I was more influenced by players like Randy Rhoads and Eddie Van Halen than by the guys in southern rock bands.

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.

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.

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.

The worst advice I ever received from my dad was to play by the book.

Musicians tend to get bored playing the same thing over and over, so I think it's natural to experiment.

If you improvise a riff and the crowd immediately reacts to it, you know you're on to something.

It kills me when I see some metal band trying to pass themselves off as an 'alternative band.

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.

I'm not saying I wouldn't play a seven-string. It's just that I've never needed one. Most dudes who play seven-strings don't sound any different than someone playing a six-string that's tuned down.

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.

No teacher has the right to cure a child of making noises on a drum. The only curing that should be practiced is the curing of unhappiness.

A cruel story runs on wheels and every hand oils the wheels as they run.

Natural gas is a feedstock in basically every industrial process.

God is not He who is, but That which is.

There's always a faster gun.

I find it most intriguing to contemplate the fact that while men are considering what place to give Jesus Christ in history, He has already decided what place to give them in eternity.

The past was only my cradle, and now it cannot hold me, because I am grown too big.

People's view of exotic or Asian women are changing. It's much nicer to hear 'She's pretty' than 'She's pretty - for an Asian woman.

One of the most important things about social media is knowing when to put the phone down and experience your life.

It's painful, man, for my daughters to say they're scared of me.