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.
So far I’ve been very, very fortunate because it appears that people like to hear the music I like to play. What more fortunate position can a musician be in?
From the classical guitar right through to the furthest electrical experiments and everything in-between, it’s amazing what the guitar can actually do. I mean, when one thinks about sounds.
When you hear the melodic structures of what classical musicians put together and you compare it to that of a rock & roll record, there’s a hell of a long way rock & roll has to go.
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 don’t know whether I’ll reach 40. I don’t know whether I’ll reach 35. I can’t be sure about that. I am bloody serious. I am very, very serious. I didn’t think I’d make 30.
There’s always music that moves me. It doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s within the parenthesis of rock or blues, or whatever. It’s usually far more reaching than that. It can be in many different genres.
The gut-strung guitar, the classical guitar, that is a whole different world on its own. When you think what the guitar can do and what every individual player does with a guitar, everyone has their own identity coming through the guitar.
