Avenged Sevenfold singer M Shadows defends sending video message to freed Israeli hostages
Avenged Sevenfold frontman M Shadows has defended sending a video message to Israeli hostages following their release from Hamas.
Last week, M Shadows, real name Matt Sanders, sent the video in support of Evyatar David and Guy Gilboa-Dalal, who are fans of his band. They both spent more than two years in captivity in Gaza after being held hostage on October 7th, 2023.
In the message, he told the pair, “So excited to hear you are home. The things you guys have been through are unspeakable, terrible.”
The video message was later shared on social media, which led to Sanders receiving backlash amid Israel’s conduct in Palestine, which the UN Human Rights Council has declared to be a genocide.
Now, in an interview with Rolling Stone, the rock frontman explained of the criticism: “It’s not something that I’m going to worry about; I know that it’s the right thing to do.”
Sanders continued, “I think you have to stick to your moral compass, but I’ve definitely heard it from both sides. To me, that video is just a human doing something for another human.”
He also stated that the video wasn’t intended to be interpreted as political, sharing, “It’s not making a political stance. It’s not sticking it in someone’s eye. It really is about two human beings that have been through hell. And if we can’t agree on that, it’s really hard to agree on anything.”
While Sanders did anticipate there would be a kickback to the video message, he said, “We’ve done things for a lot of different people across different cultures and different religions. And at the end of the day, if they’re fans, we really want to reach out and we want to support them in some sort of way.”
The singer continued, “And so it just seems unfair – [this idea that] ‘if you’re not on my side, then you’re an enemy.’ It’s really kind of gross.”
Sanders also said that he expects Avenged Sevenfold “will play over there and do something” for David and Gilboa-Dalal in Israel.
It comes as more than 1,000 artists, including Lorde, Clairo and Björk, have signed up in recent weeks to the No Music For Genocide campaign that prevents their music from being available to stream in the region.
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