That is one thing about playing with Guns N' Roses and Metallica: everyone wants to interview you. Zacky Vengeance More Quotes by Zacky Vengeance More Quotes From Zacky Vengeance 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. Zacky Vengeance feel back high-school school 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. Zacky Vengeance push single limits long When you start running out of things to do on a guitar, you have to find other ways of making music with your instrument. Zacky Vengeance start you guitar music 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!' Zacky Vengeance guitar color said remember 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. Zacky Vengeance never stage mystery band What makes Avenged so exciting to me musically is that people either love us or hate us, but nobody sounds like us. Zacky Vengeance me hate love people My dad played some guitar, and both my parents are fans of music and have huge record collections. Zacky Vengeance parents guitar dad music 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. Zacky Vengeance me dad time remember 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. Zacky Vengeance teachers never training guitar On our first album, 'Sounding the Seventh Trumpet,' we were listening to more obscure heavy metal bands and hardcore bands. Zacky Vengeance metal more heavy-metal listening 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. Zacky Vengeance great you together night 'Waking the Fallen' truly encompasses everything that Avenged Sevenfold was at that time. It was us being fearless, us showing our roots in heavy metal, punk, rock n' roll, and not being afraid to try everything under the sun when it comes to writing music. Zacky Vengeance music roots sun time Even when we were at that point when we had very few fans, we never felt like a small band. We always felt like we had a big purpose. Zacky Vengeance small never always purpose I've always loved big riffs and chunky guitars. Zacky Vengeance guitars loved big always I like being able to do dueling leads, and it's fun to be able to shred. Zacky Vengeance being like able fun