If you can't play it on an acoustic guitar or a grand piano then it's not a song.
For my 21st birthday, I think my mother wanted to give me a watch, or something, you know, some kind of traditional thing. And I said, "Well, if you're going to buy me something, there's a Gibson Melody Maker guitar advertised in the paper for 60 dollars. Do you think I could have that?" And I think that she was very disappointed that at 21 I was still messing around with that sort of thing. She didn't understand what it was all about. But now she understands it, and likes it.
I did all my guitar playing at my house. And then finally, I was throwing hay and stuff working in Stockton and somebody offered - somehow they had heard me singing at the house and said: Hey, I'll hire you for our fraternity party or sorority party. And I said: Well, are they going to pay me? And he said: Yeah, we'll pay you 50 bucks.
I'm really looking forward to it, if you can imagine floating weightless, watching the world pour by through the big bay window of the space station playing a guitar; just a tremendous place to think about where we are in history.
A lot of the songs are written on piano or guitar, so I contribute, and I have done so since the beginning. So it's been good to be involved completely musically as well.
I always had wished somebody else would sing my songs, but there wasn't anybody who knew them, so I sang them myself and eventually became a better singer and guitar player.
Grab a guitar, put some kind of strings on it, a banjo string, then a violin string, then a guitar string, tune it any way you want, and make some noise, and see what you get. And work on it until you get something that you think is interesting. That's all there is to art for me.
The more guitars we have onstage the better, as I'm concerned.
I was playing with steel picks on a steel guitar, and there was no amplification needed.
Everybody would grab a guitar and listen to somebody else and call themselves a folk singer. When they didn't know no more songs, they'd run out of them.
I didn't want to take the guitar solos down note-for-note, but more or less use them as a map, and keep all the hooks from the guitar playing, and let myself come through.
Sometimes if the guitar is the last thing to go on, it's very fresh.
I really worked to try and be creative enough on the guitar parts so those who aren't real educated would know that there was some difficulty in doing it.
When I was around 7 or 8 my Dad took me to a B.B. King recording session, well, that really did it. Huge and lasting impressions. After all that I pretty much knew playing guitar was something I was going to do because I just had to do it. And I did.
I have about 50 guitars around the house. I can't take more than a few steps without finding one to pick up.
Im not one for showing off. But I guess my guitar-playing sticks out.
The Lounge Lizards were relating with a tradition and it was like I was playing within a musical context. The guitar playing stood out as being different in some way. That was a real education for me.
I suppose my father was more influential in my starting to play the guitar.
I wanted to be able to play guitar. I wanted to be able to make music hurt.
My ideal travel companions are my surfboard, wetsuit, and guitar.
Currently I'm working with Parker Fly on a new Midi guitar to arrive next year.
It may be a coincidence, but from the minute I took anti-depressants, I didn't pick up a guitar or a pen for seven years.
A lot of times, I played bass on songs. Gene plays guitar on some songs.
It's important to keep your creative muscle strong and working. My most inspiring method though is just sitting down with an acoustic guitar and coming up with melodies. It's what I've been doing nice I was nine years old.
If I'm playing with Ozzy it's just a guitar thing. But with the vocals I feel like I'm studying for the SATs.
