I'm always on tour, so I'm always trying new tracks out live before they're released. That's more necessity than anything, because I don't get a proper chance to sit in a studio and work on tracks like other producers do.
I mean, no offense, but I don't really see why, like guitar players from Creed, or something like that, are on the cover of guitar magazines. Almost anybody can sit down and learn to play those songs.
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.
When I sit down and play guitar, I melt into the instrument. I can play for hours by myself. Playing guitar has given me such a wonderful life, and I'm grateful for it.
One of my favourite Donald Byrd tracks is 'Think Twice,' and I didn't want to sample it. I've always enjoyed when other people have sampled it, so I wanted to instead of making a beat with it or something like that, or freak the beat of whatever. I wanted to just recreate it in my own way, like how I heard it.
One interesting thing - I play bass and guitar and stuff like that. I know those instruments really well. But I don't know how to play clarinet or trombone or any of these other instruments. I don't actually know how to play ukulele even though I've played it a lot in the past. Because of the weird tuning it's not exactly like a guitar. That's one of the reasons I like that instrument - it makes for surprises. It's not so predictable as the bass or the guitar is for me.
The United States is more reliant on the technical systems. We're more reliant on the critical infrastructure of the internet than any other nation out there. And when there's such a low barrier to entering the domain of cyber-attacks we're starting a fight that we can't win.
I played guitar all my life, all the way through the Yardbirds, but I knew that for me, this was going to be a guitar vehicle, because that's what I wanted it to be. There is no way I would play guitar like a tour de force like I did in Led Zeppelin.
I have seen Tommy Emanuel play; my wife and I went to see him and he just melted my face off. How do you play guitar like that? There are so many people that play at a ridiculous level and I sit there watching them and I'm like, 'Wow, wish I could do that.'
I sit around and play acoustic guitar - usually acoustic, sometimes electric, occasionally piano, but more often guitar, just trying to come up with tunes. Ideas kind of pop into your head.
I didn't mean for it to cause such a furor, but I was the first guy to ever do the national anthem with a guitar. Everyone else had the big brass band. Nowadays it's tracks that they sing to, but in my day, we had no tracks. And I was the only orchestra that I knew that was the best orchestra and that was me and my guitar.
I didn't go to guitar school and I don't know how to play chords, but I can do it in my own way and I think sometimes that will piss off some guitar players who sit around playing their stuff all day long and then there are people who like that.
I wanted no part of losing. Why play if you can't beat the other guys more often than they beat you?
I'd like to be able to get more girls to play guitar. I think with a girl playing electric guitar, sometimes it's seen a bit like a guy doing ballet. All the people I learned guitar from have been guys. There are some great female players, like Bonnie Raitt and Jennifer Batten, but very few.
I tend to write on an acoustic guitar or the piano. I have kind of a rule: if I can't sit down and play this and get the song over, I don't take it to the band, because most any good song, you can sit down and deliver it with a piano or a guitar.
I'm sort of obsessed with Harlem. Just its history. My father did the music for a play called 'The Huey P. Newton Story,' and they did a lot of work in Harlem. So as a little girl, I spent a lot of time in Harlem Library.