"Looking back over the career of the band, I see where we fell into error was when too many people got too wrapped up with their own selves, and didn’t get any understanding or help from the other members. Consequently, that’s why I quit. If we had made another album, I don’t think it would have been good. You can’t be doing artistic things with people when you’re not open and loving and understanding and appreciative of one another. Once you get the personal crap out of the way, the music just flies. I’m interested in going past whatever my thing happens to be. I want the music to be playing me. I want to get so deep inside each other, and so deep inside the spirit, that something else is in control and we’re just riding the wave.”

On musical influences

“I’m always drawing inspiration from different kinds of music and playing guitar along with records, and I go into each new album project with a preconceived idea of what styles I want to combine. On Stadium Arcadium, I generally was listening to music that had no direct connection to what ended up on the record, which made me realize that it really doesn’t matter what I’m listening to. Whatever I happen to like at the time does serve as a connector in my brain between what the spirit of music has to offer and what I end up putting out, but it’s just a missing link rather than the foundation, and it’s usually untraceable. Also, sometimes what you listen to changes the way you think of yourself as a person. I always keep changing in my life, and I can’t stay in any one phase for too long. When I was a little kid, one year it would be punk rock, the next year it would be ’60s music, the next year it would be ’70s music like progressive rock. And I’ve never renounced any of the music that I’ve ever been into. I still love with all my heart anything that I have ever loved in my life.”

On musical motivation

“Why you are making music is very important. You need to lose that greedy part of yourself that desires to play something good because you want to have a hit record, or show everybody how much better you are then they are. When that’s the reason, you will always strike yourself down right when the moment of inspiration happens. You’ll get real excited and then it will be lost. But, if all you’re really there for is to play music with your friends, and to experience the good feelings music is capable of giving you, then it’s no big deal. The gods of music respond well to that.”

On the Heart-to-Fingers Connection

“Music has got to come from your soul. But, even if you are the most soulful person in the world, your muscles are the link between whatever you’re feeling inside and what is going to come through as sound from the instrument. And that’s the case even if you’re not a technically oriented guitar player.

“For me, it’s a matter of choosing exercises that will put my fingers through as many paces as possible, such as Hungarian minor and harmonic minor scales, which are really good for stretching and strengthening my fingers, particularly my pinky. I’ll also do things to get my brain out of the habit of always thinking in fours, such as displacing scales by, say, playing the first five or seven notes in the scale, then doing the same thing starting on the second note, then the third, etc. And then I might place the accents on a particular scale degree or degrees. The point is to have as many muscles as possible be as flexible as possible, so that when the creativity begins flowing, it can make it to your instrument with the least number of impediments.

“Another thing that’s essential to making the connection between creativity and the instrument is being warmed up, because if you’re not warmed up, everything is going to be either a one or a zero. When your muscles are all loose and flowing, your playing becomes much more colorful and expressive. For example, the more warmed up my right hand is, the greater the range of expression, and the velocity of the notes plays a much greater role.

“I didn’t pay much attention to that in the past, but I did on Stadium, and it really made a big difference. If I wasn’t warmed up and well practiced, it was almost like there was no point in me even trying. There was such an obvious difference whenever I practiced that day, that no matter how bad a mood I was in, or how distracted I was, I was positive that whatever Flea played, I was going to be able to play the perfect guitar part right off the bat. And if I hadn’t practiced that day, I would be inclined to just ask him to play it for me the next day, because you’ve got to do things when you’re feeling it and have that confidence.”

On String Gauges

“I use standard .010-.046 sets on all my guitars. I grew up using .009 sets, but given the way I play now, I would break them in a second. Lately I’ve realized just how important the tension is between the gauge of the string and the muscle of the person moving it, and also the angle at which the string is going against the wood. For example, when you bend a note up a fourth, it doesn’t sound the same as if you fretted an actual fourth above, or if you bent up from a higher starting note to get there. It’s a completely different and very dramatic sound when you gradually push something up that much and it gets tenser and tenser. When I hear people who play with .009s, it sounds like there’s not enough tension. Everything sounds too easy. That was the sound in the ’80s with the heavy metal guitar players. Everybody was using .009s or even lighter. You would hear of people using .007s. In my opinion you’re not fooling anybody. It sounds as easy as it actually is.

“I remember reading that Jeff Beck uses .011s, and it sounds like he’s wrestling with it and really getting one over on the guitar. For me, .011s would not be as good for funk and rhythm things. You want a lighter string to get those lighter and more resonant sounds. My friend [the Mars Volta guitarist] Omar Rodriguez uses .012s, and he really likes them, but I can’t imagine doing that. I have them on my Gretsch White Falcon, and I’ve recently stopped playing the songs that I play on it live, because I don’t want that sound. I want to have a good time when I’m soloing, and it’s too repressive to me. I can bend the strings up a whole step, or maybe a minor third, but I can’t do the right kind of vibrato, which stops me from expressing part of what I’m feeling.”

