Synyster Gates

Full Name: Brian Elwin Haner, Jr.
Date of Birth: July 07, 1981

Biography

His first guitar was given to him by his grandparents and his father showed him some of the ropes. He transcribed most songs by himself and by sixth grade, he was playing by ear.

Synyster Gates attended Ocean View High School in Huntington Beach, California and Mayfair High School in Lakewood, California as a teenager. According to him, he met the rest of the band through The Rev (Jimmy Sullivan). The Rev and Synyster Gates met in metal shop back in 8th grade when Jimmy started to make fun of Brian, but when the two actually started talking, they realized they both played music and became almost inseperable.

He openly admits that he didn't do well in school. Brian was expelled but mostly likely acquired a GED, and then attended the Musicians Institute in Hollywood as part of the GIT program, studying jazz guitar. Up until that time he was primarily self taught by watching music videos and reading books, which is surprising because his father was/is a songwriter and guitar player, having played with Frank Zappa during his career. After six or so months of being there, he got a phone call from Jimmy (and the rest of the current line up of Avenged Sevenfold) asking him he wanted to come and be their lead guitarist. Brian joined up with them rather than continuing his education and becoming a studio musician.

Guitars

Syn is currently endorsed by Schecter Guitar Research, as is Zacky.

* Syn uses his custom 'Synyster' models, which are a hybrid of a few custom shop models.
* A white C-1 FR
* Syn also has a lot of variations of his Synyster models, eg. (all of the following are the Avenger/Synyster shape) an American flag, a German flag, a Rebel flag, he used to have a Synyster with red pinstripes, and he also is releasing a white guitar with gold stripes soon. Although, he also has a white one with black stripes as seen in the Afterlife video.

Most, if not all, of Syn's guitars are custom made. Syn uses Seymour Duncan SH-8 Custom Shop Invader pickups in his guitars. He uses Drop D tuning for his guitars.

In the past Syn has used a Gibson Les Paul, a Parker Fly, B.C Rich Mockingbird and Ibanez RG Prestige.