The World Motivation
Whenever I hear my playing, I can't detach from my influences: there's my Jeff Beck, there's the Clapton bit, the Eric Johnson bit, the Birelli Lagrene bit, the Billy Gibbons.
“Whenever I hear my playing, I can't detach from my influences: there's my Jeff Beck, there's the Clapton bit, the Eric Johnson bit, the Birelli Lagrene bit, the Billy Gibbons.”
— Joe Bonamassa · Billy
Whenever I hear my playing, I can't detach from my influences: there's my Jeff Beck, there's the Clapton bit, the Eric Johnson bit, the Birelli Lagrene bit, the Billy Gibbons.
I'm an acoustic guitar owner - in the sense that I own them, and they sit at my house, and I never play them.
I never had this ego where I must write everything. I'm not Bob Dylan.
I was thrust into an adult world very quickly, and that can make anyone somewhat socially maladjusted to dealing with people your own age. But I wouldn't trade any of it.
All I'm trying to do is simply play guitar and elicit this creativity from the instrument.
It was hard for me to hear anyone saying they didn't like 'Billy Madison.'
I'm into classic rock, Bruce Springsteen, Billy Joel.
I grew up in the '70s, and I hear in my own stuff a lot of what I grew up listening to, which is to say I hear a lot of Billy Joel, Paul McCartney, Carole King, Joni Mitchell and Stevie Wonder.
In college I was so mad I wasn't playing. The two guys in front of me were Billy Volek and David Carr, but I just realized that was a blessing in disguise, that I was so bad and I never played, so my brain's good.
I don't mean to sound like a Pollyanna, but for me, New York is the ideal because of the diversity here. 'Billy on the Street' is really informed by that.