I could never overstate the importance of a musician's need to develop his or her ear. Actually, I believe that developing a good 'inner ear' - the art of being able to decipher musical components solely through listening - is the most important element in becoming a good musician.

Acting, at least for me, is very unreal, and when I'm doing it, I actually feel embarrassed.

My past is very interesting, and I treasure it, but to write about it, it's just not on my radar.

Besides being a guitar player, I'm a big fan of the guitar. I love that damn instrument.

If you want to be a virtuoso then you have to set your sights above me. You have to go beyond what I'm doing. And that's for you to figure out. Because if you can do that, then I'm going to be trying to go beyond you.

There is still a very strong subculture of people who want to do great things on an instrument, and who are stimulated by hearing people who can. That's reassuring. But it's gonna take a person - and I don't know who this is - to come along and reinvent the guitar as a virtuosic instrument in a completely different realm than any of us have done, or anybody else in the past. That's the clincher. Maybe that will happen and maybe it won't.

That's the thing about great artists: They find the thing that's most obvious to themselves, what's most conscious and natural, and they put it out there and the audience comes.