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.

When I first started, it was the real basic stuff that was being played on the radio, so I was into Zeppelin, and Sabbath, and AC/DC, and all stuff like that. I grew up in New York, on Long Island, so the local radio stations played all that kind of thing.

You might be able to get a certain sound, and in the studio you certainly look at things under a microscope a lot more. You might hear more warmth out of a thicker string gauge. But in the practical world, like with us, we're playing An Evening With... so it's three hours of music, and our music is pretty challenging as far as the technical aspect. And I found after awhile that I was killing myself.

I didn't try out for bands when I was younger. I got into guitars intensely a couple of years into playing so much by the time I was graduating high school I was accepted into Berklee College of Music.

I would say the more the better when it is comes to development and marketing. It's actually fun. For some it can be a frustrating thing.

Going to the Grammys, being nominated for a Grammy, that was a really big deal for me, for us as a band.

The only thing I had in my mind [when I was 17 ] was that I was going to be a professional musician. So it was just the right environment.