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.

Usually we're all comfortable playing the songs, but during the song there might be one part where you're like „oh, this part's coming up, I have to really focus", a lot of songs have those moments in them.

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.

I really rely a lot more on memory. I'm definitely not as good of a sight reader.

The style of music that we're playing, this progressive metal style, has always been an upstream battle for us. We don't usually get a lot of commercial exposure.

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.

We've seen progressive rock all over the world, in South America, Europe, Asia, across the US and North America and Australia. There's huge audiences for this stuff. For me it's always been there and it's just a matter of time before the people have more of the means to spread the word.