Q: I read that one time in Memphis, you played with Stevie Ray Vaughan. Is that true and what did you think about him? (Mark Elan - Memphis TN & Chris - Crawfordsville IL).
A: Yes, that's true, I did play with him. First of all, Stevie Ray was magic. It's funny because people always want to know about his guitars and his amps but what I want to tell you is that it was in his fingers. It had nothing to do with his guitar and amp. I think he could have been playing a Silvertone guitar through a transistor radio. That night at "Mud Island" in Memphis I was watching him from the side and he called me up on stage and he handed me his guitar and he said, "Play!". I didn't know what to expect. I thought it would be really loud and just, you know, all over the stage. It wasn't though, it was about as loud as I set my guitars. It even kind of sounded like mine. I was so surprised. He stood there in front of the pedal board with his arms crossed just hitting different pedals. At that moment I realized...jeez, it's all about what's in this guy's fingers. What can I say? He was one of the truly great guitar players. We never played together, at the same time but I'll never forget that night.
Q:You have a great chord vocabulary, I want to know what is the oddest and/or probably hardest chord to play? (Gretschy Little Greaser - Adam, Hurricane Utah USA)
A: There are certain jazz chords that require alot of finger stretching where you have to span at least five frets. There's a chord on the Stray Cat's song, Jade Idol during the bridge, an A Minor/Major chord that stretches your fingers 6 frets. That's a very ''James Bond'' style chord that could be considered difficult to play.
Q: Who is the most interesting person you`ve ever met and why? (Michael Harper - Ireland)
A: I find Joe Strummer to be very interesting. Let me see how I can describe this....He just looks at things differently than other people do. I mean he could look at a pile of junk and find something redeeming in it. He also can find pleasure in very simple things, things that maybe a lot of Americans take for granted, maybe it's because he's British. He looks at American things in a different light. For instance, we went out for a drive and in the middle of nowhere there were these 4 kind of cowboys playing poker, in the middle of this field. Joe made me pull the car over and he started taking pictures of them and I said, "Hey Joe, these guys are going to kick our asses. "But these guys were just kind of blown away that Joe wanted to take pictures of them. It was after work and these guys were just unwinding, playing poker. Then I thought wow, you know that is kind of cool. You know? Like very American, these guys got off from work, they were farm hands playing poker. It made me look at the thing in a whole different way. So let's just say that Joe is a very interesting character.
Q: How did you hook up with Mike Ness and are you two guys friends? (Melissa, San Francisco)
A: I'd heard that Mike wanted to meet me, believe it or not through our tattoo artist. We both go to Eric Moskie and I had heard through the grapevine that Mike wanted to shoot the breeze. Then he called me and said he was making a solo record and would I play on it. I said, sure I'll be down there. I brought the old Gretsch down and it was a nice experience. I mean he's one of us, he's like me and you and the guys on the message board. He's got that sort of mentality we have. He gave me a song and just said, be yourself on it and I came up with that little hook. I really like Mike, he's got alot of integrity.
Q: What do you use to get your hair to stay the way it does?
A: Now that it's getting so darn long, I just use straight Royal Crown Pomade.
