Eddie Van Halen

I'll always leave the same set of strings on my guitars when I'm recording. If I break one I'll just replace it instead of putting on a whole new set of strings.

I never dreamt of being a musician for my livelihood. I certainly never would have wanted to be in the business that I'm in, meaning the fame and the glory, the glitter, the rock star, the famous part.

I'm not a drunk anymore, but since they cut out my tongue, I sound drunk.

Every song is like a kid. How can you have that many kids and have a favorite? Which one do I like to hang most with? Probably the one that I haven't hung most with recently.

I mean it's funny, playing music, how of course you want it to do well, you want them to like it, but it's not competitive like an election, it's the Olympics, it's not a Formula 1 race. The Billboard charts are just to show you what people like.

Nirvana was huge, but it didn't appeal to everyone.

And if I would have taken lessons I probably wouldn't have done it, and what forced me to do all this weird stuff on the guitar was I couldn't afford effects pedals, I didn't have all this stuff when I was a kid so I just tried to squeeze all the weird noises I could out of the guitar, which brings me to building guitars.

The piano is a universal instrument. If you start there, learn your theory and how to read, you can go on to any other instrument.

I grew up on a lot of early Beatles, DC5, Cream, Clapton, Page, Beck and Hendrix.

It makes me feel kind of weird, but obviously the Man Upstairs gave me something and it touches people, and I'm just so blessed.

I started doing all kinds of weird stuff on the guitar, which became part of my playing. I started doing harmonics and tapping on the guitar and pulling off strings and doing all this weird stuff that no one had ever done before.

I never took guitar lessons. I took classical piano lessons from the age of six when we lived in Holland. And when we moved to America, it was just the typical thing except I was really good at it; so was my brother.

We're musicians. We make music for a living. It's that simple. Nothing else matters.

Every song is like a kid. How can you have that many kids and have a favorite? Which one do I like to hang most with?

Imagine if Beethoven had a tape recorder. Then you'd know exactly what he meant. Maybe he meant 'Da da da da' instead of 'Boom boom boom boom!' Who knows?

I'll be making music 'til the day I die. I've done all kinds of stuff, and more is coming.

There are really three parts to the creative process. First there is inspiration, then there is the execution, and finally there is the release.

I've had a hip replacement, I've beaten cancer, I had my hand operation, and I stopped drinking. Something inside of me just went, 'I'm done.'

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.

When I was growing up and listening to bands like the Dave Clark Five, the groove was what initially got me going. I really like that funky, heavy groove.