“A guitar is just theoretically built wrong. Each string is an interval of fourths, and then the B string is off. Theoretically, that’s not right, all the strings should be off.”

Every song is like a kid. How can you have that many kids and have a favorite? Which one do I like to hang most with?

A good producer brings out the best in the artist he’s working with. You shouldn’t be able to listen to something and say, ‘So-and-so produced this album.

You only have 12 notes. Do what you want with them.

I’m the one in the band that said I’m not going on tour unless we do a record.

Cancer is like a cockroach. It just comes back stronger. I’m tearing apart the immune system of the cockroach and seeing how it ticks. I’ve opened up my own pathology center.

When I was growing up and listening to bands like the Dave Clark Five, the groove was what initially got me going. I really like that funky, heavy groove.

I was trying to take the band in a direction that I thought was appropriate, and Roth was trying to take the band in more of a Las Vegas direction. And there he is.

I’m just a guitarist in a kick-ass rock and roll band. What more could I ask for?

I was so used to doing old blues licks with the first three fingers. When I started using my pinky and finding more spread things, that’s when I started getting my own style.

To hell with the rules. If it sounds right, then it is.

You’ve only got 12 notes and however you mix them up is your thing.

My son, Wolfgang, plays drums, guitars and bass.

Some people think a song without words isn’t a real song. Tell that to Beethoven and he’ll kick your ass!

If you have a great-sounding guitar that’s a quality instrument and a good amp, and you know how to make the guitar talk, that’s the key. It starts with the guitar and knowing what it should sound and feel like.

You know, most people, they want to go to Hollywood. They want to be a star. They want to be a rock star. That thought never entered any of our minds, the Van Halen family.

Actually, if I could deliberately sit down and write a pop hit, all my songs would be pop hits! Let’s put it this way. I play what I like to hear. And sometimes I like to hear something poppy, and sometimes I don’t.

I tried when I was 13, when my grandparents gave me an acoustic guitar, and I tried for a year. It hurt so much to play. I mean, the fingertips hurt so much, I gave up.

Everything that came later… the roots are all there in the first album.

A lot of people said to me, ‘Enough with the guest vocalists for a while. We want to hear the Mexican play the guitar!’

But the guitar, when you think about it, is the most versatile, really. I mean you can pick it up and take it with you wherever you go.

A guitar is a very personal extension of the person playing it. You have to be emotionally and spiritually connected to your instrument. I’m very brutal on my instruments, but not all the time.

I wanted to connect my guitar to human emotions.

I’m not a guitarist as far as a technician goes, I just pick it up and play it. Technique doesn’t come into it.

Once I got a guitar that was relatively user-friendly, but not super-duper easy, I really came on as a guitarist, at that point. It helped. It was a super-expensive guitar either, but something needs to steer you a bit, if you’re playing an instrument that is really hard.