If you're not having fun it's not worth doing.
Blues teaches you to develop coherent solos, because the form you're playing over is so basic. You have to develop leads that go someplace.
I used to try and take things in leaps and bounds. Now I've realized it's got to be step by step.
A lot of times I wish I would have learned to read music, but I'm very impatient.
I can't do anything but play guitar.
I'll hear something in my head, then eventually play it. But it's a subconscious thing. Most of the time I really don't know what I'm playing.
You're in direct contact with the music by having the strings under your fingers. It's not mechanical like a piano.
I came in with a completely new perspective. I would write songs and they would pick tunes they felt were in the Purple vein.
My family were all musicians. I really wasn't interested in school or anything.
When I first colored my hair, my mother loved it. I got kicked out of school when I was 15, just for my hair.
Once I was playing and moving around and I fell right on my back. Just straight on my back. It was the most embarrassing moment of my life.
Right now I feel so inspired, it's hard to believe. I've written about 20 songs in the last two days. I'd gone about four months without writing a thing.
I don't like English bands. They're too structured.
I'll play drums a lot at home, and it will help my wrist action.
My first joint I smoked onstage in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. I smoked my first joint live.
When you come from the Midwest, you have a more open mind than if you come from the West Coast or the East Coast.
I want the new band to work together for a while, and when we're ready we'll invite every major record company to see us.
When I got to LA and was with the James Gang, I got the opportunity to write a lot, to play in front of large audiences, make some money.
When I'm with Purple, I'm totally with Purple; when I'm doing my thing, I'm totally doing my own thing.
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.
I have my own style, but it's different for each kind of music. There are certain little characteristic things every player has.
The best money I made was panhandling.
I learned a lot about lead; you don't have to blow your cookies in the first bar. It is much harder to be simple that to be complicated during solos.
I blew my voice out and the doctor said, don't even talk for a week.
I just started off on my own by learning the regular chords then the barre chords. Then I'd lean the notes that would go with them.
