I keep guitars that are, you know, the neck's a little bit bent and it's a little bit out of tune. I want to work and battle it and conquer it and make it express whatever attitude I have at that moment. I want it to be a struggle.
I am Classic Rock Revisited. I revisit it every waking moment of my life because it has the spirit and the attitude and the fire and the middle finger. I am Rosa Parks with a Gibson guitar.
The best music happens when you have a personal connection to it. That same philosophy can extend to the instrument you hold in your hands: if a guitar means something special, you're bound to do great things with it.
I do have electric guitars, because I've always believed, especially when I'm working in the studio with other bands as producer, that there should be a really nice Strat around.
No two notes are ever the same volume. With the guitar, you really have to model in your mind this wider thing; you're trying to create the illusion of a bigger dynamic range.
One of my biggest thrills for me still is sitting down with a guitar or a piano and just out of nowhere trying to make a song happen.
Sure I destroyed my guitar at every concert, but it was okay, because I'd always get a shiny new one the very next day.
It's hard to say this about a guy like Eddie Van Halen, one of the greatest guitar players who ever lived, but he's really limited to a style and they're locked into it.
There's no leader of this band, and there never will be. That's the key. You can't control how the public perceives you-people see rock'n'roll bands as the guitar player and the singer.
The multiple choices and possibilities of daily life are the music we dance to. They are like strings on a guitar. Strum them and you make a pleasing sound. A harmonic.
If I try to write a song, I will completely fail to write a song. But if I'm just holding my guitar and I just start humming, then I'll have a song in an hour.
I mean, give me a guitar, give me a piano, give me a broom and string, I wouldn't get bored anywhere.
My dream is to one day just be me and my guitar. I'm working myself to the core. Who am I, underneath everything else? I'm still on that journey, to find that core.
I'm glad there are a lot of guitar players pursuing technique as diligently as they possibly can, because it leaves this whole other area open to people like me.
I had my guitar and some talent so that I could make friends with intelligent people and could talk my way out of difficult situations.
I've studied several guitar players and songwriters, mostly from Al di Meola to Dimebag Darrell, from Freddie Mercury of Queen to Kurt Cobain of Nirvana and Bradley Nowell of Sublime.
The reason I put make-up on or wear the costume is to try and find my own style. It's like my guitar style - I'm just trying to be an original artist.
Well mostly in song writing my experience is that there isn't so much inspiration as hard work. You sit there for hours, days and weeks with a guitar and piano until something good comes.
Most of my guitars have been instruments that look cool. I'm not picky. I never think, 'Oh, this neck isn't made of ebony,' or, 'These strings don't feel correct.' It doesn't matter too much.
I think its so cool that you can pick up the guitar and create something that didn't exist 5 minutes ago. You can write something that no ones ever heard before. You have music at your fingertips.
I've always been into guitars... we want to put keyboards on, but keyboard players don't look cool onstage, they just keep their heads down. There has never been a cool keyboard player, apart from Elton John.
