If I can help a kid discover a liking, or even a passion for music in their life, then that’s a wonderful thing.

I grew up on a lot of early Beatles, DC5, Cream, Clapton, Page, Beck and Hendrix.

I just consider myself slightly left-of-center. I'm not your average bear. I - what's the word? I'm not - normal.

I mean it's funny, playing music, how of course you want it to do well, you want them to like it, but it's not competitive like an election, it's the Olympics, it's not a Formula 1 race. The Billboard charts are just to show you what people like.

The stainless-steel frets were a major breakthrough, because of the amount of playing and bending that I do. I have to get my guitars refretted every couple of months.

I can't read music. Instead, I'd do stuff inside the piano, do harmonics and all kinds of crazy things. They used to put me in these annual piano contests down at Long Beach City College, and two years in a row, I won first prize - out of like 5,000 kids!

To hell with the rules. If it sounds right, then it is.