guitar

I sing a little bit. I got a guitar for my 16th birthday.

Robert Duvall saw me playing at a restaurant in Louisiana and invited me to be an extra in his movie 'The Apostle.' He gave me a guitar for my sixth birthday, and I thought that was the coolest thing in the world.

My guitar was loud as hell, and I had no sympathy for anybody else.

I always travel with my guitar. I take it myself - with me in my hand. I don't like to send it by cargo because it's dangerous. There is no way I would do that.

I was a huge Beatles fan. We could talk about who I listened to growing up and what my sources were, but certainly the Beatles were a late, important resource for me, and I just took my guitar and a handful of songs, and I decided, well, I'll just go over and travel around Europe and see what comes of it.

My ideal travel companions are my surfboard, wetsuit, and guitar.

Some people are drawn naturally - there are natural guitarists, and there are natural piano players, and I think guitar implies travel, a sort of footloose gypsy existence. You grab your bag and you go to the next town.

With Pearl Jam, everybody is so good at what they do, it's hard to get up the courage to say, 'Can I sing this part,' or, 'I want to play guitar.'

With Pearl Jam, everybody is so good at what they do, it's hard to get up the courage to say, Can I sing this part, or, I want to play guitar. I feel like I have more courage to do that.

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.

Guitar Player Magazine says Dick Dale is the father of Heavy Metal, blowing up 48 amplifiers, creating the first power amplifier.

Music has always been in my family, but it was mainly keyboards. I learned to play classical piano, but when I first heard the amazing bass guitar of James Jamerson, who played on all the big Motown hits of the '60s and '70s, I knew bass guitar was my instrument.

We've always described our sound as a bit more guitar driven than normal pop music. Kind of Pink in a boy band form. We've heard a few people say that so now we use it. I think Pink is amazing person to be compared to.

I tend to write on an acoustic guitar or the piano. I have kind of a rule: if I can't sit down and play this and get the song over, I don't take it to the band, because most any good song, you can sit down and deliver it with a piano or a guitar.

Guitar is the best form of self-expression I know. Everything else, and I'm just sort of tripping around, trying to figure my way through life.

I'm supportive of women, absolutely, and it's so gratifying to have girls come up and say, 'I'm really inspired by your guitar playing.' I mean no disrespect to the sisterhood, but musically I feel more drawn to things like Dirty Projectors, the National and Grizzly Bear.

Except for a few guitar chords, everything I've learned in my life that is of any value I've learned from women.

A guitar is a very personal extension of the person playing it. You have to be emotionally and spiritually connected to your instrument. I'm very brutal on my instruments, but not all the time.