Quotes from Jeff Beck

The right time to record is when you're not quite ahead of yourself.

It's a diabolical business. I can't imagine how hellish it must be to be hounded like Amy Winehouse and people like that. I have a little peripheral place on the outskirts of celebrity, when I go to premieres and that sort of stuff, which is as close as I want to get.

A lunatic lifestyle on the road doesn't permit you to get too hip to stuff as you should.

I don't organize myself sufficiently to get an album of material together, book the studio, and go. I need to be kicked; I need to be forced physically to go in. That's how it works for me. I'll get a great idea in the house, and it'll stay there unless somebody comes and drags it out of me!

Mahavishnu's drummer Billy Cobham was the best I'd ever heard. Not loud, that's not the secret - powerful as hell when he wanted to be - but 90 per cent of the time, he was just dancing with the drums, you know? Just like a butterfly, all over them.

The fun that I've had needs to be seen on the screen. I like the thought of a bunch of people laughing at what I laughed at - because my life is surreal, completely wacko.

Some are skeptical. My mom thought the guitar was going to fizzle out in two weeks, that it was just a fad-and that was in 1958.

That old funny-shaped bit of wood is still staring me in the face every day saying 'come on, you haven't started yet!' It's infinite.

The Strat covers the complete spectrum of human emotion .. the tremolo enables you to do anything - you can hit any note known to mankind

My first wife said, 'It's either that guitar or me,' you know -- and I give you three guesses which one went.

I like an element of chaos in music. That feeling is the best thing ever, as long as you don't have too much of it.

I play the way I do cause it allows me to come up w/ the sickest sounds possible. That's the point now isn't it?

There was mass hysteria in the Chess Recording Studio when I did the "Shapes of Things" solo ... they weren't expecting it, and it was just some weird mist coming from the East out of an amp.

I don't care about the rules, if I don't break the rules at least 10x every song then I'm not doing my job.

When Jazz broke through in England, I remember sneaking to listen on the radio much to my parent's disapproval.

I've become very conscious of how easy it is for people to lie.

My first wife said, 'It's either that guitar or me,' you know -- and I give you three guesses which one went.

The Les Paul was more challenging because of the weight of it, but the tone was there that the Fender will never have and vice versa. So you have to make a decision as to what you're going to have as your main instrument. After seeing Hendrix, I thought, 'I'll stick with the 'Strat.'

After I saw Jimmy [Hendrix] play, I just went home and wondered what the f*** I was going to do with my life.

If I'm on form and I'm not being bothered too much by mental problems or whatever, I can whip out something good. That's why I've done quite a few overdubs for Tina Turner and things like that, because even before she made this comeback I said yes to her, just because I love Tina Turner.

I was going to write an autobiography once. I started writing it, and then I thought, 'No, let them dig around when I'm dead.'

I don't care about the rules. In fact, if I don't break the rules at least 10 times in every song then I'm not doing my job properly.

If you were to plot my success or failure, it goes, it very seldom stays on a high plateau.

It wasn't the muso thing that got me recognition in the beginning. It was doing 'Wild Thing.'