Jeff Beck

[on Django Reinhardt] By far the most astonishing guitar player ever … Django was quite superhuman, there’s nothing normal about him as a person or a player

A Les Paul feels like a guitar and I play differently on that and I sound too much like someone else.

I love it when people hear my music but can’t figure out what instrument I’m playing.

I like an element of chaos in music. That feeling is the best thing ever.

A Les Paul, which is kind of a sissy guitar compared to a Strat anyway. The Les Paul is heavier, but because of that bulk you can do bends on it more easily. Also, the Les Paul’s lack of a vibrato arm means you’re not wrestling against the spring-loaded bridge all the time. The Strat is the ultimate because it’s like having a miniature pedal steel within it. Once you get familiar with it where the bends are and where they meld down into a fourth or whatever, you can do all kinds of pedal-steel-like things, which I think are cool..

I’m an experimenter. It’s rich because every album I’ve done, except for a couple of techno-y records, are different. Really you’ve got to hand it to the Fender Strat, because there are songs in that guitar. It’s a tool of great inspiration and torture at the same time because it’s forever sitting there challenging you to find something else in it, but it is there if you really search.

Jazz never ends… it just continues.

If I could read it, I could play it.

The boppers flat their fifths. We consume ours.

Playing ‘bop’ is like playing Scrabble with all the vowels missing.

A beat is a moment in the life a groove.

The way I look at it, they’re all part of my musical diary, and I can listen to any one of them and it will bring up memories of what was going on at that time.

To keep a band together you simply need a gimmick. The gimmick I use is to pay them money.

To rise above the crowd, discipline yourself unceasingly to the strict demand and realities of your ambition.

It’s true I’ve always been attracted to the jazz band in an orchestral way, rather than a band way.

I don’t really look at my career in terms of highlights and low lights. I think I’m at this place right now and to be at this place right now I’ve had to go through many obstacles and lots of highs and lows and for me it’s about the entire journey.

Musicians have a really big part to play in spreading messages because they’re able to reach a large portion of people on an emotional level. Artists reach people at their heart; it’s the only time we meet in one place and put our differences aside. When you’re in a forum listening to music, all you feel in that moment is love and the understanding.

One can be very happy without demanding that others agree with them.

No one is original. Everyone is derivative.

I’ll play it first and tell you what it is afterwards.

Jazz is something you have to feel, something you have to live.