You know, right now, the most important thing in my life is to make sure you understand that, first of all, I thank God I'm alive today, and I mean that. You see, I spent too many years of my life thinking that the big party was the whole thing.

Your sound is in your hands as much as anything. It's the way you pick, and the way you hold the guitar, more than it is the amp or the guitar you use.

I've put my life back together, but it's all a growing process and that's neat, too, because if you stop growing, what good is it musically? So that is what I am looking forward to - growing. In some ways, I felt stagnant in my life and it showed.

Jazz changes and all. But I don't know the names of what it is I'm doing.

Some of us can be examples about going ahead and growing, and some of us, unfortunately, don't make it there, and end up being examples because they had to die. I hit rock bottom, but thank God my bottom wasn't death.

I kept listening, kept going to see people, kept sitting in with people, kept listening to records. If I wanted to learn somebody's stuff, like with Clapton, when I wanted to learn how he was getting some of his sounds - which were real neat - I learned how to make the sounds with my mouth and then copied that with my guitar.

Lots of times I'll play lead and rhythm together.