For me, L.A. was, and is, a very creative place to be.

There was a time I thought I couldn't enjoy rock 'n' roll unless I had heroin in me

If you take your last album & try to copy it, then thats sure to hell the way to stagnation. And that makes me bored...and if I'm bored then the music is boring and so are the band!

When I got sober and started working out, I fell into that trap of working out too much. I know a lot of guys can relate to that - if you don't get that runner's high every day, you feel like, 'Oh my God, I'm losing it.'

It's probably listening to country music that got me to start playing a lot cleaner, not as distorted.

For me, L.A. was, and is, a very creative place to be.

The great British blues guitarists of the Sixties - people like Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Jimmy Page and Peter Green - could play like virtuosos, but they also understood the importance of energy and intensity