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Doing the acoustic at Carnegie is basically advised because electric music tends to get, let's just say, acoustically unsound.
When you've done so many records in 20 years like I have, you're going to have ebbs and flows and go through peaks and valleys.
If I feel like things are getting into a routine, I want them to be different. I need to keep improving and keep moving forward.
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.
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.
I think what I do really well is that I can 'chameleon' myself into many styles at a very fast pace, sometimes in the same verse of a song.
When you're 12 and, you know, slightly overweight and - for lack of a better word - white, and you're playing blues, you get a lot of press.
I'm probably a more intentional acoustic player than I am an electric player because of lack of influences. I just play acoustic to see what happens.
If you have a good riff with a vocal as well, then it becomes a devastating song. That's why people love riff-rock: it's the ultimate air guitar music.
I'm not one of those people that has to share personal experiences. That's not really the kind of writer I am. I'm a very private person to begin with.
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.
I think great music sells records, and I also think, do you want to be a reality star, or someone that actually has credibility? Because you can't have both.
My first proper 'Here's your guitar, Joseph' was a 1981 Chiquita, one of those Erlewine travel guitars. And it was good for a four-year-old because it was small.
When you think blues, you think BB King. Even a young kid can look at a picture of BB King and say, 'the blues.' The man is more than a musician. He's a monument.
I am the poster boy for brick-by-brick foundation building. Play a club. Put on a good show for 35 people. Come back. Build your market. Have people talk about you.
I was thrust into an adult world very quickly, and that can make anyone somewhat socially maladjusted to dealing with people your own age. But I wouldn't trade any of it.
You often see lifestyle over substance in L.A. Some rock stars dress up like they're going to play a gig when they're just going to the 7-Eleven store on a Tuesday night.
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.
The thing people forget about Kevin Shirley a lot of the time is that he's not only a great producer, he's also a world-class engineer. He really knows how to get a sound.
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.
If it wasn't for guys like Gary Moore, I wouldn't exist. He not only proved that the blues could rock but it could draw a crowd as well. All of which made a huge impression on me.
There's great cars, and then there's Aston Martins. Same thing for the 1959 Les Paul - it's an authentic piece of art that can never truly be replicated, and its mysteries are special.
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.
There was a rumour that I was buying Gibson. It circulated around the Internet... And I just go, 'How well off do you think I am?' I play blues-rock for a living. It's like a vow of poverty.
When I write for an album, I'll always have about 30 different types of instrument around me. I set them up in a small room with my computer running GarageBand, which is always set to record.
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.
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.
The blues, the way it's interpreted, is always a product of your environment, and so it's almost like food. You know, it's like you use the ingredients, and you use your life experiences that you have.
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?
It's nice just to be able to go out and, basically, be able to play other types of music and not have any pressure to almost explain it and justify why you did. I just do it because I like to have some fun.
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.
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.
The fact that I tour religiously in the spring, religiously in the fall, and do 125 shows - you can set your watch to that. And you could have set your watch to that in 2000 or 1999, and you can set your watch to it in 2012.
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.
Basically, 2011 was the hardest year on the road for me because I did a spring tour and a fall tour plus nine weeks in the summer, and I was pretty worse for wear by the time I got home in December. I know I was only 34, but that was a tough lap.
I went through a period in my life where I didn't have money to buy ramen noodles and peanut butter and jelly, but I also needed to go to the guitar store and buy strings and picks and polish and rags. I couldn't live with myself if I didn't play guitar.
The first thing you realise very quickly when you decide to do an acoustic version of an electric song is your solo either becomes either very truncated, very different, or non-existent, because even if you play a clean solo, it's different with the Kryptonite... with the acoustic.
I don't think there's any music that you hear on the radio today that would be possible without Jimi Hendrix. Rock, blues-rock, heavy metal, any guitar stuff when you get right down to it - Jimi did it. He's certainly the guy who basically invented the blues-rock genre for guitar players.
There's a certain thing when you start getting into your late thirties or early forties where you stop caring. Not to the extent where you stop caring about the music, you just stop caring about what anyone thinks of you, and you just kind of let it go - let the chips fall where they may.
The one area where I'll say that Hendrix is underrated was his ability to use chord melodies. He used different inversions of chords and was able to make a three-piece band sound absolutely huge. From the moment Hendrix and the Experience came on the scene, power trios had their work cut out for them.