On sounding like oneself playing any guitar

“Playing is a collaboration with an instrument. You have to work within the limitations of that instrument, and those limitations define the music as much as any part of your personality, if not more so. When I’m playing guitar, I’m listening to what’s coming out of the amp, and that’s what’s inspiring me. ‘Okay, this guitar is making this sound, so let’s see what I can do with it.’ You have to respect the instrument as its own entity rather than trying to force yourself on it. That said, however, if you are really listening to what’s coming out of the amp, and letting that guide you, then you should be able to play any guitar and still have it sound like you.”

On risk taking

Taking chances and risking making mistakes give music real value. I don’t want to put people down, but there’s a lot of difference between, say, Eddie Van Halen’s playing, and what a lot of guitar players ended up doing with his style. Although he was technically perfect, there’s a sense of abandonment that a lot of people who got too into the technical part of it ended up losing. John McLaughlin’s playing is another good example. He’s got all that technical talent and ability, but he’s always doing unintentional stuff—and that’s the soul of the music. The parts that you intend are just to get you there. But the really important thing is what the moment is doing to the music. Are you just going to do the same thing that you did the day before, and the day before that, or is this moment going to be something special?”

I really learned that lesson when I made my fourth solo album, Shadows Collide With People. It was very important to me to make a perfect record, because my first three solo records were very haphazard. The first two are very raw and hard to listen to for a lot of people, and even on the third one there are off-pitch vocals and out-of-tune guitars. When we made Shadows I just wanted everything to be perfect—I didn’t want anything off pitch, or off time, or any unintentional this or that—which it was, but it was a pain in the ass to make, and took ten times longer than expected. I’m very proud of it, but it took so much effort for so little reward spiritually, in terms of like how you feel when you’re making it.

After that, we went into the studio and recorded and mixed three songs in two days. The difference was that anything that happened I let go. Nothing short of stopping during the middle of a drum take would make me not use that drum take. We couldn’t believe how quickly we recorded those three songs, and we were so proud of them, because they had the stamp of the moment on them. We then went on to make six albums in six months. Each album was recorded and mixed in about five days. We couldn’t have dreamed of that during the Shadows period. Some of those albums, such as In The Heart of Silence, have all kinds of over-dubs, but it didn’t make any difference. We just did it really fast and we had lots of laughs. It’s more important that the vibes are good than that there is any kind of struggle for perfection.

On playing on the Mars Volta’s Amputechture

“Omar [Rodriguez, guitarist] wanted to be able to produce and listen to everything as a whole, rather than having to be the guitarist, so he had me play a lot of the parts on the basic tracks. After that, he gave me a paper with little bits and pieces of things that went in various sections of different songs. Generally speaking, I play a lot of written guitar parts, and Omar plays the solos and the more expressive parts. I was able to kind of go back to my childhood fantasy of being in Frank Zappa’s band, just playing challenging guitar parts, because I didn’t know the music going into it. Omar would teach it to me right before we would record. I played some crazy guitar parts—some with complex time signatures—and the thing was just to nail it, and I never once had to fix anything. I also learned a solo of his, doubled it, and made up a harmony part. The first thing you hear on the album is that solo. Omar’s on the left and I’m on the right.

“It was fun just to be supporting music that I feel strongly about. They’re the only rock band that I really like nowadays. In general, the music that I really believe in right now is by Squarepusher, Aphex Twin, Autechre, and Venetian Snares. I’m not into, in general, the way that guitar players are thinking nowadays. I’m in a phase in my life where I really like to hear people take chances, go out on the edge, and lose themselves. The people that I just mentioned all have those qualities, and that’s what the Mars album is. Omar doesn’t give a damn what anybody thinks. He gets a concept in his mind and follows that vision, and he has people who support him to do that. I’m really super proud to be on that Mars album. More than anything else that I’ve played on.”

On amp modeling

“I haven’t heard any that I was impressed with. I used a Line 6 Pod a little bit when I made my third solo record. I was just in my living room and it served a purpose, but I don’t think the Marshall model compares to actually having a Marshall and a real microphone. One of the problems with those things is that they leave no room for creativity in the choice or placement of the microphone. I also don’t think the air in this room is the same as the air in the studio where Jimi Hendrix did Electric Ladyland, or the same air that was in the studio when the Beatles recorded Sergeant Pepper. The feelings and energies between people permeate the air. The actual air molecules shift, and there is also some ineffable quality in the space that just changes. I’ve always felt I can see the air to some degree. I see it getting thicker and thinner, changing feeling and quality, especially in a room that is kind of dim. I know it changes when different people walk in, and when different music is being played. There’s no room for that if you use something like a Pod. You might be creating the best vibes in the world in the room with your friends that you’re making music with, but if that’s your amp, it’s not going to be reflected in the sound of your guitar. You want to hear the moment that the music was recorded, not some canned moment.

“Brian Eno said he never recorded synthesizers unless they were going through an amp, because he wanted to be push the air. That’s why his records sound good even to people who don’t like electronic music. The problem is not that it’s circuitry, because we’re using circuitry all the time in the board and whatever. The problem is that people just use synthesizers direct, which for a lot of listeners creates a sort of a human-less quality. When a synthesizer is going through an amp you’re hearing the air molecules being pushed, and it’s no different than guitar or bass or any other electric instrument. The air is an equal collaborator in the whole process.”