The only time I'm miserable is when I can't keep an instrument in tune.

I'm a big fan of cultural music, and that's how I try to expand my playing, by listening to music that is not conventionally American.

If you want to play something that you hear, you need to listen with your mind's eye. You've heard of the mind's eye, right? Your mind has an ear too. It's a kind of listening, but it's not using your ears to listen. It's listening with your inner ear, and that's what you want to translate onto the guitar.

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.

When I was growing up, the blues did seem too simple to me. I was just a muso.

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

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.