Avenged Sevenfold have been dubbed to be ‘the next Metallica’ and for good reason too. The band'sSynyster Gates recently caught up withLoudwire to talk all things guitars and the impact they have onAvenged Sevenfold, check it out!

If you could have taken a master class with any guitar player when you were growing up, who would it have been?

When I was young, probablyDimebag Darrell. That was my guy. I respected Steve Vais playing technique a little bit more, but just to be able to meet Dimebag would have been phenomenal. He could have shown me so much cool stuff. Thats the guy.

You and Zacky have such a distinctive twin-guitar sound. When the band was starting out, were there any indications that you guys would drive the bands sound?

I dont know if that kind of perspective was there, but definitely it was a guitar-driven band. When Matt [M. Shadows] writes songs, hes writing on guitar. When Jimmy ['The Rev’ Sullivan] was alive, he was writing for Avenged on guitar, mainly. I mean, we borrowed some elements from our old band Pinkly Smooth, songs like Fiction or A Little Piece of Heaven are very much him on the piano doing his thing.

Can you talk more about the bands songwriting process?

Well, songs like Brompton Cocktail or Afterlife, those are very much Jimmy sitting down with a guitar. Everybody comes from that punk-rock background, everybody has a guitar. So it made sense, I knew it was going to be guitar-oriented. And when we started writing, we all liked the dueling guitars. Everything had to be harmonized. You listen to City of Evil and its just layers and layers of harmonies. We were really influenced by bands like Queen and Mr. Bungle and all of their harmonies, and that really comes through in the music.

Read the rest of the interview atLoudwire