All my houses are isolated. Many is the time I just stay home alone.

The idea of a hypnotic riff as the prime mover of a piece of music has been around for a long time, whether you're talking about the Delta blues or music from Middle Eastern and African cultures.

The term "genius" gets used far too loosely in rock & roll.

Many people in the neighborhood liked hip-hop and house music, and I couldn't play that. You can't perform that on guitar or drums, which was what I was playing, at the time. But, I got so much from mariachi bands that were constantly playing in the neighborhood.

I can listen to all different sorts of music. I don't really care about The Next Big Thing.

A lot of people can't be on their own. They get frightened. Isolation doesn't bother me at all. It gives me a sense of security.

My vocation is more in composition really than anything else - building up harmonies using the guitar, orchestrating the guitar like an army, a guitar army.