There was a period when I'd just come out of college where I'd been playing classical guitar and I suddenly realised that it wasn't what I wanted to do with the rest of my life.

I always have a guitar with me. Actually, I've got several, I play every day. And I enjoy it. I'm never very far away from them. I swear I only ever get a couple days when I'm away from a guitar, and I never like it! There's always one close by, and I play every day. Or I'll be working on something in the studio and play around a bit. It's an extension of me, really.

It's exciting to see if you can create something that sounds, at least to your own ears, exciting.

My favorite sounds are the high, spacey ones that are very ambient.

There is always the working out of things, and you have to have sort of a gut response to it. And an intellectual response. And an aesthetic response. All that comes from having done this for a long time. Instead of saying, "That's a really good rock track, and that will do," I'm looking for something that is more original and fresh. There are a lot of elements to get into it: a level or sophistication, passion and excitement.

For me, the guitar synthesizer is a great writing instrument.

Coming from the era of vinyl you could argue that everything went wrong in the music business the moment we went digital. The day the first CD came out, it all went downhill in the music industry. Digital destroyed everything.