Top 55 Synyster Gates Quotes

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’m a huge Weezer fan, and ‘Pinkerton’ is just a crazy, crazy neurotic album.

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

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

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 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.

My little brother played drums, so we had a drum set over at my house.

I try to, at least, think very melodically, and my band forces me to think very melodically.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

Maybe we’ll do some fun stuff here and there, but I don’t want to record any more songs.

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.

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

We wanted to do something really, really different, something next level, and use new technology and things.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

We interact with the crowd, turn it into a party.

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 really play a lot of slide in general, but it was fun getting into that style and exploring it.

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 spent a lot of time in the studio. I mean, we’ve spent a lot of time on tour, too.

I learned sweep picking from a variety of sources. One was a Frank Gambale instructional video, but he executes his sweeps a little differently.

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.

Everybody’s lost somebody, and I think they all miss them incredibly.

We’re more about other things over odd timings: orchestration, composition, horn/vocal arrangements – that’s where we get super weird.

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 really wanted to circumvent that online learning curve, where it’s virtually impossible to use words to explain music.

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.

Breaking Benjamin, they’re such incredible songwriters.

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

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.

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

Bullet for My Valentine, we’re bros. We’ve been in the trenches with those guys.

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.

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