Every album, I'm worried that I'm a dork and a fraud - 'What if I can't sing anymore?' Then I stop thinking and start playing guitar, and I realize that it's okay to suck, and move forward.
When I listen to a record, or when I'm making a record, I listen to everything. I listen to the drums, the bass, the voice, the arrangement. I listen to the whole piece as an ensemble. I don't only listen to the guitar player.
When I lived in a little flat in Pimlico in 1981, I'd write in the hallway. As you walked in, there was a tiny little recess type thing, hardly a hallway, really, and I'd sit there writing songs with my guitar.
Without the Fender bass, there'd be no rock n' roll or no Motown. The electric guitar had been waiting 'round since 1939 for a nice partner to come along. It became an electric rhythm section, and that changed everything.
The invention of Bob Dylan with his guitar belongs in its way to the same kind of tradition of something meant to be heard, as the songs of Homer.
There comes a point with any collaboration like that where you start having other interests creatively. I was moving in one direction musically, and as a guitar player, Mark wanted to move in another direction. That was essentially the reason we brok...
I quit my band in New York City in 1969 and I got really angry at them. I got angry at one of my guitar players and I dove over the drum set and we got into a fight.
My older sister encouraged me from early on and bought me one of the first guitars I had. She listened to all of the crappy songs that I wrote when I was 8 years old and encouraged me to keep doing it.
I would walk down the hall with my guitar and play for anyone that would listen. As a young kid I was really driven and I was going to make it happen no matter what.
I was basically a dork that hit the books and liked to build things and did all of the things that you weren't supposed to do to be popular. But somehow I ended up onstage, playing guitar in front of everybody else.
I've played every instrument you could possibly think of for 10 minutes. So I'm mediocre at everything. I can play drums, guitar, piano, violin, saxophone, clarinet, flute... Just not well.
I started teaching myself guitar because I loved singing so much. Then one day kind of out of the blue I found I was writing a song. It just happened organically.
Ampeg made incredible guitar heads in the early Nineties and then stopped. And I don't know why. The one we used had a nice clean, warm sound, and it blended well with the other amps that were in the studio.
The song Dakota was first written in Paris. I was doing a promo trip. It was snowing and the hotel room was really cold and boring and for some reason I just had a go of the guitar and the song came pretty quick.
When I got my first guitar my fingers wouldn't go to the sixth string so I took off the big E and played with just five strings. I was only 6 or 7.
A cello can sound like so many instruments, but it's only one, you know, like a guitar; it has percussive qualities. It can sing like the violin, you know, like a voice.
It is impossible to watch a 'Friends' episode too many times. Phoebe is my favourite character. I used to play her songs on the guitar when I was a teenager. 'Smelly Cat' is very easy. It's only about three chords.
I'm basically a keyboard player, so if it's got a keyboard on it, I'll give it a shot. I played a lot of organ in the early days. I can make a few chords on guitar, but that's about it.
I have been playing a lot of keyboards, especially in the last five or six years. I suppose it gives you more scope than the guitar, although it does tend to make you write a different way.
For years, I was stuck behind a keyboard rig. When I started playing guitar onstage, it was a bit of a release - not to be stuck in one spot the whole night. It's really enjoyable having the freedom to move around. You just have to remember to end up...
I am definitely still the same kid that I was picking up the guitar at 15. But, I have definitely learned to be more flexible and roll with the punches. It's such an unpredictable business to be in and it's insane how things change so last minute.
