Quotes from Nuno Bettencourt

I come from a big family of musicians, so I was lucky enough to grow up with guitars all around the house. Even though I didn't really know much at the time, my brother had a Les Paul Goldtop, and my dad always had this Fender or some bizarre Pedulla-Orsini guitar.

The touring part is really mixed. You love to play and you can't wait to go, but you don't want to leave.

Obviously the biggest change is that it's me by myself. When you don't have another band interpreting your songs or playing them the way that they have, it's bound to sound different.

I live in L.A., and whenever I get together with anybody to write, everybody is obsessed and fearful and wants to write a hit for everyone else. They wanna write a hit for Rihanna; they wanna write a hit for Katy Perry.

We were never the cool band to like. They tried to put us into a hair-metal thing, but we weren't really Warrant or Poison. We were always outside the box. I think we had a little niche that nobody had - maybe the funkiness had something to do with it.

If you play music for no other reason than actually just because you love it, the skills just kinda creep up on you.

Even if we had the No. 1 video on MTV, and we had money and everything else, I think we'd always have more to do. I don't ever want to wake up in the morning and say, 'What are we gonna do today?' I'm afraid of that. I don't ever want to wake up and feel like we've conquered.

Everybody used to be busy writing songs - great songs - that became hits. Now everybody's writing hits. Everybody's desperately writing a hit because they know they can't survive if they don't have a hit. Where in the past, we were writing a song like 'More Than Words' on a porch, not really believing it was gonna be a hit.

Who needs fan mail when you have the Internet?

We can play all we want, but if nobody's there, if nobody feels anything with what we're playing, then what's the purpose?

As much as you put into it is as much as you get out of it.

You believe that you're going to be forever young.

Rihanna is so into rock, and she gives me an empty canvas to work with. I get to do wild solos and crunch up the rhythms. It's rock, it's R&B, it's hip-hop, it's funky - all totally up my alley.

Half the bands I guarantee wouldn't at this point want Nuno to open for them.

There is nothing wrong about being a rock n' roll guitar player.

Having a baby is one of the most wonderful things in your life, as well as the hardest thing in your life.

We had a nightmare on our first album, and went through two producers. I decided, on the second album, to take the money that we were supposed to use for pre-production, and we went into a studio and cut the album with no producer. We finished the whole thing without telling the record company.

I wanted to do the whole album in black and white, and it really killed me that when you see it in the light it's got green in it. I don't know what the hell that was about.

A band is like a marriage - you don't know why it works, but when it does, everything feels right.

While you're learning guitar, figure out the drums, too. Not only does it help you have great timing, but it helps you understand how a band works.

My current project is my band, Population 1. We are writing, rehearsing and playing in Los Angeles.

As opposed to touring for three years and then going into the studio and writing an album, I think this record is representative of a lot of everyday people.

Live are a really good band. I like Stone Temple Pilots, Radiohead I love. Even Oasis.

I definitely get affected by new stuff. There's a lot of older influences, but there's also newer stuff too.