You know, right now, the most important thing in my life is to make sure you understand that, first of all, I thank God I’m alive today, and I mean that. You see, I spent too many years of my life thinking that the big party was the whole thing.
Your sound is in your hands as much as anything. It’s the way you pick, and the way you hold the guitar, more than it is the amp or the guitar you use.
You see, we are here, as far as I can tell, to help each other – our brothers, our sisters, our friends, our enemies. That’s to help each other, not hurt each other.
It is the human things that make life good, the unexpected kindness, the friendly note, the bracing word, the neighbour’s extra loaf of bread she leaves at our back door.
But between sets I’d sneak over to the black places to hear blues musicians. It got to the point where I was making my living at white clubs and having my fun at the other places.
If you hit the front end on the right-hand side you could turn that one on by itself and if you hit on the left-hand side you could turn it on and off. And in the middle it was like serious overdrive.
After I changed the string we picked up right where we left off – and punched back in at the same time. I don’t know if this has ever been done before. The engineer sort of looked at us weird, but we got it on the first take.
I’ve put my life back together, but it’s all a growing process and that’s neat, too, because if you stop growing, what good is it musically? So that is what I am looking forward to – growing. In some ways, I felt stagnant in my life and it showed.
I mainly use Stratocasters. I like a lot of different kinds of guitars, but for what I do, it seems that a Stratocaster is the most versatile. I can pretty much get any sound out of it, and I use stock pickups.
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