If you can say something special on the guitar, then you're going to perk my ears up. But if you're just gonna run through all the scales, then I can always find something else to listen to.

When a guitarist can evoke a certain mood through his playing, that's what's most important to me.

I always hated watching bands: the guy would break a string or be out of tune, and I have perfect pitch, so it would always tick me off when a guy is up there, and he'd break a string.

I like Harvey Mandel.

I got to work with John Lennon. That was pretty cool.

I've seen bands come out and begin their concerts with these long, slow, boring songs. Are they kidding, or what?

We do try to be entertainers, but we're musicians first, and we try to showcase the music.

Some bands, they're too snooty, or they think they're too this or that and wouldn't talk to us. And some other bands are afraid to talk to us.

Playing it safe isn't fun; you have to take a chance.

When we toured with AC/DC, we always had to bring our A game. They really felt like our equals.

I like the guys in Cheap Trick. I like playing in it and the music we do.

Basically, I try to let the song dictate what guitar I use. If it's a really loud, crazy song, I'll pull out the cheapest, oldest guitar I own, one that feeds back easily. But most of the time, I just use whatever's around.

If we waited for a hit record to tour, we would never have toured.

I was three years old, and I walked onstage during a performance that my father was a tenor in 'The Barber of Seville.' I walked out onstage, and people started laughing and clapping, and that was it. That was all it took. Laughing and clapping, I still enjoy today.

Every other year, I spend Thanksgiving in England with Dave Clark from the Dave Clark Five and a bunch of other people.

I got to meet Keith Moon!

Duane Eddy is somebody I wanted to play like. I discovered him before The Beatles, and he totally got to me. He sent me a note back in 1977 and said that he really liked what Cheap Trick were doing. That's one of those 'Wow!' moments, you know?

I never went to any high school dances or proms unless I was playing in them.

The song 'Hello There' was written because we never got a soundcheck. 'Hello There' was our soundcheck.

We played New Year's Eve in Los Angeles, maybe 1978, opening for Kansas or somebody. Driving to the hotel after the gig, we came on KLOS. It was like, 'All right! We're in L.A., we just played a big gig, and we're on the radio!' That was the start of something big.

We toured with Deep Purple a number of times.

You've got to work hard and have luck. Luck only enters in if you do work hard.

We all record together. We do it live; then, after that, we do overdubs, if we need to, to repair stuff. Usually when we do stuff, we have to make sure we get the bass and drums down, and by doing it live, you're actually playing the song. You're not piecing together a song.

We played with Rush somewhere way early in our career.