Ronnie Montrose

My philosophy is, honestly, never collected anything that I don't play. I know a lot of people that collect guitars, but for me, I want instruments that I play. And if I don't play them, I don't' want to have them sitting in a closet collecting dust.

I was working with Bill Graham management at the time and it was obvious to everyone concerned that albums like Open Fire, while they were good for me creatively, were not going to be commercially successful.

I had prostate cancer that, for me, was debilitating. I didn't touch a guitar for two years, but when I realized I was seeing the light at the end of the recovery tunnel and was going to live pain-free, I realized again that it was a fun little instrument to play.

When you have a life-threatening illness like cancer, and you're faced with the alternative, it gives doing whatever it is you do a much sweeter taste.

I've never known how to read music in my life.

I would say seeing the original Yardbirds with Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page at the old Fillmore was a pretty powerful influence on me.

I'm pursuing soundtrack work in the southern California area and down the line I plan to make a moody, intense acoustic album. Not all acoustic, but an acoustic - oriented guitar record that I've already written most of the material for.

Attempting to write vocal oriented songs to me felt like going through the motions and if you are going to go through the motions you might as well just do any gig that caused you to do repetitive motions like banging a hammer or serving fries.

I am very aware now that music is a business, but there is also a way to go about making music that is true to yourself as opposed to doing, you know, just going through the motions and making things that would just be commercially successful.

Everybody has their iPhone cameras, BlackBerry cameras, and I see those cameras pointed up at me all the time now, which is actually really good because of what it does for me and my band. There is no time for us not to be on our toes because they're on all the time whenever you're playing. I think it's very healthy.

I shared guitars before I actually got one of my own and played a guy's Silver tone and played another guys Danelectro 12 string and it was at about age 17 that I actually started playing.

But it has been a long process because I'm kind of a renaissance person.