When I first started experimenting with harmonics, I'd sometimes hook up two distortion boxes just to get my strings 'frying,' which helped bring out the harmonics.

The easiest place to get a natural harmonic on any string is at the 12th fret. All you do is lightly rest one of your left-hand fingers on a string directly above that fret and then pick it.

To me, a sure-fire way to get in a rut is by sitting around playing by yourself for too long. You've gotta get out there and jam, man! You don't have to necessarily be in a band, all you've gotta have are a couple of buds who play too. They don't have to be guitarists either; jamming with a bassist or a drummer is cool.

Play the pentatonic blues scale, just for fret- and pick-hand dexterity and to mesh them both together.

Even though I'll do finger warm-ups that go up and down the neck to build up my chops and dexterity, I never, ever sit around and practice the actual licks I'm gonna play live. If you do, then you'll be all worried about the complexity of getting the fingering right and everything else about it, as opposed to the feel.

Learn licks and songs from records.

I really respect Zakk Wylde's guitar playing and his compulsive work ethic.

Who doesn't like to play Black Sabbath tunes!

I've become more interested in creating a band sound than trying to outshine the other guys.

My hair's a pain in live performance. I'm always inhaling it: I almost choked to death a couple of times.

On our early demos, I was really frustrated with my recorded sound. I'd tell my dad, 'Dude, I want more 'cut' on my guitar - I want more treble.' And he'd say, 'Now, son, you don't want that. It'll hurt your ears.' But my dad just didn't understand.

I try to do things in one take, but doubling rhythm parts is always difficult, especially if you want things to cut the way I want them to cut.

Each track has to be precise, and that is a problem on a rhythmically complex track like 'Slaughtered.'

Sometimes it's cool to play major third and minor third diads back-to-back, or a minor third followed by a root/fifth diad - whatever combo sounds good.

The most common power chord in metal is the root/fifth, but root/third diads are also worth checking out.

Man, that first Leppard album really jams, and their original guitarist, Pete Willis, was a great player.

I'm not a super blues player, but I was exposed to the Texas blues sound while I was growing up, and that definitely rubbed off on me.

To me, blues is more of a feel and a vibe, rather than sitting there and saying, 'Well, I'm gonna play bluesy now.'

The first time I heard 'Crazy Train,' I was crashed out in bed, definitely not wanting to get up and go to school, when my brother Vinnie came in and cranked it up.

Van Halen was a huge influence on me, and 'Eruption' was the song that really leaped off that first Van Halen album.

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

The local dudes who knew that my dad owned a studio would say, 'Ahh, dude is spoiled,' and this and that. But we didn't abuse it at all. I'd always ask if we could use the studio first, and if our dad didn't want us there he would tell us, and that was that. But I definitely tried to get down there as often as I could.

When you're a little kid, you have nerve. I'd walk right up to whoever was recording and say, 'Hey, dude, what's the lick of the week?'

You can tune your guitar funky, and something's gonna come out. There's no secret to it - either you got it, or you don't.