I'm first and foremost a guitar player. I've been playing since I was 12, which is over half of my life.

I'm first and foremost a guitar player. I've been playing since I was 12, which is over half of my life. I like the physicality of it; you can strangle it or make it sing. I wouldn't say I'm a very technical player, though. I'm more intuitive - it's always more about chasing an abstraction.

An mp3 is a compressed form of data. It's not the full spectrum. It's never going to sound as good as a record.

I wouldn't say I'm a very technical [guitar] player. I'm more intuitive - it's always more about chasing an abstraction.

For a brief moment, I considered deconstructing the song and going down a cerebral road, but then I realized it would kill what is most powerful about it.

It's pretty amazing, someone having that kind of charisma - and it still happens in micro and macro forms - to convince a whole gaggle of people to kill themselves. Or put on robes and jump up and down. That takes a very charismatic leader.

I know that, physically, I'm a very demure-looking person. But I certainly have as much aggression or anger as the next person, and that's got to come out somehow. I'm lucky that I get to play music, and that it's not going to come out in some totally destructive way.