Quotes from Synyster Gates

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 don't feel like we have that Paul McCartney gene, and I think the cool thing about us is that we know it.

During our formative years, it was all about, 'What did Metallica do?' and 'How do we do that?' and then you try and find an identity of your own, but they're still... They were the pioneers and the trailblazers.

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.

We make sure we have total artistic control with our albums. We were working with Interscope Records, and they had a hard time with us having all the control. So when we signed with Warner Bros., we told them we would be working hands-on with our producer, and they were cool with it.

Music is a beautiful thing to listen to. It is not a thing to preach to others about, it's not a cause. It is what it is-and that's a beautiful artform.

Music is pretty much in my blood and it's definitely in my environment.

When people tell me I am better than I think I am I feel good about myself.

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.

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 find that drummers are the coolest people in the world. I play a little bit of drums.

As you get a little older and start drinking a bit more coffee, you start talking about big-boy things a little more.

We're fans of stuff like Maiden, but I think we generally get it from weirder places. For me, the Eagles' 'Hotel California' represents one of the most brilliant harmony approaches to music. Boston did it very well, too.

My father was a studio musician, played for a lot of people like Frank Zappa and a lot of R&B bands, and was always gone doing that. Then when he was home, he was practicing. And so I always saw it, and I always wanted to do what he did.

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.

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.

I can't imagine doing anything cooler or better than what we did on 'The Stage' and felt like we're firing on all cylinders.

When we do find someone we trust, like our tour manager, they become an official part of the band. We take our time to make sure whoever we trust has our best interest in mind.

My favorite punk rock song is 'Linoleum' by NOFX. That's pure harmony, the coolest chord changes.

I think, back when I was younger, I was a lot more confident about certain things that I would write, and I didn't need the band's blessing or agreement; I would just kind of fight for it 'cause I knew it was good. And then the problem with getting older, especially when there's some success involved, you have a different measuring stick.

I hope we're not the last of the Mohicans when it comes to putting on a big, crazy, over-the-top theatrical rock show.

Sometimes, with more progressive songs, you lose that feel somewhere along the line, but 'This Means War' never quits - the energy is always there.

We're not gonna write a fusion song for Avenged Sevenfold, obviously, but I love having those elements and blending it in, and having the eclectic arrangements and stuff like that.