SOLOING:

I like to play lead sometimes so I can express myself. But the way I play lead is a raw type of way; it comes to you naturally. You can’t just get stuck up on guitar; you have to use a little bit of imagination and break away. There’s millions of other kinds of instruments. There’s horns, guitars, everything. Music is getting better and better, but the idea is not to get as complicated as you can, but to get as much of yourself into it as you can. Music has to go places. We’ll squeeze as much as we really feel out of a three-piece group, but things happen naturally.

ELECTRIC LADYLAND SESSIONS:

All my songs happen on the spur of the moment. On some records you hear all this clash and bang and fanciness, but all we’re doing is laying down the guitar tracks - then we add echo here and there, but we’re not adding false electronic things. We use the same thing anyone else would, but we use it with imagination and common sense. Like on "House Burning Down," we made the guitar sound like it was on fire. It’s constantly changing dimensions, and up on top that lead guitar is cutting through everything.

NAKED FEELINGS:

When I don’t say "thank you" or I turn my back to the audience, it’s not against them; I’m just doing that to get a certain thing out. I might be uptight about the guitar being out of tune or something. Things have to go through me, and I have to show my feelings as soon as they’re there. Like these two guitars I have now, they’ve been around for a while and they just don’t stay in tune. They might slip out of tune right in the middle of the song, and I’ll have to start fighting to get back in tune. We tune up between every song because it s not a Flash Gordon show - everything all neat and rehearsed - it’s not one of those kind of things. It’s important for us to get our music across the best way we can. It means we have to do it natural, like tuning up before songs.

WORKING WITN TNE TRIO:

Sometimes they might want to tell me something and I might not be able to understand, and it gets frustrating. Anytime you make a song you want your personal thing in it as well as the group. We don’t compromise with each other very much, you know. Like one guy thinks one thing and he’s going to stick with that one thing, so he does it the way he wants it. Most of our practicing is thinking about it. They might hear the same tune I have, so they throw it around in their minds and picture the fingerboard. Then when we go to the studios I give them a rough idea. Maybe Mitch and I will lay a track down completely by ourselves and then add the rest. As far as jamming out here on a show, we try to listen to each other.

WRITING SONGS:

I just keep my music in my head. It doesn’t even come out to the other guys until we go to the studio. Sometimes, if I have a new song or if the guys want to take a vacation or something, I’ll go to the studio by myself and have an acid tape made and have a rough idea about the drums, guitar, bass, and vocal. Then other times I’ll just come in banging away on the guitar and be singing and say, "This is a new song."

WATCHING OTNERS:

When I see a group, I look for feeling-and not the jump-around kind of feeling. And then I look for togetherness, a communication between the musicians. Originality comes about fourth or fifth.

ADVICE FOR STRUGGLING GUITARISTS:

It’s pretty hard to give advice, but if these guys have really gotten into it and everyone - mothers and friends - have said "Wow," then they should try to get in touch with a major musician or have a representative of a record company come to one of their gigs. But tell them it’s best not to sign anything too soon. Tell them to get some lawyers. Managers may not know it all, and a lawyer knows what’s right. You have to stick with it. Sometimes you are going to be so frustrated you want to give up the guitar. You’ll hate the guitar. But all of this is just a part of learning, because if you stick with it, you’re going to be rewarded.

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