I gotta admit, it's pretty surreal. Back in 2005, I was pretty burned out on metal, mainly because the whole emo/metalcore thing had peaked and the vast majority of it sounded the same to me. But then I bought an Xbox game called Burnout Revenge, and as I was boosting my way around one of the Sunshine Quays tracks a song came on by a band called Avenged Sevenfold. In the game it was just called Beast and was partially edited down, but upon hearing it my faith in metal was almost immediately restored.
I quickly got on the internet and did some research and it turned out the song was called Beast and the Harlot from an album called City of Evil. One look at that badass cover art combined with the song, which brought classic and modern metal crashing together in an amazing way and I knew one thing. I needed that album straight away. The next day I got my dad to drive me 20 miles to Cardiff, and I found the cd in Virgin Megastore for £10. It was pretty much all I listened to for about three months straight.
The point is that Avenged had a massive impact on my life, and Jimmy was and forever will be a huge part of that. I never met him, and I've only seen the band twice, but each time he was an inspiration to watch. A sort of bubble of explosive energy constantly going off as his hands blurred over his drum kit.
Most recently, I've been listening to a couple of Avenged songs which gave me inspiration for a story I've been planning on writing for a year or more. I've been putting it off, constantly thinking I've got plenty of time, I'll start later etc. But this has taught me that, sadly, a long life is not necessarily a given. So I've resolved to start writing now, making sure I get this thing done. And my first decision today was to name one of the principle characters. I've had the names Donahue James and his grandson Harrigan James in my mind for over a year, but couldn't settle on a name for the son in between, so I've decided to name that character Sullivan James, to honour the inspiration that Jimmy and Avenged Sevenfold have given me over the years.
Rest in peace Jimmy "The Rev" Sullivan.
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