The worst advice I ever received from my dad was to play by the book.

Music drives you. It wakes you up, it gets you pumping. And, at the end of the day, the correct tune will chill you down.

When I tried to play something and screwed up, I'd hear some other note that would come into play. Then I started trying different things to find the beauty in it.

My old man was a musician - that's what he did for a living. And like most fathers, occasionally he'd let me visit where he worked. So I started going to his recording studio, and I really dug it.

Musicians tend to get bored playing the same thing over and over, so I think it's natural to experiment.

If you improvise a riff and the crowd immediately reacts to it, you know you're on to something.

It kills me when I see some metal band trying to pass themselves off as an 'alternative band.

Lessons didn't really work out for me, so I went to the old school, listening to records and learning what I wanted to learn.

I'm not saying I wouldn't play a seven-string. It's just that I've never needed one. Most dudes who play seven-strings don't sound any different than someone playing a six-string that's tuned down.

To get my sound in the studio, I double guitar tracks, and when it gets to the lead parts, the rhythm drops out, just like it's live. I'm very conscious of that.

A lot of bands whine about the road and how tough it is.

Forcing yourself to see the world through love's gaze can be healthy. Love is an attitude to life. It can save us.

Too many of us take great pains with what we ingest through our mouths, and far less with what we partake of through our ears and eyes.

I was born with a broken key in my mouth.

I had a kind of romantic notion about being a Hollywood Errol Flynn type.

It’s funny, there are so many women who are former executives and have taken all that stress and anxiety and transferred it onto their kids.

It has everything to do with being a good human being. A good person. A good friend.

The first requisite for a good cup of coffee in the morning is to get your wife out of bed.

I demanded a realm in which I should be both master and slave at the same time: The world of art is the only such realm.

The first condition for making music is not to make a noise.