My journey with Avenged Sevenfold.
- Thread starter Kfir Yaakovi
- Start date
Hello, everyone. I’ve appreciated reading all of your posts and getting to know you better. I hope you will enjoy my story, as it might be lengthy.
The first time I saw Avenged Sevenfold was in my seventh grade year of middle school on MTV (when it still played real music). I had struggled with self-harm and depression and everything starting around this time that continues to even now. This guy had a freaking tarantula on his face. Lo and behold, that was the darling Jimmy “The Rev”. I didn’t get into them right away and eventually showed my best friend who I’d met in the sixth grade. I got hardcore into A7X the very year after our St James passed away. I remember my friend specifically saying, “You should’ve gotten into them sooner!” At first, I absolutely could not stand Synyster Gates. LOL, no offense. I thought he was a stuck up prick and playboy at first. I always wanted to be a singer and musician since I was little but watching Syn and Zacky completely in sync and just rolling stoked the fire. My best friend and I decided we wanted to be in a band, but our first band wasn’t very serious. If I remember right, we were called “Black Bloodstream”. I was this crazy goth/emo singer/screamer to the T that most people avoided because they thought I was a complete psycho and with my now drummer (who was then the guitarist xD) and two of my friend’s younger brothers. We gave each other band names because everyone had one. I became known as Rayz to my drummer and future band. That didn’t last.
In high school, I began to really take my desires seriously. I went to see Avenged for my first and only time so far in May 2014 at Carolina Rebellion for a graduation present. I decided then and there it was what I was doing. I loved each of the guys and the passion they displayed on that stage. I wanted to be just like Matt and scream, even though I was a girl. I wanted to rhythm as good as Zacky and solo with Syn at his best. The first guitar I got was a shiny black right-handed Epiphone and I began to take lessons at a Sam Ash store. My teacher asked me which hand I used to write and I replied with my left. He chuckled and said I should go out to the guitar wall to the small selection of only one to three left-handed guitars and told me to pick the one I liked. I picked up my left-handed Epiphone Les Paul Standard Pro sunburst. He said as soon as I sat down with that guitar in my hands, he could tell it was more natural.
After about two years of practicing with my drummer at Sam Ash, I kept lasting longer than my teachers at the shop. We finally started my ex-band “Children of Deceit”. We started out with one bass player, but he didn’t take it very seriously and let us down right before one of our shows at the shop (luckily, one of the bass teachers came to our rescue and covered for us in that show). Then suddenly the lady in charge of lessons, brought in this boy with dark hair down to his shoulders as we were practicing and I went silent while I was singing. I wasn’t used to people I didn’t know hearing me sing unless my switch was flipped on the stage and I was “Rayz”. He became our new bassist and also my first and super serious boyfriend…
After about two more years, we quit at Sam Ash and decided to take it upon ourselves to meet at my ex-boyfriend’s house. We met a few times a week and worked really hard.
The school was announced. I signed up. The school finally was done. I lurked, but wasn’t active at all.
…This is where last year began to collapse on me. This may sound so dramatic to you at times, but as someone with severe depression and anxiety, it was so bad.
My best friend/drummer began to work all the time…She literally had been almost living with me since she began taking lessons at Sam Ash with me. I felt like she was drifting further and further away from me…We still don’t have things completely fixed, but we’re working on it currently luckily. I found a lump in my right breast…I hid it from everyone including my mom and best friend…because I don’t like people to worry about me and all I could think of was cancer and that I’d have to say goodbye…I broke down nightly…I went to the doctor with my mom and luckily my lump turned out to be a 7cm fibroadenoma that reacted to my hormones and caffeine and was normal for my age. They couldn’t do a mammogram as I was only 22 at the time, so I had to get an x-ray. One of my closest friends/soulmates, the singer of a band called “Awake At Last” called me as soon as I was out of the hospital and was checking on me. My boyfriend checked on me too..he and I seemed to be getting more and more serious in my eyes. His parents suddenly felt like my parents and they thought of me as their own daughter…I thought we were doing amazing. I managed to stay clean of self-harm for so long.
