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I'm weird, I really don't play a lot. Most people think that I probably go home to some guitar shop in the sky and practice all day.

Hank (Hank B. Marvin) has such a dangerous tone, which is only safe in the hands of a master. You can see why he spends so much time tuning up because, when you play the way he plays, you simply cannot make any mistakes. There's no bullshit runs - it's always straight-ahead, simple solos, every one a beauty.

You can do a lot more with bare fingers than with a plectrum. You don't get that clunking sound on a heavily amplified guitar. It's also a more personal sound, with more control.

John McLaughlin has given us so many different facets of the guitar. And introduced thousands of us to world music, by blending Indian music with jazz and classical. I'd say he was the best guitarist alive. When the band I had with Rod Stewart broke up, I was left wondering what to do. While the charts were full of stuff like "Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep", I became aware of this underground music scene. And what hit me right between the eyes was John's playing on Miles Davis's "A Tribute to Jack Johnson". That changed everything. After that, a new chapter of rock music was formed, with his blistering performances with The Mahavishnu Orchestra and everything else. And John's been at it ever since. He's a hard one to keep up with!

[he dates his enthusiasm for electronica all the way back to the early 1960s, when he and Jimmy Page heard an EP by the Dutch synth pioneer Tom Dissevelt] It was just fantastic. Pete Townshend was the only other person I ever met who'd heard it, and he couldn't believe that we had. It's like other-world music, white noise and heavy bass lines... it screwed my head up for good.

[on the stardom of his contemporaries in the 1970s] I thought, 'So that's the way it's going, is it?' That frightened me. I did not want that. I withdrew from the parade and found that I was more comfortable outside it.

[on refusing to record with The Rolling Stones in 1974] There was no precision ... that was the secret of their sound. Like, hello, Jeff! You're not going to get James Brown tightness, but I was heavily into James Brown and Motown. I just couldn't see myself doing it.

[his comment on Keith Moon and Moon's possibility of leaving the Who, circa 1966] What he was doing was giving a two-fingered gesture to The Who.