Slash can take three notes and make a beautiful solo. And that's one thing I've always really admired about his guitar playing. I'm a huge Slash fan all around.

I guess my guitar heroes shifted from people like Jimmy Page and Jimi Hendrix to people like Johnny Marr or John Squire.

When you stop worrying about all the things that can go along with playing in a band and you let go and do it because it's fun to do, things seem to work.

That solo on "Lord, I'm Discouraged" in terms of notes it isn't anything like it, but in terms of aesthetic, it's direct rip-off from the "November Rain" solo. In fact, when I did it, I imagined myself walking out of a church, walking out onto a cliff and doing a guitar solo. Slash has always been one of my favorites because the guy uses a lot of melody in his solos.

That's what's nice about playing festivals, too. You're on this huge, enormous stage and you've got 200,000 watts of power blowing your guitars all over the place. It sounds good.

If I start to go around and look for stuff that's being written about me or about the band, chances are I'm not going to find what I'm looking for or what I'd want to be hearing. If I go out and look for it and it's out there, I'm really going to notice when it's not. And I'd hate to think that that would impact any decisions I'm making.

It's how I learned to play guitar - sitting with Led Zeppelin and Cheap Trick records, backing the needle up and learning how to play along. When the band started, by doing something that was very obvious to us and sort of traditional, it set us apart at the time from what was happening musically.