'I'm Broken' was a sound check riff.

If you improvise a riff and the crowd immediately reacts to it, you know you're on to something.

I'm not going for a soft sound. I ain't lookin' for a warm sound. My sound is warm, but I don't need tubes to do it. The Randall RG-100 is the best amp for what I do.

To me and my band, guitar riffs are what it's all about. We know that every time we jam on a great riff, we've got a fighting chance of writing a great song!

My first killer amp was a Sunn Beta Lead. It was solid-state, but that Sunn was incredibly loud. I used to say to my friends, 'Hey, check it out. It's only on two.'

Initially, I just used the guitar as a prop. I'd pose with it in front of a mirror in my Kiss makeup when I was skipping school. Then I figured out how to play the main riff to Deep Purple's 'Smoke on the Water' on just the E string. Next, my old man showed me how to play barre chords, and that's when things started getting really heavy.