I try to do things in one take, but doubling rhythm parts is always difficult, especially if you want things to cut the way I want them to cut.
— Dimebag Darrell
Sometimes it's cool to play major third and minor third diads back-to-back, or a minor third followed by a root/fifth diad - whatever combo sounds good.
Man, that first Leppard album really jams, and their original guitarist, Pete Willis, was a great player.
You can write every song on an album in E and not hurt a thing.
The harder stuff has always done it for me. Man, if it rips, I'll give it a thumbs up!
The local dudes who knew that my dad owned a studio would say, 'Ahh, dude is spoiled,' and this and that. But we didn't abuse it at all. I'd always ask if we could use the studio first, and if our dad didn't want us there he would tell us, and that was that. But I definitely tried to get down there as often as I could.
I'm a spazzer, you know?
You can tune your guitar funky, and something's gonna come out. There's no secret to it - either you got it, or you don't.
I was more influenced by players like Randy Rhoads and Eddie Van Halen than by the guys in southern rock bands.
I would just listen to records and learn what I could, then just roll it over and over and over.
To get my sound in the studio, I double guitar tracks, and when it gets to the lead parts, the rhythm drops out, just like it's live. I'm very conscious of that.
I used to skip school and paint my face with Ace Frehley Kiss make-up.
A lot of bands whine about the road and how tough it is.
Every song is different.
We still get those kind of cats coming out to our shows. Once you're into it, you're into it for a lifetime.
I got food poisoning in Venezuela, and it sucked!
The most common power chord in metal is the root/fifth, but root/third diads are also worth checking out.
I'm not a super blues player, but I was exposed to the Texas blues sound while I was growing up, and that definitely rubbed off on me.
The first time I heard 'Crazy Train,' I was crashed out in bed, definitely not wanting to get up and go to school, when my brother Vinnie came in and cranked it up.
'I'm Broken' was a sound check riff.
Initially, I just used the guitar as a prop. I'd pose with it in front of a mirror in my Kiss makeup when I was skipping school. Then I figured out how to play the main riff to Deep Purple's 'Smoke on the Water' on just the E string. Next, my old man showed me how to play barre chords, and that's when things started getting really heavy.
I'm not gonna say it's all done, 'cause it ain't ever all done.
I'm into sounds, man.
Between the record companies being the way they are and the fact that people can just download one song instead of buying a whole album, it's hard to make a good living nowadays.
My old man was a musician - that's what he did for a living. And like most fathers, occasionally he'd let me visit where he worked. So I started going to his recording studio, and I really dug it.
Pantera is the only band I've ever been in, and at the start we used to play covers to make a living.
Always have a collection of your favorite CDs with you.
Musicians tend to get bored playing the same thing over and over, so I think it's natural to experiment.
The worst advice I ever received from my dad was to play by the book.
I was lucky enough to get to see guys like Bugs Henderson, Jimmy Wallace, all those great Texas blues players.
Each track has to be precise, and that is a problem on a rhythmically complex track like 'Slaughtered.'
Glen Tipton and K.K. Downing are the gods of double-guitar axemanship.
To me, blues is more of a feel and a vibe, rather than sitting there and saying, 'Well, I'm gonna play bluesy now.'
Van Halen was a huge influence on me, and 'Eruption' was the song that really leaped off that first Van Halen album.
People that love this form of music have loved it from way back - Sabbath, Zeppelin, the early days.
When you're a little kid, you have nerve. I'd walk right up to whoever was recording and say, 'Hey, dude, what's the lick of the week?'
Make your heart bleed! Put your soul into that damn thing. And try new things.
Washburn built me the guitar that changed my life.
Lessons didn't really work out for me, so I went to the old school, listening to records and learning what I wanted to learn.
It kills me when I see some metal band trying to pass themselves off as an 'alternative band.'
My heroes were Eddie Van Halen - especially after Van Halen I, II, III, and IV - Randy Rhoads, Ace Frehley and dudes like that. My brother played drums and we jammed in the garage and started writing our own stuff.
Music drives you. It wakes you up, it gets you pumping. And, at the end of the day, the correct tune will chill you down.
If you improvise a riff and the crowd immediately reacts to it, you know you're on to something.
When I tried to play something and screwed up, I'd hear some other note that would come into play. Then I started trying different things to find the beauty in it.
