When The Who first started, we were playing blues, and I dug the blues and I knew what I was supposed to be playing, but I couldn't play it. I couldn't get it out. I knew what I had to play; it was in my head. I could hear the notes in my head, but I couldn't get them out on the guitar.
Film songs have so many creative limitations, but a private album is like an autobiography that reflects your state of mind.
I studied classical music for a long time, maybe 10 years, and I realized finally I was never going to have the hands to play that stuff.
Hip-hop can be limiting and I refuse to accept limits.
I did write a lot of TV themes - I wrote about 45 of them, and a couple of which are still reference and popular today, like 'Diff'rent Strokes' and 'Facts of Life.' But I was a limited musician.
I was really into Black Sabbath, but heavy guitars can really be very limiting, it's a great frequency and it's great fun to listen to but on the other hand, musically you can do a lot more without it.
I can embarrass myself very easily on guitar. It's funny because people say to me I can play anything; I'm God on the guitar. But I could make a big list of everything I can't play... I'm grateful that people don't notice that.
I already experimented with free jazz in the 1960s and, in my opinion, to play free jazz, you have to be a perfect musician and a perfect human being - and none of us are!
I always had a great appreciation for jazz, but I'm a very pedestrian musician. I get by. I like to think that my main instrument is vocabulary.
I like to stick with music I know I can play. I love classical, but I don't think I could ever play it. I'm just not qualified.
Maybe that's what makes my stuff different, 'cause I write it all on the bass. I can't play but a few chords on the guitar, so the bass works just fine for me.
My ability maps my own writing. I haven't spent a whole lot of time biting licks from the really quick masters. That's why I'm not very good at that sort of super-fast, shreddy sweeping. So I've never considered myself a traditionally good, fast-playing guitarist.
I'm kind of a terrible musician. I'm a very functional musician. I play just about every instrument in a band setting, functionally. But I should not be taking solos.
As far as the Animals breaking up - it was my fault. I wanted out. We took it to the max, as far as we could take it. Our reunion tour in 1983 went pretty good until we left America. Then we pushed it too hard and it fell apart.
I'm very motivated by the occasional creative payoff that comes when something goes really well, be it a song, a recording or performance. The payoff is enormous - when you get it. Most of the time, though, I'm filled with self-loathing and general frustration at the limitations I have as a musician.
I think that open tunings are a trap really because it's really hard not to sound like an open tuning when your using one and that gets old as well as what you learn in one open tuning is going to stay there.
If you force yourself to write away from the piano, you come up with more inventive things. If you're too good a piano player, as some composers are, the music may become flavorless and glib. And if you're not a very good pianist, you're limited to the same patterns.
Once in a while, the thumb that fits over the neck of the guitar kinda bothers me a little bit, but not that much yet. I figure in time I won't do much because of my age.
When I first started, I worked with three chords in every bar, but I found that tied me down - I'm not a chord-change writer, I'm a songwriter.
On the other hand when you are someone who records their own songs you are basically stuck writing for one voice and for one style that can stifle you a bit. It's a real trade off.
This genre of music seems to want to push people into a certain time slot, which is unfortunate.
I always wanted to do something with music, but to be honest, I never thought I'd be good enough.
The parts I enjoy playing aren't really available to me. So I have to write them.
Sometimes I don't want to be in the confines of what a band seems to provide.
Each album I do, I try to have at least a slight rule, whether it's the band has to get together and record live, or all guitars, all fuzz on, all the time. It's varying and slight, but yes, I like having rules.
