Avenged Sevenfold frontman M. Shadows shared a few words of criticism towards the way Grammy Awards treat the metal genre, telling WRIF (via Blabbermouth):
“My whole thing was that metal… if you’re getting the ‘metal’ award, they don’t actually televise it, so no one sees it – it doesn’t move the needle at all. And I think that’s what the Grammys have to get that right.
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“When you look at metal, it’s probably one of the healthiest genres when you look at it in a worldwide perspective – every single country listens to metal.
“And whether it’s mainstream or not, it’s irrelevant. People will watch your program if you’re giving awards to bands that deserve it and it’s actually on TV, and it helps those bands push the needle forward.”
Matt also said the boys feel “fortunate this year to be in the ‘rock’ category” since Best Rock Song will be included in the telecast, saying:
“And I think that’s the whole point – you wanna get nominated for a Grammy and you wanna get noticed by people and seen on TV.
“It helps everybody when the bands can get bigger. So the ‘metal’ award still is a problem because literally no one’s gonna see those bands or know that they’re nominated, and that’s an issue. I think it needs to be on TV.”
The singer also said about the whole thing:
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“Honestly, and everyone says it, but it’s just nice to be in the conversation with especially Metallica and Foo Fighters. It’s crazy.
“It gives us this extra push going into this [next] touring cycle, which I think we needed, which is cool. You’ve got the [‘Live at the Grammy Museum’ release], you’ve got the deluxe [reissue of ‘The Stage’] record, you’ve got the Grammy nod and now we get to start the cycle.
“So we’re gonna kind of hit this as hard as we can for the next year and then we’ll move on to the next thing. But it’s pretty exciting to get this little shot in the arm.”