Zacky Vengeance

I've had the chance to watch Metallica's James Hetfield from the side of the stage night after night, listening to his monitors, and his playing is so perfect. Slash is an amazing lead guitarist, but when you listen to his rhythm playing, you can hear how he pulls everything together with such a great feel, which is the most important thing.

On our first album, 'Sounding the Seventh Trumpet,' we were listening to more obscure heavy metal bands and hardcore bands.

Basically, everything I've learned on guitar, I've learned from listening to my favorite albums. I never had any formal training. My teachers were Dimebag Darrell and Slash and the guys in Rancid and Slayer.

I remember when I was a kid, every time the Beatles were on the radio, my dad would say he'd give me a dollar if I could tell him what band it was. So by the time I was about nine, I knew to just say 'The Beatles,' and I'd get a dollar out of it.

What makes Avenged so exciting to me musically is that people either love us or hate us, but nobody sounds like us.

After 'City of Evil,' the world was still kind of apprehensive about Avenged Sevenfold. They didn't know if we were a serious band or just some kids trying to play really ambitious music with crazy guitar parts that would be here one minute and gone the next.

It was a big deal for us to be on Ozzfest, especially as one of the main headliners and being the band that wasn't announced: the mystery band. We'd never played the second stage at Ozzfest, and all of a sudden we're on the main stage.

I absolutely remember when I decided upon playing Ernie Ball strings, and it was right then and there at the guitar store up in Seattle when I picked up my first guitar ever. They said, 'What kind of strings should we put on it?' And I just looked at the brightest color package and said, 'That one!'

When you start running out of things to do on a guitar, you have to find other ways of making music with your instrument.

Our first radio single, 'The Stage,' was eight-and-a-half minutes long. Unabashedly, we wanted to push the limits musically, lyrically, and instrumentation-wise.

In terms of content and instrumentation, I feel we have been extremely ambitious on every one of our albums going back to high school. We were the first screaming hardcore band to put a big ballad on our record.

There are so many people involved in making an album, and naturally, all you want to do is show it to your friends and family. You just can't do any of that because all it takes is one morsel of information on the Internet. Within seconds, it's around the whole world.

Everything an artist does is scary, but we do it anyway. If someone tries to steer you off-course, push them outta the way and get back on course. Never giving up - that's what I truly believe all the greatest bands have done.

We've shown everyone we are musicians first and foremost: we'll produce our own albums and play The 100 Club. We earned people's respect. We're not the band on MTV, wearing a bunch of makeup. We've proved we're the real deal.

I love listening to Led Zeppelin and classic rock albums from the Seventies. They're just so brilliant because they breathe.

My dad played some guitar, and both my parents are fans of music and have huge record collections.

When we called each other and got the call that Jimmy had died, literally, it all ended right there. Everything we've ever known as human beings, everything we've ever known as a band, changes at that moment, and you can't think clearly.

Once you can get a fan to listen to an album a handful of times and really have a lot of substance for them to grasp, then you're looking at having a fan that really appreciates what you do for life and can appreciate coming to see it live.

It's always been a conscious thing for us to do whatever will separate us from the pack and make us happy musically.

We're in the business of making fans that will last with us a lifetime. In order to do that, you've gotta give them something special.

We're always talking and plotting and discussing what we can do to give our fans the best possible experience and leave everyone going home with having an amazing time and a memory that will last a lifetime.

A lot of people have ideas and opinions on what Avenged Sevenfold should be or what we should do, and I think our No. 1 rule is to always make sure we never listen to any of that and to always do what we believe.

From day one, we've always gotten backlash for certain outlandish ideas that we've had and presented. That's also kind of been the driving force that's pushed us forward.

You always have to try new things, and that's the one thing that we've learned from all the greats - every album isn't gonna be every fan's favorite, but as long as you keep switching it up and making new fans, it's really about being persistent.

I can't honestly say with a straight face that every Avenged Sevenfold album is my favorite.

I think everyone's trying to come up together and bring up other bands along the way, and we've always been really blessed to have bands like Metallica and Iron Maiden take us under their wing and say nice things about us.

With any success, a lot of voices come out, and you start hearing a lot more opinions on the matter. We've provoked very strong reactions in both directions since day one.

I can honestly tell you, if it wasn't for our fans, there would not be Avenged Sevenfold right now.

It's just so obscure to take a folk song in a different language and be a pretty well-respected English-speaking rock band and totally take a song and twist it around and have fun with it.

All the song choices that we've picked are unique in their own right. They're fun, and it's really just to engage our fans.

We're very historically tried and true when it comes to our albums. We pick the best songs; we get rid of the songs we feel don't fit on the album, and we don't work on remixing or remastering albums.

We really wanted to create an album that had no boundary or limit to it. There's nothing to say that we couldn't release a song that belongs on 'The Stage' 20 years into our career. We want it to be an album that constantly grows with what we want to do, and that's what we did.

We like to be in touch with our fans, but we're also very private. 'Cause, to us, it's not about Zacky or M. Shadows or Synyster Gates. It's about Avenged Sevenfold; it's more important than any one of us.

We wanna go back to Southeast Asia and just do it right for them.

If we were to find a drummer that we were comfortable with and who we felt could really become a part of what we're about, it'd be great. But would we ever rush to find a guy just get back on the road? No. I think we'd rather go down with the ship.

Mike Elizondo had an incredible array of guitars in the studio, but they were all right-handed.

One of our biggest pet peeves is listening to bands that use harmony guitars for the sake of it. If you can't figure out how do something different than Maiden, UFO, or even Boston, then what's the point?