I was lucky enough to get to see guys like Bugs Henderson, Jimmy Wallace, all those great Texas blues players.

I was lucky enough to get to see guys like Bugs Henderson, Jimmy Wallace, all those great Texas blues players.

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.

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'm Broken' was a sound check riff.

A lot of bands whine about the road and how tough it is.

All syncopation means is accenting beats that you don't normally accent.

Always have a collection of your favorite CDs with you.

As far as I'm concerned, it's no good being able to wail out smokin' leads if your rhythm chops hugg!

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.

Each track has to be precise, and that is a problem on a rhythmically complex track like 'Slaughtered.'

Even though I'll do finger warm-ups that go up and down the neck to build up my chops and dexterity, I never, ever sit around and practice the actual licks I'm gonna play live. If you do, then you'll be all worried about the complexity of getting the fingering right and everything else about it, as opposed to the feel.

Every song is different.

Glen Tipton and K.K. Downing are the gods of double-guitar axemanship.

I do some three-part harmonies on 'Throes of Rejection' and 'Hard Lines, Sunken Cheeks,' but I didn't go overboard with it.

I got food poisoning in Venezuela, and it sucked!

I love 'Dogman' by King's X and Living Colour's 'Stain.'

I love jamming with my band because the guys inspire me every time. We all get off on each other's playing.

I really respect Zakk Wylde's guitar playing and his compulsive work ethic.

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.

I use some pretty radical harmonics at the beginning of 'Heresy.'

I used to skip school and paint my face with Ace Frehley Kiss make-up.

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

I was mostly influenced by bands like Black Sabbath and Judas Priest - Metallica's 'Kill 'Em All' was also a hell of an inspiration.

I would just listen to records and learn what I could, then just roll it over and over and over.

I'm a spazzer, you know?

I'm into sounds, man.

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.

I'm not going for a soft sound. I ain't lookin' for a warm sound. My sound is warm, but I don't need tubes to do it. The Randall RG-100 is the best amp for what I do.

I'm not gonna say it's all done, 'cause it ain't ever all done.

I've become more interested in creating a band sound than trying to outshine the other guys.

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

If you wanna get out of a rut bad enough, it'll always happen. It's up to you, though. No one else is ever gonna do it for you.

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.

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

Jamming with other people will create energy and excitement that you can feed off, and which will help push you to do things you'd never dream of doing by yourself.

Learn licks and songs from records.

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.

Make your heart bleed! Put your soul into that damn thing. And try new things.

Man, don't get me started on Pat Travers. That dude writes killer blues rock and roll riffs.

Man, that first Leppard album really jams, and their original guitarist, Pete Willis, was a great player.

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.

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

My first killer amp was a Sunn Beta Lead. It was solid-state, but that Sunn was incredibly loud. I used to say to my friends, 'Hey, check it out. It's only on two.'

My hair's a pain in live performance. I'm always inhaling it: I almost choked to death a couple of times.

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.

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.

My whammy system is set up so I can yank the bar up as well as do dive-bombs with it. This means that if I accidentally push down on the bridge with my palm, my strings go sharp and sound out of tune. I make sure this never happens by never resting my hand on the bridge when muting. I always do my muting just in front of the bridge.

Of all the grunge bands to come out of Seattle, Alice in Chains were the greatest.