Have you always played left-handed and upside down?
Yeah. I never knew any better. I started playing around 12, and we didn’t have money for lessons or things like that, so I was too insecure to let anyone see me play. I never knew there was either a right- or left-handed way to play. Also, if you watch me, I’m pretty basic—just pentatonic. There’s nothing flashy there. On a technical level, I know what I know, and what I allowed myself to know. That’s the drawback of being strictly self-taught, and it’s why I encourage people to learn more about the guitar than I did. My whole game has been listening, watching and applying.

When did you first realize that Albert King also played left-handed and upside down?
Not until I saw him. That’s also when I realized that what Eric Clapton and John Mayall were playing didn’t come from England [laughs]. When I saw Albert King—with his patent leather shoes and all—he just reached in, grabbed my heart and soul, twisted them around, and stuffed them back in me. I had tears in my eyes. This was what Eric was doing with Cream, but better. I looked at King, and I thought, “He’s playing the way I do.” Of course, I later realized, “No, I play the way he does.”

Describe your vibrato technique.
Most of it is rocking the web between my thumb and index finger against the back of the neck. I don’t hook my thumb over the neck because I am pulling down like Albert King, rather than pushing up.

Did Albert Collins influence that technique?
Yes. He is pretty much the reference point for everything I do. Of course, with his using a capo and being tuned to Fm, a lot of his vibrato notes were not bent. He’d just hold a note at the top of the chord on the first string, and shake the hell out of it. My dream vibrato, however, is Mick Taylor’s. He has a sweet, sweet vibrato. Sometimes, I like to think like Mick, because he was a little more economical and less frantic than Eric.

How do you achieve your big, edgy tone?
I am a Strat guy, but I have my guitars made by Toru Nittono, rather than playing vintage Fenders, because doing things like putting right-hand necks upside down on left-hand bodies, and changing the location of the bridges would devalue them—although I do have a white Fender Strat from my Bluesbreakers days that I still use sometimes. I also have a Mike Lipe semi-hollowbody. My guitars have Bill Lawrence L-250s—except for one that has Jerry Amalfitano pickups—and I use Dean Markley Blue Steel strings (gauged .010, .013, .017, .030, .040, .052). I play through an 80-watt Carr Slant 6V with two 12" EV speakers, but on the last record, I used a prototype of Carr’s Vincent 33/7 model loaded with a single 12" Eminence Red Coat. At times, I also used a Weber 4x12 cabinet. My main effects are a Klon Centaur, a Line 6 MM4 Modulation Modeler, and a Brown Electric Hoochee-Mama Overdrive that’s warm and fat but doesn’t compress the sound. It gives me that creamy Bluesbreakers sound.

How did it work out when you and Walter Trout played together in the Bluesbreakers?
We had great times and hard times. We were pitted against each other by the audience, and, sometimes, even by John himself. It was a natural thing, because we were in a band that once had Eric Clapton, Peter Green, and Mick Taylor in it, and we fell into the trap big time. Later in life, when we got sober, I told Walter that my biggest regret was that we never got to play music together. We never worked out harmony lines, or figured out a song to do together. We just went out and played until our fingers bled.