My guitar playing was born from playing in my teenage heavy rock bands.

While I was writing the songs for 'Fuzz Universe,' I was immersing myself in Bulgarian Female Choir music, Baroque lute and violin pieces, Johnny Cash songs about trains, cows, mules, and mining coal, the Bee Gees, and Ronnie James Dio.

It's so easy to practice out of context. For example, if you're learning a scale, you take that scale and you sit in your room and you go up and down the fretboard, over and over. You've gotta do that, because you need to get that scale working. But you have to keep in mind that that's not the finished product. That's the starting point.

After 35 years of bone-crushing rock guitar playing, I'm finally starting to get my head out of the harmonic sand and learning how to play over chord changes.

You get inspiration from craziest places. It's just about being creative. You gotta step outside that box, you know what I'm saying, to reach the people. You never know who can feel it; who it can connect to.

There are certain things I believe we need to keep in our emotional arsenal as we navigate through life. Hope is a big one. The more of that we can carry, the better.

My mother's not a political person. She just doesn't want me to be mean... sometimes I have to be mean. It's like a parent or a teacher. Sometimes for the good of everybody you have to be a little bit strong, a little bit confrontational.

I was a disruptive student. I hated my teachers, especially my Spanish teacher. When I went to see the musical 'Matilda,' the horrible Miss Trunchbull brought back all sorts of horrible memories. I'd go into Spanish class, put on headphones, and sing at the top of my lungs until they threw me out.