Avenged Sevenfold 'Regretfully' Postpone South American Tour Due to Health Concern, Statement Issued

Avenged Sevenfold were set to launch their late 2025 South American tour this past Thursday (Sept. 25) in Buenos Aires, Argentina. However, they recently issued a statement revealing that the tour is being postponed to “early next year” due to a major health concern: frontman M. Shadows’ diagnosis of “a specific condition called a vocal fold hematoma."

What Avenged Sevenfold Said

Last Friday (Sept. 26), the band posted the following statement on social media:

With a heavy heart, and regretfully, we have to announce that due to a specific condition called a vocal fold hematoma, we have made the necessary decision to push our tour to early next year. We promise to come back stronger than ever. Your tickets will still be valid for the rescheduled shows—new dates are on the way and will be announced next week.

Thank you for your understanding, love, and support.

Alongside it, Avenged Sevenfold shared a nearly three-minute video in which M. Shadows delves deeper into the situation. “Hey, everyone. What’s going on? Got some discouraging news. Gonna have to postpone the Latin America tour. Got my voice in some sort of trouble,” he begins.

Shadows continues:

After Louder Than Life, I got a little sick, and I thought that my throat was feeling crummy from being sick. Came down to Argentina [and] felt like it was probably the travel and the schedule, etc. [that did it]. Monday and Tuesday came and I slept a bunch. Didn’t feel any different, so we postponed Buenos Aires. The next day, I got a bunch of sleep, woke up, and I felt like something wasn’t getting better. So, I found a great doctor in Argentina, went and got my throat scoped, and I have a hematoma on my left vocal fold, which is the same injury I had in 2017.

In 2017, though, I decided to keep singing through it. Took a bunch of pills, and [it] ended up resulting in surgery. So, basically, if I shut this down now, I’ll have a couple weeks of voice rest and then a couple of months of rehab, and we’ll be able to remake these dates to you. So, I gotta make the responsible decision here and shut this down. This’ll be the last time I’m talking for a couple of weeks.

Then, Shadows somberly admits: “[It] breaks my heart I have to do this” before clarifying that the band will “reschedule these days for January.” Finally, he acknowledges the artists who were slated to open for Avenged Sevenfold – A Day to Remember, Mr. Bungle, Poppy and/or Karen Dió depending on the date – as he remarks:

You know, apologies to everyone who’s made plans [and] spent money. Hopefully, this is early enough to make you able to make the proper plans and change the dates to January. Apologies to the bands. All of them have flown down here already. Our crew. Everyone’s already down here. The equipment. A lot goes into this, but I have to make the responsible decision and there’s just no way I can sing like this. [I] don’t want another surgery, so we’re gonna take the responsible route here [and] shut it down for a couple of months, and I’m just sorry this had to happen. It just sucks. Can’t wait to see you guys in January. Sorry.

In addition to the canceled shows in Argentina, Avenged Sevenfold were also scheduled to play parts of Chile, Brazil, Columbia, Mexico and Puerto Rico (via Metal Hammer).

You can view the band’s message and Shadows’ video below:

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How Have Fans Reacted to the News?

Thankfully, fans and (even fellow rockers) have generally responded to the news with understanding, concern and well wishes.

For instance, Disturbed frontman David Draiman wrote on X, “Rest up and heal my brother,” just like Papa Roach frontman Jacoby Shaddix empathized on Instagram: “Dang i feel for you brother. Ive had 4 vocal surgeries and had issues just like yours. I know how tough this is. Heal up and get after it when you are better. Much love brotha!”

Elsewhere, someone on Facebook reflected: “No joke. I got a vocal chord hematoma back in 2007 from singing Avenged Sevenfold on Rock Band. I lost my voice for about a year after it and had to get surgery.” Similarly, someone on X replied: “Always take care of you. I wish you the best in your throat issues. Hope you get better soon.”

You can see some of those reactions – and others – below, and of course, everyone at Loudwire hopes M. Shadows has a speedy and successful recovery.

What Is a Hematoma?

As Loudwire once described it (in relation to late Motorhead frontman/bassist Lemmy Kilmister suffering from one back in 2013), a hematoma is “a mass of usually clotted blood caused by a broken blood vessel that forms in a tissue, organ or body space. They can occur anywhere in the body, and the prognosis varies widely.”

Unsurprisingly, many other rock and metal musicians (beyond Lemmy and M. Shadows) have also suffered from hematomas. For instance, Vixen vocalist Janet Gardener had emergency surgery to address “a subdural hematoma” back in 2018 (via Loudwire), and Guns N’ Roses frontman Axl Rose got a hematoma in 2012 (after falling off of a table in Moscow).

In 2022, the National Library of Medicine even released a study – “Traumatic Brain Injury After Music-Associated Head Banging: A Scoping Review” – that (as Loudwire wrote in 2025) “found that in some cases, headbanging directly caused traumatic subdural hematoma, internal carotid artery dissection, traumatic vertebral artery aneurism and a few others conditions.”

So, you know, be careful out there!