I don't know if subconsciously there was some reaction going on, if there was something in me that didn't want to learn an instrument - because I couldn't have been that incompetent!
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I don't remember consciously not being able to play an instrument. It's been kind of like a language for me.
The people who really got me off were dealing with the musical potential of the Instrument.
I wish I played an instrument, but I could never decide which one, and I ended up playing nothing.
My father always wanted me to play a musical instrument, and I never had that type of skill.
I've never taken a lesson in my life, and I can play every instrument there is. I play by ear, but I can fool anybody into thinking I went to some conservatory of music.
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.
After my second-to-last record, 'The Greatest', I had gone on tour for a while, and I didn't play an instrument for about five years. And I got kind of - it's not self-esteem or whatever, or anger toward myself - but disappointed in myself that I hadn't been challenging myself to learn musically.
I detest talking about myself. There is a reason why people pick up an instrument and put it between themselves and the rest of the world.
My parents encouraged us to commit to things, so if we wanted to learn an instrument, it was all the grades and all the theory.
I found it liberating of necessity to devise my own style and my own tactics and to look for a voice on the instrument because there weren't really any that impacted strongly on me.