Reps once took chances on art, History's most treasured musicians were believed in and cultivated to reach their potential. Today, it would be difficult for those musicians to get deals.

I designed a guitar for Ibanez and then they started manufacturing it - it's called the Jem - it's 26 years old and I still play it. As a kid I liked Les Pauls and Strats, but they had limitations for the kind of playing I wanted to do.

Baby don't wake me, let me take you on an endless journey. We touch and the softest kiss explodes with lust. It's real and you can't deny the heat you feel. And if I die before I wake, baby that's all right.

I've never really heard anybody imitating anything of mine the way they do with Edward Van Halen's stuff.

There's very notable dynamics in all of the collaborations I've done. It's hard to say if one is more important than the other, but if I had to think of all situations and point to one band that I enjoyed most it would be when I was eight years old. I had a band with my little sister and the kid across the street. We sat around all day playing music and it was bliss. I didn't have any expectations or do it for anyone or worry about selling an album. That was really my favorite band. We were called Hot Chocolate.

A good solo is like a book. It will start out in a phrase, it will go on in paragraphs, and then it will have a great ending.

I have an independent record label called Favored Nations on which I released an album by an artist called Johnny A, who plays an arch top Gibson through a Marshall, but the tone is all in his fingers.