Real thick strings - your hands start to get fatigued. As much as you practice, and as much experience as you have, and as long as you've been playing, there is a fatigue point during the show, as with anything that's physical. So I wanted to basically pace myself better.

You're about to walk on stage and play together for the next few hours so you want to feel connected and make sure that everyone is in the same head space; a good head space.

I almost rely on other people to say, "Hey, you ever hear of this band?" And I'll say, "Oh, I've never heard of that!" And I listened to them and thought, "What the hell?"

Instead of buying a guitar for $2,000 or $2,500 - I'm not sure how much these are going for - but it's maybe $300 or something like that. It's more for beginners and stuff like that. Obviously it's not hitting the pros. And you can't get the Piezo pickup and the color-changing paint and the inlays and all the fancy things that my signature guitars offer, but you can get the general feel of the guitar - and the body style. It's cool.

I have to say that our fans have been absolutely wonderful all across the world.

First and foremost, with everybody we wanted to see if they can pull off the songs, play them correctly, and that they it felt right musically. That's something Mike [Mangini] did, it felt like the band. He really gets the style and delivers in a powerful metal way.

We have a storage close by where I live, that's very organised. My guitar tech, Matty organised it all, labeled everything.