I had to be reminded that the guitar is infinite. It never stops teaching you, it never stops being difficult; there’s an unlimited amount of things to learn, and you’ll never master it.

I don’t remember a time that I didn’t know how to play the guitar.

The one thing I’ve always done, because I like the sound of my guitar from where I sit – meaning not in front of it – so what I do is, I put microphones around my ears. I have them around my head, too. I don’t know if it’s a superstitious thing, but it’s actually how I recorded my first album.

I see people who work on their look and they work on their poster and their website and you know, the music will speak for itself no matter what. So if you put maybe like 95% of your energy on music and 5% on playing out and telling people about it. That’s kind of a good equation.

There are a lot of places that I know extremely well. Like, if I were to visit Sydney, Australia, I’d feel very comfortable there. I’m very comfortable in many, many cities.

I’ve followed the lives of great musicians and have learned that you don’t have to always write in pain. You have all of your past experiences, feelings, and thoughts that you can turn on when you need them and turn off when you don’t.

I have to say, I do love the Ovation guitars. If I had one guitar to play, it would be that one, and it’s got nothing to do with having my name on it. I absolutely rely on it.

Tunings are wonderfully inspiring, and it helps you to write music. If I’m stuck, you know, I change the tuning.

Opening acts are hard, really hard. There’s more politics involved than music, sometimes.

You get to a point where the kind of beautiful chaos can’t really fuel your creative existence any longer because it’s not stable, however amazing and exciting it may be.

I get why people want to come see me play guitar, but I still don’t understand why people want to interview me.

Somehow, Rush can still sell out arenas. If I was sitting in row one, I would take my chair, unbolt it from the ground and run away.

I am quite short, but that never comes across when I’m onstage in front of people. When I get offstage and greet an audience afterwards, their first reaction is to comment on my height because it seems like a very drastic difference.

Having been on tour in countries that are extremely eco-friendly, we automatically end up doing the things that normal people do in other countries.

I write almost every single part of my songs, even the actual drum parts sometimes, whether they be simple or layered with many different instruments.

I definitely associate music with color. For example, my first record has a red cover but it is totally green and blue to me.

I try not to punish the audience by making them listen to too much acoustic guitar.

You have this resonant box that sounds cool when you smack it, so why not go for it?

We don’t really have a place in the universe, as far as on a timeline. But nothing else does either. Therefore every moment really is the most important moment that’s ever happened, including this moment right now.