Zacky Vengeance Sits Down With NME At Download Festival 2024.

Zacky Vengeance sat down with NME at Download Festival 2024 and talked about how it feels to be back at Download, the response to "Life Is But A Dream...," the upcoming "City of Evil" and "Waking The Fallen" anniversaries, if he sees the band's past albums differently now, embracing technology to further their relationship with fans, and more.

It’s been a year now since ‘Life Is But A Dream..’ came out. What’s the response been like? “It has been an amazing response, but probably not for the reasons that bands would typically say. It has been the exact response that we set out to achieve which is to be polarising and create something that a lot of people didn’t know that they wanted. For us, that makes the best art because people expect a certain thing from the bands they like. But for us it was about creating something that they don’t know that they need in their lives… and honestly that pisses some people off too! But we’ve always been that way. We’ve always done that. “At this point in our life, to come back at it being a little bit older and still be able to achieve that, it’s been awesome. It hasn’t been for everyone and some people have said it’s the worst album they’ve ever heard, but also some have said it changed their life. If you’re just running through the motions, then I don’t think you’re succeeding as an artist.”

Next year is the 20th anniversary of ‘City of Evil’, and also the 15th anniversary of ‘Nightmare’. Are there any plans to celebrate those milestones? “Absolutely. I think those albums are really monumental and fans have grown with them. They’ve meant a certain thing to people at a certain place in their life, so I think it’s important that we do something. “I never want to be a nostalgia act. I’ve always wanted to be as proud of whatever we put out today as I was when we put out those albums, but I’m totally cool with celebrating those albums because it was such a great place and time. Plus it’s actually fun to relive and play those songs and get those reactions. To bank our entire career off past successes, we can’t do it, but we’ll definitely do something to celebrate those albums though. For us, the most exciting thing about looking back is recalling where our heads were at when we were young and writing them. Remembering that they’re part of who we are.”