John Fogerty

“Even though James Burton was my idol, I didn't think I could carry his shoes back then.”

“I've studied a lot of great people over the years - Pete Seeger, James Brown - and tried to incorporate elements that I've admired, though I can't say I dance like James.”

“I stuck with that size because I could bend the strings so well, and somewhere along the line I must have gotten it into my mind that I had small hands, so I was thinking I'd never be able to play a full-scale guitar, but I also felt like I was cheating or cutting corners.”

“I'm much more energetic now; you might say live performance is my mission.”

“There's just not a lot of guys around playing like that these days; a lot of steel players are plugging into stomp boxes, trying to sound like Jeff Beck on a steel guitar.”

“I went pretty much for one tone, and I knew at that time that I wanted to play a Rickenbacker.”

“Washburn's an old American name, but this one was assembled overseas.”

“The ones I have got great necks; of course, all of the Fenders from that era are incredible.”

“I've also become much more the musician I've always wanted to be.”

“The Telecaster doesn't really sound that good for the kind of rock and roll that a lot of people played.”

“I usually destroy unreleased material. It has a way of coming back to haunt you.”

“Even though I have often recorded alone, I still feel the best music is made by musicians playing off each other.”

“I'm like a twenty-two-year-old kid in a new band trying to get noticed and break through, because the vast majority of people have never seen me play live.”

“But I think beautiful is simple and elegant, like a ballad with simple harmony.”

“I work hard at that, but the fact that there are a lot of good songs means there are also a lot of really bad songs I've written that you never hear.”

“Now that I'm older, I like almost anything that's done well, even surf music and instrumentals; I really enjoyed the interviews with the Ventures in your magazine.”

“That song has the full extent of my mandolin abilities; I'm not a good mandolin player at all.”

“And I now think that Stratocasters and Telecasters are way cool.”

“I thought what I was good at doing was playing real simple guitar licks, since I'd cut my teeth on what Duane Eddy was doing; licks that were simple but had staying power.”

“You should play with real musicians; the best music comes from real people interacting with each other.”