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Guitar solos, to me, should be a really articulate way to make fun of guitar solos.

I don't like guitar solos that are like, 'Look at me, look at me!' I like guitar solos that are little songs within the songs.

Any guitar solo should reflect the music that it's soloing over and not just be existing in its own sort of little world.

We don't really have more than acouple of solos. It's just the way our music is put together.

I would have to say I'm bored with the standard rock, guitar solos, but I've done it for five albums now, and this time I wanted to go in a completely different direction. I wasn't interested in showing off any more.

I'm not a really good classical guitarist by any means, but what I learned from this is a way of working very slowly on solo pieces and I enjoyed working on these pieces of John's. They were not written for solo guitar but a lot of them were easy to adapt.

And I've also come to the conclusion that, as far as guitar solos and things like that are concerned, it's more important to complement the music rather than take away from it.

I try to look at most of my solos as a musical piece within the song, not, say, showing off.

It's a magical thing, the guitar. It allows you to be the whole band in one, to play rhythm and melody, sing over the top. And as an instrument for solos, you can bend notes, draw emotional content out of tiny movements, vibratos and tonal things which even a piano can't do.

I didn't want to take the guitar solos down note-for-note, but more or less use them as a map, and keep all the hooks from the guitar playing, and let myself come through.