Obviously the best way to retain the most profit is to not give any of it away. That's something that you certainly learn through the years.

I think it's a good way to sort of build your career and even when I was a young kid, I did the same thing, I looked at these guitar players, like ...I was a big fan of Steve Vai, and Al DiMeola, and said "What do those guys do?" and I found out that they went to Berkelee College of music, so I was like "Well, I'm going to go to Berkelee College of Music", and you try to, like, learn from those things, so... It's important.

It's a balance between getting the right string gauge that's thick enough where it sound good, and not rubber bands - but not too thick where your hands start to get real tired.

When we first started and started hitting new places for the first time, you kinda didn't know, because we were new. Sometimes we played tiny little clubs and sometimes we'd play a larger place.

I wanted something different. I'd been using the C+ amps for a long time, and I love them - they're one of my favorite amps ever. But on this album [Road Kings] I wanted - there were a couple reasons, actually. One is that I wanted a more aggressive sound, some more teeth and hair.

Personality wise, we are all kindred spirits. I've said this before; if we [with Mike Mangini ] ever went to high school together we would have been friends. He is just one of us! We felt that immediate connect.

Music is a communication. It's a two-way street. You need people to play to in order to make that connection complete. That's the way we look at it.