JOE BONAMASSA

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.

Everything Paul Kossoff did came from his fingers and went right into the amp. He was his own effects unit.

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.

I learned that if I put my mind to something vocally, I can pull it off. You just have to get your head-space right.

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.

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.

Doing the acoustic at Carnegie is basically advised because electric music tends to get, let's just say, acoustically unsound.

My goal for 'Black Rock' was pretty simple: I wanted to make the feel-good record of the summer.

You know who I'd like to open for? This will be a surprise, but I'll tell you who: Iron Maiden.

Being a niche kind of artist, you're not going to make a lot of friends in the traditional music biz.

I'm always looking for something new to do.

'Beck-Ola' is a weird album.

That's right, I take vocal lessons - done it for years. There's nothing wrong with it.

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'll tell you, what the world doesn't need is another Joe Bonamassa DVD.

I work well under pressure.

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.

To sell out London's Hammersmith Apollo is amazing. Selling it out for two nights? Even better.

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.

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.

That's the thing about the blues: It's one thing to hit a note on a guitar. To make it matter is something else altogether.

At the end of the day, I think having some life experience is helpful to play any kind of music.

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.

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.

If you keep working hard and not take 'no' for an answer, you achieve.