It keeps me in touch with younger musicians who are constantly saying, 'Have you heard this new artist, or this new guitar player?' It keeps you reaching.
In the last couple of years I've been picking up my guitar again.
Now, guitar was pretty cool. Everybody knew something on the guitar. So I wanted to play guitar, but I told my dad if he wanted me to keep studying something, I'd like to study piano.
I told my father I wanted to play the banjo, and so he saved the money and got ready to give me a banjo for my next birthday, and between that time and my birthday, I lost interest in the banjo and was playing guitar.
And then I got into sports and gave my guitar to my brother Jeff who was just a little kid at that time.
Yes, I took up the guitar when I was about 14 or 15, in high school.
A lot of the songs start with an image. I was sitting there playing the guitar and I pictured this old, dirty green car, with the window rolled down, in the hot, hot, hot Texas heat, and this beautiful woman I knew when I was a kid sitting behind the wheel, looking out at me.
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 think the way I play the guitar is very percussive. I play a lot of rhythm chops as though I were playing congas or something.
But you have to give your whole life to a cello. When I realized that, I went back to the guitar and just turned the volume up a bit louder.
I had given up the guitar between '75 and '78. I completely lost interest. I was sick of hearing other guitar players and I was tired of my tunes.
I don't put myself on Jeff Beck's level, but I can relate to him when he says he'd rather be working on his car collection than playing the guitar.
Pete Townshend used to crash chords and let the guitar feed back. He's overrated.
If you make it sound too much like a synth, it will just sound like a guitar part played on a synth.
Experimenting with different sounds is great, but when it comes down to it, you're still playing a guitar.