I had given up the guitar between '75 and '78. I completely lost interest. I was sick of hearing other guitar players and I was tired of my tunes.

I don't put myself on Jeff Beck's level, but I can relate to him when he says he'd rather be working on his car collection than playing the guitar.

When you're recording, if you're not really clean in your playing, it sounds like a mess.

Pete Townshend used to crash chords and let the guitar feed back. He's overrated.

Stevie Ray Vaughan was very intense. Maybe that's what caught everybody's attention. As a player, he didn't do anything amazing.

I'm not one for sitting around listening to my own music, because I tend to cringe and think that I could have done better. I also suffer from red light syndrome quite a lot. I tend to narrow my thinking when the red light goes on to record. Instead of just relaxing and playing and emoting, I think of time being wasted so I won't take a chance on something. Consequently, when I hear it back, I think, "Why the hell did I play it so safe on that piece of music when I could have really opened up?" Well, it's because of not wanting to make a mistake.

I see someone like John Williams, the classical player, and the amount of discipline and the natural ability that man has is so frightening. That requires so much natural talent. And I think my talent came from just practising, and I feel a bit intimidated when I see players that good.