As you get a little older and start drinking a bit more coffee, you start talking about big-boy things a little more.
There is no doubt in my mind that I was going to do what my father did, but it wasn't kind of a family-business thing.
When practicing, it's great to break a part down into its different elements, start slowly, and then try to build up the speed until you're playing as fast as you possibly can.
We've had some huge moments. But we've always been on a steady, gentle, upward slope, and I think that keeps us grounded. There's been no overnight success here, and we haven't dealt with a whole lot of hot and cold.
I hate to debunk the myth - kids don't wanna hear it - but as songwriters, you have to polish your craft a little bit and hone it as much as possible.
Usually when we go in to cut demos, one of us will lay down some mumbling sort of stuff for the vocal melodies because the lyrics don't come until later.
I used my Schecter for all my rhythms and most of my solos, certainly the fast solos.
There's nothing like having some healthy competition. We really strive to think outside the box by taking the standard approach the then twisting it a little, all the while trying something new.
When kids invest their time and money in coming to see us, we owe it to them to give them the best night of their lives.
Breaking Benjamin, they're such incredible songwriters.
Breaking Benjamin, talk about songwriting, I mean, some of the greatest songwriters of the modern era. And, obviously, it's a little heavier.
We're happier when we're with friends on tour.
We really wanted to circumvent that online learning curve, where it's virtually impossible to use words to explain music.
Everybody's lost somebody, and I think they all miss them incredibly.
It's really fun to just get on a bike and just go and, I guess in a way, to be able to leave the tour and not be confined and all that kind of stuff.
My little brother played drums, so we had a drum set over at my house.
I use Bogner amps and custom-designed Schecter guitars with Seymour Duncan Invader pickups. I beef up my tone with a Boss CS- 3 Compression Sustainer. It's kinda like my secret weapon.
I don't like using fourths and fifths. Instead, I'll come up with a harmony line made up of major and minor thirds above the melody, then I'll drop it down an octave so that the melody is on top and the harmony line is major and minor sixths below it.
I was living out of my truck for a short while. My dad wanted to emancipate me at 16 and send me to music college.
There are those people who try to change what you're doing. We don't like that. When we went into the studio for 'City of Evil,' we had 99 percent of the songs finished and ready to record.
