Our music is being played on MTV and the radio. That's something that still blows us away. And we did it our way.
— Synyster Gates
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.
I learned sweep picking from a variety of sources. One was a Frank Gambale instructional video, but he executes his sweeps a little differently.
My little brother played drums, so we had a drum set over at my house.
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.
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.
We're happier when we're with friends on tour.
Maybe we'll do some fun stuff here and there, but I don't want to record any more songs.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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'm obsessed with great endings and crazy intros and stuff like that. I think we all are from what we've listened to and stuff, so I've always focused on great bridge melodies that just kind of naturally fit, or like a crazy ending at the end of 'Seize the Day,' something like that.
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.
If you write a country song, and it's the best song you've ever written but throw it out because you're a metal band, you'd be an idiot.
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.
For the first two weeks after he passed, we were done as a band. We were just done. And because of the fans and Jimmy's parents and relatives and stuff like that, they just demanded that we continue on and spread the legacy that is, you know, the crazy James 'The Rev' Sullivan.
Everybody's lost somebody, and I think they all miss them incredibly.
He happens to be my father and an incredible musician. When he gets lucky, we let him into the studio for 20 minutes to hear a song which has been previously written for him.
Breaking Benjamin, talk about songwriting, I mean, some of the greatest songwriters of the modern era. And, obviously, it's a little heavier.
Breaking Benjamin, they're such incredible songwriters.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I'm a huge Weezer fan, and 'Pinkerton' is just a crazy, crazy neurotic album.
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.
If I'm proud of one thing in my playing, it's being able to slow it down and focus on the melody.
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.
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.
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 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 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.
We tried our best for so long to make the heaviest record we could make.
We really wanted to circumvent that online learning curve, where it's virtually impossible to use words to explain music.
We spent a lot of time in the studio. I mean, we've spent a lot of time on tour, too.
Bullet for My Valentine, we're bros. We've been in the trenches with those guys.
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 trying to leave no stone unturned, to push forward in every aspect of what it means to be a band. Because this really matters to us. Metal matters to us. And we know exactly how much it means to kids out there, too.
I used my Schecter for all my rhythms and most of my solos, certainly the fast solos.
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.
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.
As you get a little older and start drinking a bit more coffee, you start talking about big-boy things a little more.
We spend a lot of time with MIDI keyboards and various processors, and we just figure it out. And all those things you hear in our songs work as submelodies and countermelodies, and everything has to fit.
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.
Lyrically, 'Nightmare' is an absolute masterpiece to me.
