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.
— Synyster Gates
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.
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.
I wouldn't be one-third of the player I am today if it wasn't for Avenged. They're an inspiring group of guys, and I'm constantly challenged to write things beyond my ability and then figure out how to play them.
We have a lot of fun. There are no holds barred when it comes to writing music for us.
I don't like being locked in a cage on the creative scale. I need an outlet.
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.
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.
Korn is great friends of ours, so to be on tour with friends is usually our number one. We've been very blessed to meet a lot of great bands, successful bands, that we can go tour with.
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.
If you want to do things right, you have to dig deep for that inspiration.
All of my solos were improvised initially - I would go in and get my bearings and see what I came up with.
I don't feel like we have that Paul McCartney gene, and I think the cool thing about us is that we know it.
I don't really play a lot of slide in general, but it was fun getting into that style and exploring it.
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 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.
I'm not a big-effects sort of guy - I like to keep it simple.
I try to, at least, think very melodically, and my band forces me to think very melodically.
Just based on the primary adage of the necessity breeding innovation, it was just like 'Well, what makes me the guitar player that I am?' and I feel like I listen to so much different music, and I'm a student of so many genres of music, and I feel like it's fun to apply those things and anything super applicable to any type of music.
Rolling Stones came later for me. I was a Beatles guy. All of us were pretty much more along the lines of Beatles guys than we were Stones or Elvis.
We wanted to do something really, really different, something next level, and use new technology and things.
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 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.
In a studio situation, I'm able to dig deep and come up with stuff that all the guys think fits the vibe of the song. And I think that's partly due to the fact that I grew up listening to just about everything under the sun. I'm very open to music, and I like to do things in a traditional and musical way.
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.
We interact with the crowd, turn it into a party.
We're more about other things over odd timings: orchestration, composition, horn/vocal arrangements - that's where we get super weird.
The thing about me is that I'm very fortunate to have had the opportunities with Avenged Sevenfold in songwriting. I really think it's helped to bolster my guitar playing as well.
I find that drummers are the coolest people in the world. I play a little bit of drums.
My favorite punk rock song is 'Linoleum' by NOFX. That's pure harmony, the coolest chord changes.
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.
