I started touring in 2006, and there was an agreement made for merchandise between my mom and myself.

Everybody else goes out and plays a show as if it's their album, which is boring. I'd rather sit at home and listen to the album, because I hate to be in a smoke-filled, loud room - that's not enjoyable for me at all...I always look up to guys who can sit and do dinner music...they're singing in tune and playing somebody else's music, and I don't think I could do that...it's the shittiest job in the world.

Just because something has tubes doesn't mean it's the best. I mean, tubes are obviously good, but the circuit of this thing is designed well and it sounds good.

The thing with food is that you can give 20 people the same recipe and the same ingredients, and somebody's going to make it better than somebody else, and that's the creativity of it. It's like music. You could have a bunch of people playing the same piece, and somebody's gonna play it better.

And, you know, my dad would show me some things sometimes, but the best things that I got to do were to actually see really good players play up close. That gives you an idea of fingering and technique and what not.

For me, the most difficult thing is that I am learning melodies on guitar from some songs whose melodies were not meant to be played on guitar. Ever. They were intended mostly for keyboards or melodic percussion.

I mean, no offense, but I don't really see why, like guitar players from Creed, or something like that, are on the cover of guitar magazines. Almost anybody can sit down and learn to play those songs.