Then, I could never get my ex to come see me at my home. I always had to go and see him even though I was a college student and tired from driving. He lived about an hour away from me. He was there with my best friend for my graduation ceremony in 2017. I graduated with an Associate’s of Applied Science degree in CTI- Web Design and Support. When it was his turn to come see me while he was in college, he’d always say he was tired…But to be honest, I don’t think he really appreciated me being from the country and that I enjoyed it so much more than the city he lived at. I don’t think he and my dad got along either. I can’t really remember quite as well now…I think my mind has made a blockage and I’ve gotten over it since then so I haven’t thought about it much anymore…We broke up the first time with him saying that we were too different. It shattered my heart…The one person besides my best friend of 10+ years that I had been so close, intimate, and just myself with. Now that I think about he probably was already starting to like the girl he’s now engaged to…We tried to make it work again, but I just could never feel the same. All my trust and love and everything had been broken and I couldn’t get myself back to where I had felt before. I finally called us off in August last year…My band broke up. My lead guitarist didn’t want to do music for a living after starting music in school (he became burnt out), my drummer/friend was always working, and my ex promised to stay friends with me but fell through. He never messaged me first and when I would message him it was always short or seemed disinterested. His mother unfriended me on facebook…Neither of his parents talked to me and neither did he. He didn’t wish me happy birthday last year and that’s really when I began to lose it and hurt. I began to finally like another guy that I worked on music with on Facebook and he ended up relapsing on drugs and pretty much went insane while I was talking to him and said the most disrespectful and disgusting things to me. I was shattered again…on top of the endless fuckboys that tried to enter my inbox on the daily now that they knew I was single since I stopped posting about my ex. A dude was a dick to me on YouTube when I tried to scream and sing. I began to isolate myself and close myself off, burying myself deeper into my hole of misery.
During this time, I met the amazing Jak and truly started to open up to her and try to join her and jump in on the school. Her and Papa Gates commented on one of my first videos which was Hail to the King. I learned more here in the past six months of taking it super seriously than I had my years of playing before. I worked as hard as I could even though I was so burnt out and continuing to beat myself like a dead horse. I’m so glad I took the chance to get to know Jak and start becoming who I am now and truly trying to heal…Jak knows how important she is to me, but for you all to understand, let me just tell you that a lot of the time she was the reason I hadn’t relapsed and ended my life prematurely. She was the reason I kept trying and working hard on top of myself. Music began to feel like such a chore and pain for me to work on…I would literally push myself just to see what she would say. She always picked me up and kept me from hitting my rock bottom. She saw my potential and effort. I was thrilled that someone besides just my parents and drummer noticed what I felt. I would talk to her and literally drop my razor…I hid how seriously struggling I was from everyone…She honestly didn’t even know this severity until maybe a few weeks ago? I hid it from my mom…My mom only found out about it when I let her read my report for the contest that I actually won. I pushed everything I had left into that report. I decided to pour what litle of my heart I had left into it. That’s when things started to change. I began to believe in myself and enjoy music and working hard again. My whole mentality changed. I feel refreshed. I don’t feel worthless and like a waste of space or like I am bugging anyone anymore. When I tell you guys, that “That really means so much to me”, it really does. You all have seriously held me and lifted me up at my worst. I was thinking of all of this as I wrote my report. I know I could never thank you guys enough. That’s why this school and everyone here means everything to me. It has brought back my positivity and inspiration and just everything when I felt like things kept strangling me and taking ever bit of light away…
This reply was modified 3 months, 4 weeks ago by Rowan Morris.
This reply was modified 3 months, 4 weeks ago by Rowan Morris.
