AVENGED SEVENFOLD's THE REV Says NEIL PEART Called Him 'One Of The Best Working Drummers Today'

David Glessner of the San Antonio Express-News recently conducted an interview with AVENGED SEVENFOLD drummer The Rev. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow:

On the band's reputation as party animals:

"I actually blame the press. I personally try not to talk about it. We've done some fly-on-the-wall (interviews) where the reporter follows us around and reports about what's going on, but it's not important in my opinion."

"You can have a drink after a show, but I'll never do anything before a show except warm up for an hour. We're perfectionists when it comes to the live performance, because that's what it's all about, ya know?"

On including orchestrated strings, flamenco guitar and choir vocals on the group's new album, "City of Evil":

"The string section came in and they were really professional. They came in, read the (music) and knocked it out. It was problematic with the boys' choir. We had to fire the first one because they sucked. It's hard to fire little (expletive) kids, because they cry and stuff. All the other orchestration and Moroccan stuff is pretty easy to program."

On catching favorable props from their rock idols:

"METALLICA came to one of our shows, and it was amazing. They were my favorite band when I was growing up. We're playing some dates with them in Europe in June. They said they were big fans of the music and didn't give a (care) what we looked like. Mike Portnoy, who is DREAM THEATER's drummer, said he was thrown off by our image but really liked us once he heard us.

"And I got a big compliment from (RUSH drummer) Neil Peart, who said something like I was one of the best working drummers today."