A biography for Synyster Gateshasn’t been written yet.
“I find that drummers are the coolest people in the world. I play a little bit of drums.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“Breaking Benjamin, talk about songwriting, I mean, some of the greatest songwriters of the modern era. And, obviously, it's a little heavier.”
“Maybe we'll do some fun stuff here and there, but I don't want to record any more songs.”
“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.”
“We interact with the crowd, turn it into a party.”
“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'm not a big-effects sort of guy - I like to keep it simple.”
“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.”
“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 like being locked in a cage on the creative scale. I need an outlet.”
“If I'm proud of one thing in my playing, it's being able to slow it down and focus on the melody.”
“Our music is being played on MTV and the radio. That's something that still blows us away. And we did it our way.”
“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.”
“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 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.”
“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.”
“My little brother played drums, so we had a drum set over at my house.”