Baker attended Huntington Beach High School, and formed Avenged Sevenfold there with M. Shadows and The Rev. Before Avenged Sevenfold, his first band was a crust punk band called Society Down. which stands for Mad Porno Action. He implied that they were both not successful. Baker came up with his stage name "Zacky Vengeance" because he wanted to get back at all the people from his youth who doubted his potential. He also came up with Jonathan Seward's stage name "Johnny Christ," saying it suited him. Vengeance was also responsible for the creation of the initialism "A7X".^[2]
Despite playing the guitar left handed, Vengeance recalls the first guitar he learned to play on was actually a right-handed his parents had bought him for his thirteenth birthday. He learned by playing upside-down, watching his favorite bands and other people he knew who played, and practiced as much as he could. He would also read each edition of Guitar World cover to cover, learning the tabs of the songs published there and watching the professionals perform them until he could play them
He was born in Huntington Beach, California on December 11, 1981