of the song now, but the stats don\u2019t lie: Unholy Confessions is by far and away Avenged Sevenfold\u2019s most-played song ever, even getting played during their most recent world tour supporting whacked-out prog metal epic, …Life Is But A Dream<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s kind of like our Hit The Lights,\u201d suggested Shadows of how the song has managed to close out almost every Avenged Sevenfold setlist over the years. \u201cIt\u2019s one of the first things people heard, it\u2019s a throwback at the end. We\u2019ve tried ending with other things but it goes over well and I think it\u2019s one of those things where, at the very end of the night, to throw things back to 2003 or whenever that came out, is pretty cool. There\u2019s no science behind it, it\u2019s just what we do! Ha ha ha!\u201d<\/p>\n

Whether it\u2019s by nature or by design, Unholy Confessions has remained one of its era\u2019s most beloved metal tracks. And, chances are, it always will.<\/p>\n

Avenged Sevenfold – Unholy Confessions (Original First Cut Music Video) – YouTube
\n\"Avenged<\/p>\n

Watch On <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Chances are, if you came to Avenged Sevenfold on the Waking The Fallen album, it would be thanks…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":246965,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[146,85,46,409],"class_list":{"0":"post-246964","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-il","10":"tag-israel","11":"tag-music"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246964","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=246964"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246964\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/246965"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=246964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=246964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=246964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}