PHOTO BY STEFAN SCHIPPER
What was the first serious guitar you bought with your own money?
“It was a Fender Telecaster and it was probably in the mid-70s. I couldn’t afford a Stratocaster at the time, but I did have a Marshall amp. But with the Telecaster, even though I could put a distortion unit between the guitar and the amp, it didn’t sound anything like what I was hearing from Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton and all the great players, but I got along with it. At the time - I was about 16 or 17 - I didn’t have the experience to get a good sound out of it, because at that age you kinda think if you’ve got a good guitar through a good amp, you’re going to sound like Jimi Hendrix.”