I'm an acoustic guitar owner - in the sense that I own them, and they sit at my house, and I never play them.
I've always been a big fan of taking old songs and completely turning them on their head. Having no adherence to the fine tradition of the original version. Rearranging them and taking a different approach to them.
Everything Paul Kossoff did came from his fingers and went right into the amp. He was his own effects unit.
At the end of the day, you, as the player, create the tone coming out of the amp. The gear is part of it but by no means all of it.
One of these days, when I get tired of it all, I'll keep six guitars and the amps I'm using, and I'll have a big old auction for charity.
I don't really do scales... I mean, I play parts of them, but then I bail and start playing parts of other things. The term 'scale' feels very scripted to me because I'm an improv player.
If we got into a time machine and went back to the 1700s, classical and baroque music would have been the equivalent of Beyonce and Jay-Z.
Whenever I hear my playing, I can't detach from my influences: there's my Jeff Beck, there's the Clapton bit, the Eric Johnson bit, the Birelli Lagrene bit, the Billy Gibbons.
Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck made me an Anglophile. I listened to English and Irish artists as a kid, and they were way louder, heavier, and faster than the traditional blues that I was listening to.
As far as actual playing, Clapton - by far - is my biggest influence, and you can tuck Jeff Beck underneath that.
A guitar is so tactile, and when you're playing bends - and bending notes is a big part of my style - there are so many notes within the note you're bending from and the note you're bending up to.
Doing the acoustic at Carnegie is basically advised because electric music tends to get, let's just say, acoustically unsound.
Carnegie was a life-long dream because I was a born New Yorker. I was born in upstate New York, and we've played Radio City, and we've played The Beacon, but Carnegie was this mystical place, you know?
When you play a gig in Poland or Australia, or you play a gig in Toledo, they all clap at the same parts of the show. They're clapping for the solos in the exact same way.
Jimi Hendrix is a classic example of a player in which everything he did, it was all in his hands.
That's where the Black Keys and Jack White have succeeded and I've failed: They've actually convinced college kids that they're listening to hip music - but it's just blues twisted a new way - while I'm playing for the college kid's parents.
I'm not sure when I first heard about Beth Hart. I do remember seeing her on various TV shows. I think I'd seen her on 'Conan O'Brien' or whatever. And it seemed that whenever we'd tour Europe, our paths would cross.
All I'm trying to do is simply play guitar and elicit this creativity from the instrument.
A great solo is one that's so frail that it actually teeters on the edge of falling apart, but doesn't.
Most blues guitar players don't concentrate on singing and melodies. And forget about the bridge - the bridge doesn't exist. They go straight for the solo.
