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When you're first starting out, there's always the temptation to hide behind distortion because it lets you get away with murder. But, when it comes to rhythm work, you've gotta back off that gain control a bit, especially if you're playing with another guitarist.

Lots of times I'll play lead and rhythm together.

As soon as I get in a rhythm, I'm very hard to stop.

You can't go over every beat, every second, and worry about how you can do it better - it'll eat you alive.

To get my sound in the studio, I double guitar tracks, and when it gets to the lead parts, the rhythm drops out, just like it's live. I'm very conscious of that.

Although I'm a lead guitarist, I'd say that a good 95 percent of my time onstage is spent playing rhythm.

I have exactly as much rhythm as you think I have.

I noticed a lot of guitar players neglected the rhythm part of rhythm guitar and decided I would try to focus in that. As my skill and knowledge of the instrument grew, I found lead started to come naturally. Sometimes I play guitar like a frustrated drummer. Ha ha!

I trained well this week but I think it will take some time until I recover my best rhythm in this specialty.

I don't work out a lead section and practice it for a day and then lay it down. I don't do that. The first time I do something I think is expressive or really cool, that's what's actually on the recording.