It's hard to go out in front of people with an acoustic guitar and improvise for 30 or 40 minutes, but I had a compulsion to do it. I just had to in a way that I can't really explain.
I did pick up a guitar once, but the strings hurt my fingers so I put it down again.
I enjoy the song writing process more than anything. It's what I like the most, just sitting in my room with guitar or at the piano or something. Just making something up, something that's not there, that suddenly is there.
My parents are artists, so I grew up with my mom having bonfires, seven guitars, and talented musicians and artists around like Jack Hirschman.
I began to learn a lot of chords and rhythms. It was a bit boring at the time but came in very handy later on.
Johnny Depp already seen how alcohol and drugs can get in the way of a career. And you have to remember one thing: Johnny was a guitar player and a rock-and-roller way before he was an actor. When he came to Los Angeles, he came with his band.
I really consider myself more of a rhythm guitarist than a soloist.
Yeah, Jody [Porter] left. He's a great guitar player. We have a guy named Phil Hurley who is going to go out on tour with us now. I'm not sure if he'll end up as the permanent guitar player, but he's the type of guy who can kind of step in and play anything. He was with the Gigolo Ants before, and he's really good.
There's just no stopping those girls with guitars.
A lean, loose-jointed Negro had commenced plunking a guitar beside me while I slept. His clothes were rags; his feet peeped out of his shoes. His face had on it some of the sadness of the ages. As he played, he pressed a knife on the strings of the guitar in a manner popularized by Hawaiian guitarists who used steel bars. The effect was unforgettable.
I've played guitar for years, and wanted to play guitar, but we got halfway through the last one and realized we hadn't used any.
I took piano lessons when I was younger and I've been trying to learn how to play the guitar recently. I'd really like to learn how to play the drums. They're a lot of fun and they require a lot of focus.
I absolutely love the Philharmonic. I also love rock guitar.
I worked hard at that through most of the '80s, and in 1990 my house burned in New Hampshire, and my studios and my offices. I had to decide at what level to rebuild, and I decided that I was going to stop trying to be all things to all people, and just go back to playing the guitar.
I'd love to be in Paul McCartney's shoes for a day. I'd love to pick up a guitar and write songs like he does. Or to experience what it might have been like to be a Beatle for a day.
I think sometimes when people get older they start to limit themselves and think that if they wanted to start singing or they wanted to start playing guitar or if they wanted to, I don't know...become an archeologist - whatever it is, they think they just can't do it anymore because they've hit a certain age and I just think that's like putting yourself in jail. I realised a couple of years ago that the more that I did and made things and created things that I could love; it helped me to realise that I was actually loving myself and what came out of me.
Gibson has been making the finest electric guitars the world has ever witnessed for over 70 years. They are as American as God, guns and rock and roll.
Acting, I love it and I feel that I'm good at it, but the thing that makes me feel most alive is when I'm playing guitar and singing.
Listen, the story of the United States is this: One kid, without anything, walks out of his house, down the road, with nothing but a guitar and conquers the world. And we've done that again, and again, and again – Johnny Cash, Hank Williams, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Jimmy Rogers, Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters.
[Some] times I'd have sound but no image. When Patti [Smith] was singing with her guitar, or doing something amazing with her clarinet, I'd just mess around and record the sound. So we'd use those sounds as another layer in the film [Dream of Life].
I designed a guitar for Ibanez and then they started manufacturing it - it's called the Jem - it's 26 years old and I still play it. As a kid I liked Les Pauls and Strats, but they had limitations for the kind of playing I wanted to do.
Most things in my life I had before leaving home. Values, support, great family. I was shaped at an early age. A musician playing guitar, I wanted to be a folk singer.
I got a drum set at the age of four. I wasn't playing that well, just kind of banging around. I just wanted to play drums and my dad got me a set. I played for several years, but I wasn't meant to be a drummer, I guess. I can play drums on my own things - obviously on some of my own records I play drums. But I didn't start playing guitar until I was 11.
To me, the guitar is a tool for songwriting, and it's fun, too. The day that it's not fun, that's when I'm not gonna play guitar anymore.
Ted Templeman, the producer, and Donn Landee, the engineer, are the same team that signed Van Halen, when they were called Mammoth. Donn convinced them to change it to the last name of the guitar player and drummer.