The first time I saw Avenged Sevenfold was in my seventh grade year of middle school on MTV (when it still played real music). I had struggled with self-harm and depression and everything starting around this time that continues to even now. This guy had a freaking tarantula on his face. Lo and behold, that was the darling Jimmy “The Rev”. I didn’t get into them right away and eventually showed my best friend who I’d met in the sixth grade. I got hardcore into A7X the very year after our St James passed away. I remember my friend specifically saying, “You should’ve gotten into them sooner!” At first, I absolutely could not stand Synyster Gates. LOL, no offense. I thought he was a stuck up prick and playboy at first. I always wanted to be a singer and musician since I was little but watching Syn and Zacky completely in sync and just rolling stoked the fire. My best friend and I decided we wanted to be in a band, but our first band wasn’t very serious. If I remember right, we were called “Black Bloodstream”. I was this crazy goth/emo singer/screamer to the T that most people avoided because they thought I was a complete psycho and with my now drummer (who was then the guitarist xD) and two of my friend’s younger brothers. We gave each other band names because everyone had one. I became known as Rayz to my drummer and future band. That didn’t last.
In high school, I began to really take my desires seriously. I went to see Avenged for my first and only time so far in May 2014 at Carolina Rebellion for a graduation present. I decided then and there it was what I was doing. I loved each of the guys and the passion they displayed on that stage. I wanted to be just like Matt and scream, even though I was a girl. I wanted to rhythm as good as Zacky and solo with Syn at his best. The first guitar I got was a shiny black right-handed Epiphone and I began to take lessons at a Sam Ash store. My teacher asked me which hand I used to write and I replied with my left. He chuckled and said I should go out to the guitar wall to the small selection of only one to three left-handed guitars and told me to pick the one I liked. I picked up my left-handed Epiphone Les Paul Standard Pro sunburst. He said as soon as I sat down with that guitar in my hands, he could tell it was more natural.
After about two years of practicing with my drummer at Sam Ash, I kept lasting longer than my teachers at the shop. We finally started my ex-band “Children of Deceit”. We started out with one bass player, but he didn’t take it very seriously and let us down right before one of our shows at the shop (luckily, one of the bass teachers came to our rescue and covered for us in that show). Then suddenly the lady in charge of lessons, brought in this boy with dark hair down to his shoulders as we were practicing and I went silent while I was singing. I wasn’t used to people I didn’t know hearing me sing unless my switch was flipped on the stage and I was “Rayz”. He became our new bassist and also my first and super serious boyfriend…
After about two more years, we quit at Sam Ash and decided to take it upon ourselves to meet at my ex-boyfriend’s house. We met a few times a week and worked really hard.
The school was announced. I signed up. The school finally was done. I lurked, but wasn’t active at all.
…This is where last year began to collapse on me. This may sound so dramatic to you at times, but as someone with severe depression and anxiety, it was so bad.
My best friend/drummer began to work all the time…She literally had been almost living with me since she began taking lessons at Sam Ash with me. I felt like she was drifting further and further away from me…We still don’t have things completely fixed, but we’re working on it currently luckily. I found a lump in my right breast…I hid it from everyone including my mom and best friend…because I don’t like people to worry about me and all I could think of was cancer and that I’d have to say goodbye…I broke down nightly…I went to the doctor with my mom and luckily my lump turned out to be a 7cm fibroadenoma that reacted to my hormones and caffeine and was normal for my age. They couldn’t do a mammogram as I was only 22 at the time, so I had to get an x-ray. One of my closest friends/soulmates, the singer of a band called “Awake At Last” called me as soon as I was out of the hospital and was checking on me. My boyfriend checked on me too..he and I seemed to be getting more and more serious in my eyes. His parents suddenly felt like my parents and they thought of me as their own daughter…I thought we were doing amazing. I managed to stay clean of self-harm for so long.
