I've been fortunate to work with companies that I endorse because I love their gear. Whether Music Man, Dunlop, or DiMarizo to me these companies have supported me in such a way that's invaluable.

Guitar players get inward and analytical about their playing but when you start to get positive feedback from other players it makes you think that it is coming together.

I experimented a bunch with Ernie Ball in getting the strings to not flop around too much, but at the same time not to be too thick to where you're playing telephone cables.

In Japan they're definitely more over the top. They had four Boogie stacks and 20 guitars. But otherwise it's pretty much the same thing, except there's a translator. It's really nice.

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.

I'm from the school of putting a lot of hours of practice into playing. But at the same time you have to write original music - that's really important, because that's the things that's going to separate you from everybody else, that's going to give you your unique voice as a music that you create.

A lot of people around the world were, like, very frustrated, you know "Why don't you just release the name? Why is it taking so long?" But the cool thing is that it brought people together, like you said, it brought our fans into the experience, it sort of exposed us, exposed the process, and I think it welcomed Mike Magini, because people saw what happened to get to that point.