I always thought the good thing about the guitar was that they didn't teach it in school.

I deal in emotions. It's the harmonic side that's important. That's the side I expected to be much further along on than I am now. That just means to say that I've got to keep at it.

Once I get onstage the tension explodes and I'm fine. I'm in another world - in a trance almost, doing what I love best, expressing myself through guitar.

I bet you can't play slide piano.

I remember one particular occasion when I hadn't played a solo for, quite literally, a couple of months. And I was asked to play a solo on a rock & roll thing. I played it and felt that what I'd done was absolute crap. I was so disgusted with myself that I made my mind up that I had to get out of it. It was messing me right up.

Let me explain something about guitar playing. Everyone's got their own character, and that's the thing that's amazed me about guitar playing since the day I first picked it up. Everyone's approach to what can come out of six strings is different from another person, but it's all valid.

I always felt if we were going in to do an album, there should already be a lot of structure already made up so we could get on with that and see what else happened.