Ever since they started their tour, Avenged Sevenfold included their new song “Nobody” into their setlists. Coming from their new album “Life Is but a Dream,” slated for early June release, the song saw the band digging into a completely different style. Nonetheless, the song features an expected virtuosic lead part by Synyster Gates and he has received praise from pretty much the entire fanbase.
What’s also interesting about the song is that Syn Gates always takes out this new guitar that we haven’t seen before. Famous for his Schecter signature guitars, bearing the Avenger body shape, this new instrument has some other previously unseen features.
While there aren’t still any official recordings and photos of the band, we live in a time when anyone can record their favorite band playing live. So the new guitar has gotten some attention due to fan-filmed videos shared on YouTube. It’s best seen in the video embedded below.
So apart from a golden finish, which perfectly matches Syn Gates’ new hair color, we have a headless guitar on our hands. This is, in no way, typical of Schecter. So looking into the matter, some Reddit users started wondering what it might be.
In a Reddit thread started over a week ago, Avenged Sevenfold fans have been discussing what this instrument might actually be. One of the users said:
“It appears to be a headless Avenger of some kind. From the first few vids I thought it looked like an older Steinberger GM-4, but now that clearer footage is out there, it does appear to be an Avenger/Gates body.“
What is similar to Steinberger GM-4 is that it features an indent at the very end of the body where the bridge and the tuning machines are. What’s obviously different is that the guitar has the usual Avenger body shape, apart from other traits that might remind us of GM-4. You can see that in the screenshot below.
Another thing that got people riled up is that it seems to have seven strings. While the best fan video that we could find so far isn’t exactly professional footage, you could still see that this is most likely true. One user said:
“7 string headless confirmed. Welcome to Rockville nobody solo clearly shows the guitar. It’s gold.“
And in the screenshot from the video, we can see that this could actually be true. Take a closer look at the bridge and the end of the neck where the strings are anchored.
And, apart from that, the guitar still has Syn’s usual inlays. The band’s mascot “Deathbat” and his usual “S-Y-N” writing are both there. You can see that in the screenshot below.
So far, Synyster Gate hasn’t spoken up on the matter of what this guitar might be. But from all the things seen so far, it seems that he’s got a one-off prototype with Schecter. Whether this will become a thing and he gets it as a mass-produced signature model is yet to be seen.
The band members have also been very limited with promotional interviews for the new album. The only place where Gates discussed anything new was the band’s own TRAX podcast and he didn’t mention anything about having a new guitar, especially because this was before they went out on the road. However, he did say a few things about “Nobody”:
“For me, it checked all the boxes. It’s a huge massive-sounding song. It kind of epitomizes… Maybe not in the exact tone and texture, but it epitomizes the new evolution of us. But it also bridges the big rock ‘n’ roll arena to stadium vibe.”
“That groove — it’s a timeless groove from [Led] Zeppelin to AC/DC to Metallica. And to kind of reinvent that groove, we felt was like pretty massive. It definitely intrigued us. From progressive types of guys, thrashier types of guys, or even like artsy avant-garde things like myself, it still satisfied those boxes.”
“I also feel like the chorus is hooky. And, to be honest, it was always kind of going to be the single but it got more cemented as Matt’s [M. Shadows, Avenged Sevenfold vocalist] vocal approach kind of evolved.”
“Because initially, we had the riff and I thought… [sings the main melody] And I hate writing melodies that fucking follow guitar riffs. It’s like a pet peeve of mine. But I just thought that it was baked in, I just thought it had that hookiness. But I didn’t think that Matt could sing that over and over. “
“So I thought maybe we’d try to redo… You know, make it right for a really shitty take of ‘Unbound (The Wild Ride)’ [from the 2007 self-titled album] where we end with kids singing.”
“Maybe if we tried to redo that Jay-Z ‘Hard Knock Life,’ let’s just crush it, let’s get the right kids on it, have this sort of group vocal that’s like Jay-Z ‘Hard Knock Life’ meets ‘Another Brick in the Wall’ [by Pink Floyd] or something like that.”
“And as he started singing that thing and writing lyrics and doing all that stuff, he came up with this lyric that… After so many songs, the lyrics were finished, I thought, as weird and crazy and unapologetic as the rest of the stuff was, I was a little taken aback at ‘I’m a God.’ It’s like ‘Damn, dude, that’s fucking crazy.’”
“It was just so massive. His voice is just such an incredible place and time right now. And it just really carried it. And then overlapping some of those things that we had the ideas for to have this kind of counterpart to it, the juxtaposition between the first chorus and the second chorus where it gets a little melodic, more emotional. And the first chorus is tough. As those things came together, it was… It just gave me chills.”
Photo: YouTube screenshot
