And if any work that I have done should have value beyond my own lifetime, I believe it will be the happy labors of the decade 1869-1878.
To hell with the rules. If it sounds right, then it is.
When Van Halen started out, there was no path to fame. We just played what we liked. Even today it always comes down to the simplicity of rock and roll.
I wanted a Gibson type sound, but with a Strat vibrato. . . I bought a body from Charvel for $50. 00 and a neck for $80. 00 - I slapped it together, put an old Gibson PAF in it and painted it up with the stripes
When I'm home on a break, I lock myself in my room and play guitar. After two or three hours, I start getting into this total meditation. It's a feeling few people experience, and that's usually when I come up with weird stuff. It just flows. I can't force myself. I don't sit down and say I've got to practice.
We're musicians. We make music for a living. It's that simple. Nothing else matters.
If you have a great-sounding guitar that's a quality instrument and a good amp, and you know how to make the guitar talk, that's the key. It starts with the guitar and knowing what it should sound and feel like.
Let us ask Mary to help us respond to violence, to conflict and to war, with the power of dialogue, reconciliation and love. She is our mother: may she help us to find peace; all of us are her children!
The truth is that the whole system of beliefs which comes in with the story of the fall of man. . . is gently falling out of enlightened human intelligence.
There are two indiscretions that generally distinguish fools: a readiness to report whatever they hear, and a practice of communicating with secrecy what is commonly understood.
The point is that something I thought was perfect has been broken, and I'm having to find the beauty in what is there instead of what I thought was there. Like this shell. I can either spend all my time wishing it were perfect, trying to imagine it the way it was or might have been, or I can see how beautiful it is just like this.