I've always been a really open person around my friends.

For me, 'Far Beyond Driven' just had an oomph that kicked it over the edge and just pure aggression. And I always appreciated that.

I'm glad that we can add something new to the fold that Metallica's not going to bring to the table, and they're going to do what they do.

People think this is a competition between bands, when the reality is the more successful bands the better.

I feel like our whole discography up through 'Hail to the King' was young, fun, and exciting. It was aggressively driven. 'The Stage' was the first step in the band becoming a more mature musical entity.

As we develop, I just see us following our heart on this musical journey.

If people respect us as artists, they know we'll give them something different every time; they know we're pushing ourselves.

A lot of the metal bands that were around when Metallica put out 'The Black Album,' now they're playing clubs, and Metallica is playing stadiums.

If I ran the Grammys, it would probably go bankrupt.

I wanna write a classic metal record, a classic rock record, in 2013.

We always want to do covers, but we found it kind of boring to do covers of bands in our genre, and we were always asked to do those.

I was talking to my dad about the stuff he grew up listening to, and 'Operation: Mindcrime' is a record that he had always talked about around the house. He always talked about it as the 'greatest concept album of all time.' One day, I started listening to it, and it just hit me. I was like, 'These songs are all hits. They're all huge songs.'

The Brexit thing to me just looks like a difference of opinion. I know things were lied about, but that should be a wake-up call to get all the information before you vote about something. Educate yourself.

The first Maiden record I ever got was 'Piece of Mind,' and I only got it because I thought the artwork was cool, and everyone talked about Iron Maiden. But they weren't necessarily the most popular metal band in America for a 12-year-old kid when I discovered them.

People want things now. People in the rock world seem to not want to give it to them - they want to keep doing things the old way - and one thing that has always bummed me out is when we get a single three months out, and then you have to keep getting fed with bread crumbs.

Musically, I just like when people are knowledgeable about music and they can talk to you about it.

When I'm by myself asking the questions that many of us do at some point in our lives, I look to the stars knowing that the answers are somewhere out there waiting to be discovered.

Someone sent me an article on AI that was written by Tim Urban on the website Wait but Why - that was kind of where I stuck my toes in the puddle, and I said, 'OK, I've gotta learn about this!' I felt like this is one of those things that our generation is going to have to answer for, eventually, and I just wanted to educate myself on it.

Metal needs to be exposed to more people, so it's good for rock if there's bigger bands.

I used to get a huge kick out of walking into a record store and finding something I didn't know was out.

Unless someone physically tries to attack me, I don't care what anyone does.

We write music because we have to; it's a part of our very being.

When I was very young, it was Guns N' Roses and Metallica. I'd play air guitar on my bed. They've been the thread throughout my life.

The thing about covers is that the first thing you're going to notice is the vocals, because it's not the same person.