Then, I could never get my ex to come see me at my home. I always had to go and see him even though I was a college student and tired from driving. He lived about an hour away from me. He was there with my best friend for my graduation ceremony in 2017. I graduated with an Associate’s of Applied Science degree in CTI- Web Design and Support. When it was his turn to come see me while he was in college, he’d always say he was tired…But to be honest, I don’t think he really appreciated me being from the country and that I enjoyed it so much more than the city he lived at. I don’t think he and my dad got along either. I can’t really remember quite as well now…I think my mind has made a blockage and I’ve gotten over it since then so I haven’t thought about it much anymore…We broke up the first time with him saying that we were too different. It shattered my heart…The one person besides my best friend of 10+ years that I had been so close, intimate, and just myself with. Now that I think about he probably was already starting to like the girl he’s now engaged to…We tried to make it work again, but I just could never feel the same. All my trust and love and everything had been broken and I couldn’t get myself back to where I had felt before. I finally called us off in August last year…My band broke up. My lead guitarist didn’t want to do music for a living after starting music in school (he became burnt out), my drummer/friend was always working, and my ex promised to stay friends with me but fell through. He never messaged me first and when I would message him it was always short or seemed disinterested. His mother unfriended me on facebook…Neither of his parents talked to me and neither did he. He didn’t wish me happy birthday last year and that’s really when I began to lose it and hurt. I began to finally like another guy that I worked on music with on Facebook and he ended up relapsing on drugs and pretty much went insane while I was talking to him and said the most disrespectful and disgusting things to me. I was shattered again…on top of the endless fuckboys that tried to enter my inbox on the daily now that they knew I was single since I stopped posting about my ex. A dude was a dick to me on YouTube when I tried to scream and sing. I began to isolate myself and close myself off, burying myself deeper into my hole of misery.
During this time, I met the amazing Jak and truly started to open up to her and try to join her and jump in on the school. Her and Papa Gates commented on one of my first videos which was Hail to the King. I learned more here in the past six months of taking it super seriously than I had my years of playing before. I worked as hard as I could even though I was so burnt out and continuing to beat myself like a dead horse. I’m so glad I took the chance to get to know Jak and start becoming who I am now and truly trying to heal…Jak knows how important she is to me, but for you all to understand, let me just tell you that a lot of the time she was the reason I hadn’t relapsed and ended my life prematurely. She was the reason I kept trying and working hard on top of myself. Music began to feel like such a chore and pain for me to work on…I would literally push myself just to see what she would say. She always picked me up and kept me from hitting my rock bottom. She saw my potential and effort. I was thrilled that someone besides just my parents and drummer noticed what I felt. I would talk to her and literally drop my razor…I hid how seriously struggling I was from everyone…She honestly didn’t even know this severity until maybe a few weeks ago? I hid it from my mom…My mom only found out about it when I let her read my report for the contest that I actually won. I pushed everything I had left into that report. I decided to pour what litle of my heart I had left into it. That’s when things started to change. I began to believe in myself and enjoy music and working hard again. My whole mentality changed. I feel refreshed. I don’t feel worthless and like a waste of space or like I am bugging anyone anymore. When I tell you guys, that “That really means so much to me”, it really does. You all have seriously held me and lifted me up at my worst. I was thinking of all of this as I wrote my report. I know I could never thank you guys enough. That’s why this school and everyone here means everything to me. It has brought back my positivity and inspiration and just everything when I felt like things kept strangling me and taking ever bit of light away…
This reply was modified 3 months, 4 weeks ago by Rowan Morris.
This reply was modified 3 months, 4 weeks ago by Rowan Morris.
Thanks for sharing your story Rowan! We face some hard times in life, and you gotta have faith in yourself that youll do better, and it gets better.
Keep working and following your dreams, don’t ever let anyone put you down cuz you’re amazing!
Its amazing to see how people here help for eachother, and I’m so happy you managed to overcome it with Jak’s help!
Keep rocking and and share your content with us, it is a pleasure to watch
Keep working and following your dreams, don’t ever let anyone put you down cuz you’re amazing!
Its amazing to see how people here help for eachother, and I’m so happy you managed to overcome it with Jak’s help!
Keep rocking and and share your content with us, it is a pleasure to watch
