What interested me about Chuck Berry was the way he could step out of the rhythm part with such ease, throwing in a nice, simple riff, and then drop straight into the feel of it again. We used to play a lot more rhythm stuff. We'd do away with the differences between lead and rhythm guitar. You can't go into a shop and ask for a "lead guitar". You're a guitar player, and you play a guitar.

But I'm not here just to make records and money. I'm here to say something and to touch other people, sometimes in a cry of desperation: "Do you know this feeling?

I look for ambiguity when I'm writing because life is ambiguous.

Most guys I know are assholes. I have some great asshole friends, but that's not the point. Friendship has got nothing to do with that. It's can you hang, can you talk about this without any feeling of distance between you? Friendship is the diminishing of distance between people. That's what friendship is, and to me it's one of the most important things in the world.

You've got the sun, you've got the moon, and you've got the Rolling Stones.

If you don't know the blues... there's no point in picking up the guitar and playing rock and roll or any other form of popular music.

I'm all for a quiet life. I just didn't get one.