I think it's beneficial to practice with a metronome or drum machine in order to strengthen your sense of time. It will help your concept of time and improve your feel.
We don't ever spread ourselves too thin. And sometimes it's a little bit to the chagrin of our fans; they don't get albums... I mean, The Beatles were doing two albums a year at one point.
I wouldn't be one-third of the player I am today if it wasn't for Avenged. They're an inspiring group of guys, and I'm constantly challenged to write things beyond my ability and then figure out how to play them.
We listen to a lot of hip hop. They're the ones that are trailblazing. It used to be rock, but it's really turned to hip hop, and they're doing really unique and cool things, and we wanted to do that, too.
My fans, they know my dad as Guitar Guy or whatever, and he's kind of just this shredder that plays on my records sometimes. But they don't know his ear and how rich his harmonic scope is.
We're fortunate that our fans worldwide have really embraced our evolution. We know how lucky we are. We want to change people's lives. I'm not saying we're God's gift, but we're trying to make a difference.
I'm a huge Weezer fan, and 'Pinkerton' is just a crazy, crazy neurotic album.
We wanted to do something really, really different, something next level, and use new technology and things.
Lyrically, 'Nightmare' is an absolute masterpiece to me.
Our music is being played on MTV and the radio. That's something that still blows us away. And we did it our way.
We kinda were a radio-rock band. We were still pretty technical, but I think the prog people hated us because we didn't do a bunch of weird time signatures... which are cool at times, but I'm more interested in progressive harmony.
Our singer, Matt, was reading Stephen Hawking and other physics-related books, and I was reading entrepreneurial books, and we all started discussing the new technologies that were taking over the world, from 3-D printing to space travel. These conversations starting leading us to think of how we could portray these things in a musical way.
My favorite punk rock song is 'Linoleum' by NOFX. That's pure harmony, the coolest chord changes.
Rolling Stones came later for me. I was a Beatles guy. All of us were pretty much more along the lines of Beatles guys than we were Stones or Elvis.
Korn is great friends of ours, so to be on tour with friends is usually our number one. We've been very blessed to meet a lot of great bands, successful bands, that we can go tour with.
I find that drummers are the coolest people in the world. I play a little bit of drums.
I am a product of an amalgamation of different teachers. If it was just one teacher, even just my father, I would be half the player that I am today.
The thing about me is that I'm very fortunate to have had the opportunities with Avenged Sevenfold in songwriting. I really think it's helped to bolster my guitar playing as well.
Just based on the primary adage of the necessity breeding innovation, it was just like 'Well, what makes me the guitar player that I am?' and I feel like I listen to so much different music, and I'm a student of so many genres of music, and I feel like it's fun to apply those things and anything super applicable to any type of music.
I try to, at least, think very melodically, and my band forces me to think very melodically.
