Once, Pee-wee Herman tweeted a photo of this guitar I made that's shaped like a slice of pizza, and it meant a lot to me. People downplay it, but there's power there, people reaching toward each other and toward truth. Any mechanism, any resource that we can use to further that reach, is part of the human destiny.
I knew absolutely nothing about recording. I had this four-track recorder, and I'd plug my electric guitar right into it, which sounded real bad. I moved any fader that made a drastic change in sound. I thought that was cool - that it was communicating something. I didn't have the skills to do anything subtle. It was just like screaming.
Nothing is more annoying than a great singer getting drowned out by a loud guitar.
People don't understand what music really is. I've been a musician since I was 6 years old. I got my first piano, was playing recitals at 8, 10 I picked up a guitar, 12 I picked up my first Pearl Master drum set. I was an artist before I was an 'artist.'
I went into Guitar Center, and David Koresh and Steven Schneider were looking at a drum set, and they asked me to play it. They handed me their card, which said, 'Messiah Productions.' All this religious scripture was written on the back. The last thing I wanted was to join any kind of Christian band.
I taught myself how to play the guitar, I taught myself how to play the drums, and I kind of fake doing both of them. But drumming comes more natural to me, and it just feels better.
Being a drummer definitely influences how I play guitar. And then piano influences drumming and vice versa.
When The Who first started, we were playing blues, and I dug the blues and I knew what I was supposed to be playing, but I couldn't play it. I couldn't get it out. I knew what I had to play; it was in my head. I could hear the notes in my head, but I couldn't get them out on the guitar.
I picked Dad's guitar up when I was 8. It hurt to play, so I put it down and picked it back up when I was 15 and dug in. The guitar helped me come out of my shell and kind of gave me an identity at school.
I taught myself to play the guitar by listening to Paul Simon records, working it out note by note. He is an incredibly intelligent musician. He's not someone who has a natural outpouring of melody like McCartney or Dylan, who are just terribly prolific with musical ideas.
I was a fan of the group. I thought they were great - loved The Eagles - but I thought that their beautiful harmonies would sound amazing with some rock guitar behind them.
I've always been an eccentric, a rocker at heart. I can't play the guitar, but I can play the griddle.
My original interests and intentions in guitar playing were primarily created on quality of tone, for instance, the way the instrument could be made to echo or simulate the human voice.
When you're doing a TV show, it's not like you just shoot for six weeks and you're in an editing room with all of your footage. It's like a guitar or a car, you have to fine tune things. You stop doing what's not working, you work on what is working and you add things that do work.
Television is such an evolving medium. When you're doing a TV show, it's not like you just shoot for six weeks and you're in an editing room with all of your footage. It's like a guitar or a car, you have to fine tune things. You stop doing what's not working, you work on what is working and you add things that do work.
I'm a human being, I'm a friend, I'm a mom, I'm a writer, and I'm an artist. I do play electric guitar and all of that, but in the end, I'm just a person.
If T-Bone Walker had been a woman, I would have asked him to marry me. I'd never heard anything like that before: single-string blues played on an electric guitar.
I've always loved the electric guitar: to hold it and work it and hear what it does is unreal.
The first time I tried to write was when I was 14, after I got an electric guitar. I put a song together, and it wasn't that bad! The writing came natural to me.
My favorite electric guitar would have to be my Duesenberg. I've named her 'Dolores,' and she sings like an operatic menace.
