When I was a kid, my parents got me into piano, viola, and trombone. They were the three instruments I went through. The moment I started playing trombone, which was the last one before guitar, I knew I wanted to play guitar really badly. I was a huge Metallica fan, and I’m really into Slash. I’ve always thought he was the coolest dude, and like the greatest guitar player. He’s awesome, and I love the fact that he did everything himself. He made the world of guitar fit around him, rather than him fitting around the world of guitar, which I think is really cool.
I can embarrass myself very easily on guitar. It's funny because people say to me I can play anything; I'm God on the guitar. But I could make a big list of everything I can't play… I'm grateful that people don't notice that.
When I was about twelve I used to think I must be a genius, but nobody's noticed. If there is such a thing as a genius, I am one, and if there isn't I don't care.
I think Clapton is brilliant. He's the only one who moved me. The only one who made me want to play the guitar.
One of the things that was crucial for me I got from Rory Gallagher, which was the idea of, like, being a guitar player for life and living it.
My guitar is like my best friend. My guitar can get me through anything. If I can sit down and write an amazing song with my guitar about what's going on in life, then that's the greatest therapy for me.
If you hand me a guitar, I'll play the blues. That's the place I automatically go.
I can't play [guitar] like Pete Townshend. The flip side of that is that Pete Townshend could probably never have played like me.
I'll tell you one thing: I will always play the sh** out of my guitar.
The man bent over his guitar,
A shearsman of sorts. The day was green.
They said, "You have a blue guitar,
You do not play things as they are."
The man replied, "Things as they are
Are changed upon the blue guitar."
And they said then, "But play, you must,
A tune beyond us, yet ourselves,
A tune upon the blue guitar
Of things exactly as they are."