Avenged Sevenfold has been hacked.
The band appears to have been targeted by AI deepfake technology that was used to announce a pair of phony festival cancelations.
A one-minute clip titled “Important Announcement” was uploaded to the band’s “Trax” podcast, and appeared to feature singer M. Shadows.
However, it was actually just his likeness via deep ake/AI/voice-changing technology. The now-debunked announcement said,
Hey, Trax listeners, we’re so sorry to bring bad news to you all, but I wanted you to hear it straight from the horse’s mouth. We’ve had some unexpected delays on the new album and have decided to cancel our appearances at Welcome to Rockville and Sonic Temple to focus on finishing it up. It breaks our heart to do this, but some things have to be done.
Shadows later announced on Twitter that the news is not true writing, “Yikes! This is NOT TRUE. We are still playing. Getting to the bottom of this. Literally walking in the streets of Mexico and listening to this. What the actual f**k… NOT ME!”