I'm a member of the Recording Academy and I see the way it works and even with the whole voting process it's broken down into specific categories. There are Pop categories and Dance and Rock and Metal and Film and Score and everything else. Basically when you are voting you are urged not to vote in the category that you don't know anything about.

I don't have very eclectic tastes in music.

I'm realizing this more and more that it's one thing to get involved with your own political beliefs and stand behind you believe in personally.

I'm from the school of putting a lot of hours of practice into playing. But at the same time you have to write original music - that's really important, because that's the things that's going to separate you from everybody else, that's going to give you your unique voice as a music that you create.

I went straight out of high school, and when I was 17, all I wanted to do was play guitar.

I wanted something different. I'd been using the C+ amps for a long time, and I love them - they're one of my favorite amps ever. But on this album [Road Kings] I wanted - there were a couple reasons, actually. One is that I wanted a more aggressive sound, some more teeth and hair.

In Japan they're definitely more over the top. They had four Boogie stacks and 20 guitars. But otherwise it's pretty much the same thing, except there's a translator. It's really nice.