“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.”

So, my big brother was playing guitar and I figured I’d try it too.

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.

I hit rock bottom, but thank God my bottom wasn’t death.

Music really is a way to reach out and hold on to each other in a healthy way.

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.

Even though there’s reasons to try things that may or may not work, it’s still a real intimate way to finish the song with everybody right there in the band just locked in.

I actually wanted to be a drummer, but I didn’t have any drums.

The whole deal is when you walk onstage, you’re up there bigger than life. People idolize you.

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.

That’s how it happens, livin life by the drop.

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.

The problem with taking amps to a shop is that they come back sounding like another amp.

What I am trying to get across to you; is please take of yourselves and those that you love; because that is what we are hear for, that’s all we got, and that is all we can take with us. Are you with me?

Looking back in front of me, in the mirror a grin. Through eyes of love I see, I’m only looking at a friend.

I use heavy strings, tune low, play hard, and floor it. Floor it. That’s technical talk.

All the Strats have personalities of their own and feel completely different.

I definitely have a different perspective on music in general. But once I actually have a guitar in my hands, I think I disappear into the same black hole that I was disappearing into when I was 15.

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.

Yes, we three were so happy, my wife, my guitar and me!

I don’t read music; I taught myself guitar.

I get a feeling, on a guitar, and I sort of mess around until something resonates with me, and then I just find that what happens is that a melody comes, and with that, words.

I suppose I am proud of what has gone on, after all I only ever wanted to play the guitar for a living, and that is what I am still doing.

I’d always had an interest in guitar from about seven years old. But I first actually had lessons when I was about fifteen in Scotland, in Edinburgh.

Fantastic guitar player. And he’s had a strong influence on me all the way through.