The Beatles had some juice when it came to distortion, but Clapton was finally able to break through those early studio engineers' fear of overloading. He defined the sound that guitarists spend the rest of their lives trying to get.

You can always pound out demos and send them to record companies, but most of the successful bands I've seen are the ones that can sustain themselves.

I've come to realize that you live on through recordings; they're like a musical diary, a window into somebody's soul.

The '70's came and went already

Take life on life's terms - one day at a time. And have fun while you're doing it.

Steven and I stood on the stage at the Boston Garden after the Stones had just played there and the stage was still up. We had been playing cards, maybe a high-school dance, to 400 or 500, maybe a thousand. We just stood on the stage and thought, 'Well,man,maybe someday.' In 4 years that was OUR stage.

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.'