Dimebag Darrell
My hair's a pain in live performance. I'm always inhaling it: I almost choked to death a couple of times.Collection: Death
To me, a sure-fire way to get in a rut is by sitting around playing by yourself for too long. You've gotta get out there and jam, man! You don't have to necessarily be in a band, all you've gotta have are a couple of buds who play too. They don't have to be guitarists either; jamming with a bassist or a drummer is cool.Collection: Cool
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.Collection: Beauty
The worst advice I ever received from my dad was to play by the book.Collection: Dad
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.Collection: Music
I got food poisoning in Venezuela, and it sucked!Collection: Food
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.
Man, that first Leppard album really jams, and their original guitarist, Pete Willis, was a great player.
Glen Tipton and K.K. Downing are the gods of double-guitar axemanship.
The most common power chord in metal is the root/fifth, but root/third diads are also worth checking out.
Sometimes it's cool to play major third and minor third diads back-to-back, or a minor third followed by a root/fifth diad - whatever combo sounds good.
Each track has to be precise, and that is a problem on a rhythmically complex track like 'Slaughtered.'
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.
On our early demos, I was really frustrated with my recorded sound. I'd tell my dad, 'Dude, I want more 'cut' on my guitar - I want more treble.' And he'd say, 'Now, son, you don't want that. It'll hurt your ears.' But my dad just didn't understand.
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've become more interested in creating a band sound than trying to outshine the other guys.
Who doesn't like to play Black Sabbath tunes!
Spittin' blood, smokin' guitars, fire everywhere - Kiss is where I started.
Man, don't get me started on Pat Travers. That dude writes killer blues rock and roll riffs.
I really respect Zakk Wylde's guitar playing and his compulsive work ethic.
Whenever I feel my chops are slacking, I'll play some wide-stretch trilling exercises and take them up and down the neck as well as across it.
Learn licks and songs from records.
I love jamming with my band because the guys inspire me every time. We all get off on each other's playing.
I use some pretty radical harmonics at the beginning of 'Heresy.'
Using string bends instead of just playing regular, unbent notes can definitely help give certain riffs a cooler, heavier edge.
When you're on the road, you've got to have your four-track - or some kind of recording device to jam on and have a good time.
I do some three-part harmonies on 'Throes of Rejection' and 'Hard Lines, Sunken Cheeks,' but I didn't go overboard with it.
Whenever I record more than two or three layers, it starts to get cluttered up, and you can't hear the cut of the guitars as good. It's hard to get four guitars to hit at exactly the same time and keep the attack tight.
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 love 'Dogman' by King's X and Living Colour's 'Stain.'
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.
When I play live, I jump around like an idiot for an hour-and-a-half or more under a lighting rig that's hotter than hell.
Yeah, nothing feels better than knowing that I can put a guitar in my hands at any time and rip - even when I'm taking a crap!
I'll sleep anywhere!
I always go for that live, honest feel when I'm going for that first rhythm track. I'll never hold back on a part just so it'll be easier for me to double it later on - to my ears, it sounds sterile if you do that. I always want to get that initial track kicking and full of slurs, squeals and feel. I'll worry about doubling it later!
I can never understand how a solo could ever be 'uncool.' Play something good, and it won't be uncool, you know?
I respect the Pantera fans with all my heart.
Most bands don't make it past two albums and tours, if that. We pulled it off, and everybody's been happy and cool, but we got to the point where we knew it was time to take a break.
I've come to find out everybody loves ol' David Allan Coe, even people like Kid Rock.
I'm still the same cat I always was.
Make your heart bleed! Put your soul into that damn thing. And try new things.
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.
I'm not gonna say it's all done, 'cause it ain't ever all done.
Of all the grunge bands to come out of Seattle, Alice in Chains were the greatest.
With the right outlook, you can learn to entertain yourself and entertain each other so you can enjoy doing what you're doing. There's obviously gonna be highs and lows, and the trick to it is to be able to maintain composure and stay high even when you're in the lows. That way, when you hit the highs ,it'll be twice as killer.
Towards the end with Pantera - although I was never unhappy with the music we were making - it became one-dimensional, and we wanted to open things back up.
To me and my band, guitar riffs are what it's all about. We know that every time we jam on a great riff, we've got a fighting chance of writing a great song!
Play the pentatonic blues scale, just for fret- and pick-hand dexterity and to mesh them both together.
Way before we got a record deal, we were playing clubs seven nights a week, three one-hour sets a night. Then we got the record deal, and we took off on the road and stayed out.
When I first started experimenting with harmonics, I'd sometimes hook up two distortion boxes just to get my strings 'frying,' which helped bring out the harmonics.