“I always felt if we were going in to do an album, there should already be a lot of structure already made up so we could get on with that and see what else happened.”

If you are on to something creative, school can also inhibit you. The wrong teacher, man, can really mess you up.

I played guitar all my life, all the way through the Yardbirds, but I knew that for me this was going to be a guitar vehicle, because that’s what I wanted it to be.

I don’t deal in technique. I deal in emotions.

I’m just looking for an angel with a broken wing.

I can only listen to what I’m working on, at the time. I can’t listen to anything else because I don’t want to copy it.

There are very few people I can call real, close friends. They’re very, very precious to me.

I do really believe that all guitarists have a different character that comes through, that’s a strong character, the stronger the person is.

The term “genius” gets used far too loosely in rock & roll.

I can tell how far I ought to be going, I know how to get there, all I’ve got to do is keep playing.

My favorite guitar solo of all time was Elliot Randall’s on `Reelin’ In The Years’.

Almost the moment he died, they put him in Playboy as one of the greatest drummers, which he was – there’s no doubt about it. There’s never been anybody since. He’s one of the greatest drummers that ever lived.

I have a voracious appetite for all things, worldly and unworldly.

Just because you play bass, doesn’t mean you have no presence.

I really wasn’t needed. Just straightening up riffs, that’s all. Just two guitarists doing it instead of one.

You can’t overthink the music. Mood and intensity can’t be manufactured. The blues isn’t about structure; it’s what you bring to it. The spontaneity of capturing a specific moment is what drives it.

I’m still searching for an angel with a broken wing. It’s not very easy to find them these days.

We did an album one time called White Mansions, about the civil war, but it was written by a guy from England.

I was an artist, I was executive producer on my first album, so I’ve always had to manage both. I couldn’t get a record deal. It wasn’t by choice – I couldn’t get a record deal, so I had to figure it out.

I like to perform every once in a while for people who want to see me, and cut albums of music that is what I’m really about.

I definitely have plans to do more collaboration albums in the future.

Stillmatic’ is the rebirth of ‘Illmatic,’ my first debut album to come out in 1994. ‘Stillmatic’ is me coming full circle in my career and with everything, and just bringing pure hip-hop back.

By the time I got to record my first album, I was 26, I didn’t need pen or paper – my memory had been trained just to listen to a song, think of the words, and lay them to tape.

My first album didn’t come out until I was 26.

Some people are attracted to vulnerability. From my very first album, I’ve been vulnerable. I’ve always given parts of me, parts of my life – good, bad, ugly. I’ve never put up this image as a super-thug. Also, some people just like the music.