Quotes from Synyster Gates

Some people will basically just shred all over everything, even a ballad. I'm glad I wasn't born with that genetic chip - the need to just wheedle-whee all over the place.

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.

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.

It's very important to focus on the music first. That's always number one. But after that, it's extremely important to just have fun with what you're doing.

We tried our best for so long to make the heaviest record we could make.

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.

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.

We're very much perfectionists, so when we're putting on a huge show and want to play to the best of ability, we rehearse intensely. And I have a guitar pretty much in my hand for at least five hours before doing a show. I'm just noodling and mucking around and working on some of the songs here and there.

We have a lot of fun. There are no holds barred when it comes to writing music for us.

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.

We have to do everything a hundred and ten percent when we're doing it. If we're on tour, we're constantly thinking of different ways to make the show better, or whatever it 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.

We're happier when we're with friends on tour.

When we try and blend the two together, the songwriting and the touring like we did before, it doesn't really work. We tend to become very focused on what we are doing. And we tend to be a little bit one-track-minded.

We listen to a lot of classical and a lot of jazz, and so you get some funky notes here and there. And we get a little experimental in some of the deeper tracks.

If you want to do things right, you have to dig deep for that inspiration.

Lyrically, 'Planets' is the precursor to 'Acid Rain'; it's about a meteoric, intergalactic war that results in an apocalypse and the human species aligning together to go fight something much better than us, our individual trials and tribulations.

I don't really play a lot of slide in general, but it was fun getting into that style and exploring it.

If I'm proud of one thing in my playing, it's being able to slow it down and focus on the melody.

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.

I used my Schecter for all my rhythms and most of my solos, certainly the fast solos.

All of my solos were improvised initially - I would go in and get my bearings and see what I came up with.

Everything from the lyrics to the production, solos to the writing - it's all democratic. At the end of the day, you know, when you're all done with the grind - which it is always an incredible grind for us to write records - I think it makes it that much more special to hear the final product.

I think if you go to 'Strength of the World,' a song like that, the chorus isn't that great, but you go into the bridge and other things and the catchier parts and the better melodies we were really focused on.