Maybe the biggest thing that I've learned musically is that anything is possible. Things can work when maybe they don't seem like they can.
I think my best advice for young guitar players is that it's not an easy road - definitely not; female guitar player or male guitar player, it's not an easy road at all.
I wouldn't say no to other kinds of musical opportunities. I guess that it just depends on what it was or what it required me to do, and if I felt that it compromised my own soul.
I have always tried with my shows - win, lose, or draw - to take the boundaries of music as far as I can.
When you're fat and comfortable, your music is going to sound fat and comfortable.
I kept playing blues-based music all during the 1980s, and it was tough.
When you start making music, you start making music at a young age, and for me, I just thought, like, 'Ahh, once you make it, all your problems will be solved, and everything will be fine.'
I actually started playing in little cafes around New York, and I have a lot of good friends of mine who are musicians who are struggling in New York.
I got bored with the old way - it came too easy. I worked until I could play and chord changes at any tempo in any key, and then said 'What else is there?' Now I'm finding out.
'Crash' is the hardest song I've ever sang in my whole life. It's the lowest in my vocal register and the highest in my register, all within 15 seconds.
I think music needs danger; it needs risk.
It's amazing how a lot of the metal guys have never strummed! And it's not that challenging, but it really opens up a lot of doors in ways they might not have imagined.
The apparatus has to serve our improbability and improvisation. Being good and playing the songs is not enough.
I'm really looking forward to it because it will give me the opportunity to do the whole other kind of approach to the music live that I haven't had a chance to do. and I think is important for me to do.
The issue I had with the Lightspeed albums was that usually the main purpose with them was to fulfil really dorky musical goals, like, 'I wonder if I can do that,' and it was all very personal. It was more that once I'd finished the goal of what the song was, I was kind of done. It was like ticking boxes.
From when I young, a lot of the things I grappled with, with instruments, was how large they were. When someone places a large guitar in your lap, it's hard - I'd learned how to play a guitar when I was a kid, but I never really felt like I was in control.
The band is a living, breathing thing. It grows in the same way we do as human beings and if it doesn't, it dies. It's important to feed the organism, and one way of doing that is to set musical challenges that keep it alive.
I always wanted to do something with music, but to be honest, I never thought I'd be good enough.
I truly never saw myself doing anything other than music. There was nothing else that brought me this much joy, but also this much frustration.
I remember sobbing myself to sleep because I couldn't play an open G chord.
For a director, a musical is a special kind of hell.
Trying to write new music is definitely daunting, but I try not to overthink it.
Perhaps two million years ago the creatures of a planet in some remote galaxy faced a musical crisis similar to that which we earthly composers face today.
If I can do concert recitals, adapting the repertoire to my needs, then no problem, that's good enough. But with operas, unless the right circumstances come up, my career is done.
Many times in music, if you are given limitations, it expands the creativity.
