I will concentrate on playing guitar, on lyrics and on singing. I am a part of things; I am not the encompassing 'Smog.'
In my concerts, people love when I sing a Latin encore with guitar.
I found myself in a meeting on my 13th birthday, which I really had no idea the enormity of, but I was in a meeting with the CEO of Atlantic Records, who sort of signed me right then and there as I was playing guitar for him.
Back then, I didn't have a big organization around me. I was just a kid with a guitar, traveling around. My responsibility basically was to the art, and I had extra time on my hands. There is no extra time now. There isn't enough time.
Me and guitar music is so entwined.
I loved the idea of recording. The idea of sound-on-sound-recording captured me as a young kid, and once I realized what it was I had an epiphany. Before I was even playing the guitar, I would create these lists of how I would record things and overdub them, like Led Zeppelin song, 'I could put this guitar on this track...' and so on.
My guitar heroes are Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck and people like that - so I've tried to make an album of Robert Johnson covers that, well, while not totally faithful for blues purists, is faithful for people like me that grew up with the '60s and the electric blues-rock versions of Johnson's songs.
When I was 15, I got super into Eric Clapton. My father took notice of this and got me a guitar for Christmas.
When I first heard the song 'Eruption,' which is Eddie Van Halen's most famous solo composition, I was confused because it sounded incredible, but I didn't know what it was. I didn't know if it was a guitar. I didn't know if it was a synthesizer or a keyboard. I couldn't figure it out.
My parents worked for Exxon, and they gave me every chance to take part in music. I took guitar lessons, and I was in the choir at school.
I think exclusivity is important in life. When you look at a hot pair of Jordans, not everybody got them - it's a limited run. You look at guitars. When Gibson made the robot guitar, it was a limited run.
When I was 13, I asked for a guitar. And that's how I really started explaining my point of view.
I feel like guitar explains a lot. You can just listen to a guitar without any lyrics over it; you can just feel what kind of track it is. If it's pain... you can feel it. It sets the mood.
I think rap in general allows you to be more lyrically expressive. It's a lot easier to state your identity, as opposed to with a guitar making all these weird metaphors.
My guitar is not a thing. It is an extension of myself. It is who I am.
Too bad that Paul Ryan confessed to being a fan of Rage Against The Machine. By doing so, he not only begged for a bucketing by many of their fans but actually got one from the band's guitar player, Tom Morello.
I developed this fantasy world. I found that that was much more fun and more interesting and exciting than real life was to me. Then, once I got the guitar going when I was a teenager, I set sail for the direction I've been in my whole life.
I've looked at photographs of myself during concerts and it sometimes looks as if I'm in a fencing move, with a guitar in my hands instead of a sword.
My first guitar, a Fender Jazz Master, I traded it in for a Les Paul Deluxe.
One day, I was just fingering around on the keys of a Fender Rhodes piano, and I came up with this little riff, and all of a sudden, it morphed into a song. It had never been touched by a guitar, which was very weird for us. 'Under the Ground' is the first song I have ever written that had nothing to do with the guitar.
