Quotes from Joe Bonamassa

There's a certain thing when you start getting into your late thirties or early forties where you stop caring. Not to the extent where you stop caring about the music, you just stop caring about what anyone thinks of you, and you just kind of let it go - let the chips fall where they may.

I think great music sells records, and I also think, do you want to be a reality star, or someone that actually has credibility? Because you can't have both.

One of these days, when I get tired of it all, I'll keep six guitars and the amps I'm using, and I'll have a big old auction for charity.

I live, breathe, and sleep guitars.

I was thrust into an adult world very quickly, and that can make anyone somewhat socially maladjusted to dealing with people your own age. But I wouldn't trade any of it.

It doesn't matter if people take the music for free, because you can't illegally download a ticket to a concert.

At the end of the day, I think having some life experience is helpful to play any kind of music.

Jimi Hendrix is a classic example of a player in which everything he did, it was all in his hands.

If you keep working hard and not take 'no' for an answer, you achieve.

I'm not a household name; I'm just a household name to guitar freaks.

I'm a kooky collector and own a couple of hundred guitars.

The thing people forget about Kevin Shirley a lot of the time is that he's not only a great producer, he's also a world-class engineer. He really knows how to get a sound.

At the end of the day, you, as the player, create the tone coming out of the amp. The gear is part of it but by no means all of it.

I'm honored people think enough of my playing to chase my sound. Hell, I chase other players' tones all the time.

I collect as many acoustic guitars as I need for a specific purpose. Acoustic guitars are really just tools for me.

I don't really do scales... I mean, I play parts of them, but then I bail and start playing parts of other things. The term 'scale' feels very scripted to me because I'm an improv player.

Greece is so beautiful and inspiring.

I'm probably a more intentional acoustic player than I am an electric player because of lack of influences. I just play acoustic to see what happens.

The blues, the way it's interpreted, is always a product of your environment, and so it's almost like food. You know, it's like you use the ingredients, and you use your life experiences that you have.

Being a niche kind of artist, you're not going to make a lot of friends in the traditional music biz.

John Mayall doesn't get enough credit. He's not in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, which is a tragedy.

I've always been a fan of the five-speed transmission - on anything.

If we got into a time machine and went back to the 1700s, classical and baroque music would have been the equivalent of Beyonce and Jay-Z.

Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck made me an Anglophile. I listened to English and Irish artists as a kid, and they were way louder, heavier, and faster than the traditional blues that I was listening to.