M. Shadows

Growing up, I was always playing with video games.

If we can inspire a kid to pick up a guitar - and less and less kids are doing so these days - it'd be really cool because I know how it felt growing up and how special that was for me.

One thing I loved when I was growing up, you maybe saw one review from a magazine like 'Rolling Stone,' but now there are 150 reviews before an album even comes out. There are so many opinions out there, but the only one that really matters is your own.

When we were growing up, we listened to all sorts of music, but the first band that really grabbed all of us live was AFI.

We have this yearning to know the answers to the big questions about space and why we're here; we can't evolve fast enough to figure these answers out on our own, but we can do it through artificial intelligence. But there's also some very scary downsides that could come if we don't put the right safety precautions in there.

Those who are not very good at understanding mental health issues are not going to know what other people are going through in depression. You have to kind of put yourself in somebody else's shoes.

Someone sent me an article on AI that was written by Tim Urban on the website Wait but Why - that was kind of where I stuck my toes in the puddle, and I said, 'OK, I've gotta learn about this!' I felt like this is one of those things that our generation is going to have to answer for, eventually, and I just wanted to educate myself on it.

One thing that was frustrating to us, always, was having to do so much press building up an album, and you're asked so many questions about, you know, is it more melodic, is it heavier, are you doing your old stuff, is it new?

People think this is a competition between bands, when the reality is the more successful bands the better.

Music and space collide for me, as I find them incredibly stimulating.

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.

When you think of rock and roll and metal, a lot of it is based around the riff. If you can sing over the riff and what the arrangements are going to be like, you have to leave space for what most people consider one of the most key essential parts, which is the vocalist.