My greatest influence is Jimi Hendrix, and if he's been reincarnated, or if he's looking down, sideways, or looking up, I just wanted to tell him that I love him and thank him for opening doors for me. I just wanted to make it beautiful for him.
I couldn't believe how good Jimi Hendrix was It was a really difficult thing for me to deal with, but I just had to surrender and say, 'This is fantastic. '
I ended up spending some time with Jimi Hendrix and hanging out with him, and that was beyond awesome.
I guess my guitar heroes shifted from people like Jimmy Page and Jimi Hendrix to people like Johnny Marr or John Squire.
Who I am as a guitarist is defined by my failure to become Jimi Hendrix.
But people are now realising why I was playing bass with Hendrix.
I'm going to be a superstar musician, kill myself, and go out in a flame of glory. I want to be rich and famous and kill myself like Jimi Hendrix.
Maybe it's egocentric or whatever, but when I'm playing Beethoven, Bach, Hendrix, or whoever it is, in the end, it just feels like my own music and I'm making it up as I'm going along.
Hendrix was the first person I had come across who seemed completely free, and when you're nine or 10, your life is entirely dominated by adults. So he represented this thing that I wanted to be. Hendrix was the first person who made me think it might be good to be a singer and a guitarist - before that I wanted to be a footballer.
