Greece was a muse. It inspired creativity in magical ways that I can't even begin to understand or explain.
Joe Bonamassa
I've always been a big fan of taking old songs and completely turning them on their head. Having no adherence to the fine tradition of the original version. Rearranging them and taking a different approach to them.
I don't think there's any music that you hear on the radio today that would be possible without Jimi Hendrix. Rock, blues-rock, heavy metal, any guitar stuff when you get right down to it - Jimi did it. He's certainly the guy who basically invented the blues-rock genre for guitar players.
I have a 1969 Grammer Johnny Cash acoustic guitar, and it's so inspirational.
That's where the Black Keys and Jack White have succeeded and I've failed: They've actually convinced college kids that they're listening to hip music - but it's just blues twisted a new way - while I'm playing for the college kid's parents.
That's the thing about the blues: It's one thing to hit a note on a guitar. To make it matter is something else altogether.
If I feel like things are getting into a routine, I want them to be different. I need to keep improving and keep moving forward.
If it wasn't for guys like Gary Moore, I wouldn't exist. He not only proved that the blues could rock but it could draw a crowd as well. All of which made a huge impression on me.
I've never been known as a riff kind of artist.
If you have a good riff with a vocal as well, then it becomes a devastating song. That's why people love riff-rock: it's the ultimate air guitar music.
At the end of the day, you, as the player, create the tone coming out of the amp. The gear is part of it but by no means all of it.
You know who I'd like to open for? This will be a surprise, but I'll tell you who: Iron Maiden.
To sell out London's Hammersmith Apollo is amazing. Selling it out for two nights? Even better.
Basically, 2011 was the hardest year on the road for me because I did a spring tour and a fall tour plus nine weeks in the summer, and I was pretty worse for wear by the time I got home in December. I know I was only 34, but that was a tough lap.
The one area where I'll say that Hendrix is underrated was his ability to use chord melodies. He used different inversions of chords and was able to make a three-piece band sound absolutely huge. From the moment Hendrix and the Experience came on the scene, power trios had their work cut out for them.
Doing the acoustic at Carnegie is basically advised because electric music tends to get, let's just say, acoustically unsound.
A guitar is so tactile, and when you're playing bends - and bending notes is a big part of my style - there are so many notes within the note you're bending from and the note you're bending up to.
I was thrust into an adult world very quickly, and that can make anyone somewhat socially maladjusted to dealing with people your own age. But I wouldn't trade any of it.
I used to watch MTV when they played music, and discovered Robert Cray, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Jeff Healey.
When you're 12 and, you know, slightly overweight and - for lack of a better word - white, and you're playing blues, you get a lot of press.
There's great cars, and then there's Aston Martins. Same thing for the 1959 Les Paul - it's an authentic piece of art that can never truly be replicated, and its mysteries are special.
If you keep working hard and not take 'no' for an answer, you achieve.
I live, breathe, and sleep guitars.
All I'm trying to do is simply play guitar and elicit this creativity from the instrument.
Everything Paul Kossoff did came from his fingers and went right into the amp. He was his own effects unit.
I think great music sells records, and I also think, do you want to be a reality star, or someone that actually has credibility? Because you can't have both.
I'm an acoustic guitar owner - in the sense that I own them, and they sit at my house, and I never play them.
I went through a period in my life where I didn't have money to buy ramen noodles and peanut butter and jelly, but I also needed to go to the guitar store and buy strings and picks and polish and rags. I couldn't live with myself if I didn't play guitar.
The thing people forget about Kevin Shirley a lot of the time is that he's not only a great producer, he's also a world-class engineer. He really knows how to get a sound.
Sometimes you have to blame yourself before you can blame others.
There's always talk about the blues dying out, but it won't.
I'm not sure when I first heard about Beth Hart. I do remember seeing her on various TV shows. I think I'd seen her on 'Conan O'Brien' or whatever. And it seemed that whenever we'd tour Europe, our paths would cross.
You often see lifestyle over substance in L.A. Some rock stars dress up like they're going to play a gig when they're just going to the 7-Eleven store on a Tuesday night.
I never had this ego where I must write everything. I'm not Bob Dylan.
The blues, the way it's interpreted, is always a product of your environment, and so it's almost like food. You know, it's like you use the ingredients, and you use your life experiences that you have.
I don't have any legato skills; I could never figure out how to roll the notes off.
As far as actual playing, Clapton - by far - is my biggest influence, and you can tuck Jeff Beck underneath that.
The first thing you realise very quickly when you decide to do an acoustic version of an electric song is your solo either becomes either very truncated, very different, or non-existent, because even if you play a clean solo, it's different with the Kryptonite... with the acoustic.
If we got into a time machine and went back to the 1700s, classical and baroque music would have been the equivalent of Beyonce and Jay-Z.
I don't really do scales... I mean, I play parts of them, but then I bail and start playing parts of other things. The term 'scale' feels very scripted to me because I'm an improv player.
It's good to see young kids getting into the blues.
When I write for an album, I'll always have about 30 different types of instrument around me. I set them up in a small room with my computer running GarageBand, which is always set to record.
If I'm soloing, I usually try to start with a theme, which will often stem from the blues.
At the end of the day, you really want to make sure that organic music, made by human beings, at least has a voice.
I've been lucky and very fortunate over the course of my career, and I try to do something good for people every day.
Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck made me an Anglophile. I listened to English and Irish artists as a kid, and they were way louder, heavier, and faster than the traditional blues that I was listening to.
The fact that I tour religiously in the spring, religiously in the fall, and do 125 shows - you can set your watch to that. And you could have set your watch to that in 2000 or 1999, and you can set your watch to it in 2012.
Jimi Hendrix is a classic example of a player in which everything he did, it was all in his hands.
I'm a kooky collector and own a couple of hundred guitars.
Who's to say a blues man can't play rock and roll?
