I was addicted to rhythm 'n' blues pretty much directly into folk music. I had my little 45s of mostly black artists. That was as close as I got. I've never listened to heavy rock or stuff that jangles my nerves, because I'm already jangled.
We grew up with every type of band from Primus to Mr. Bungle to Elton John to pop music to metal, and we try to throw it all in a blender. And whatever comes out of that is more Avenged Sevenfold than metal or metalcore.
Metal never dies. Sometimes it's not on the radio and sometimes it's not at the forefront, but heavy rock or metal, or whatever the hell you want to call it, has always been around and will always be around.
I guess that I'm primarily thought of as a rocker, largely because of 'Frankenstein' being such a heavy song - you know, it was really hard rock, almost a precursor of heavy metal and just the image of the synthesizer. I happened to be the first guy to get the idea of putting a strap on the keyboard.
I'll never forget, I was talking to the singer in one of the heavier rock bands I was in, and it was like a screaming band, and I was like, 'Man, why don't we make a song that's like 'Let's Celebrate!.'
I've banged my head quite a bit. I liked Iron Maiden, Ozzy, AC/DC. And of course, Ratt and Poison.
The last thing I do is go and listen to heavy rock music. But I love electronic music. The purity of the tones is inspiring, because it's obviously much more controlled than a guitar tone.
I'd like to think that we will have had something to do with a shift back to heavy rock. That's what we've wanted all along, and we knew there'd be fearless steps to take to achieve that.
My first job was singing at the Hammersmith Odeon. It was years ago, so I can't remember who I was performing with. I was a sort of anti-climax after two hours of heavy rock-'n'-roll. Seventeen years old in a white dress. It was the first time that I got applause. Wonderful, that noise in my ears.
My favorite rocker is Go because it is heavy and chaotic.
My guitar playing was born from playing in my teenage heavy rock bands.
I like the old school heavy metal bands like AC/DC and Aeromith. I like that type of music. As the director, I tried to influence the type of music the bands in the movie would play.
Hopefully people can look at our band and see that we're a heavy rock band. We're definitely not a metal band, but we're a band that focuses on meaningful lyrics and melody.
There were not very many girls in rock n' roll together with men that had a heavy rock sound as well as a more acoustic sound like Heart.
On piano, I tend to write either gospel or singer-songwriter songs, sometimes kind of rocking blues songs. But the more heavier rock stuff I will write on bass.
