If I'm soloing, I usually try to start with a theme, which will often stem from the blues.

At the end of the day, you really want to make sure that organic music, made by human beings, at least has a voice.

I've been lucky and very fortunate over the course of my career, and I try to do something good for people every day.

Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck made me an Anglophile. I listened to English and Irish artists as a kid, and they were way louder, heavier, and faster than the traditional blues that I was listening to.

The fact that I tour religiously in the spring, religiously in the fall, and do 125 shows - you can set your watch to that. And you could have set your watch to that in 2000 or 1999, and you can set your watch to it in 2012.

Jimi Hendrix is a classic example of a player in which everything he did, it was all in his hands.

I'm a kooky collector and own a couple of hundred guitars.

Who's to say a blues man can't play rock and roll?

I've really gotten over pedals. I can't keep up with this craze of boutique pedals that make you sound like everything but your guitar. I can't get my head around it.

It's not enough to play a song: you have to inhabit it.

I am the poster boy for brick-by-brick foundation building. Play a club. Put on a good show for 35 people. Come back. Build your market. Have people talk about you.

Nothing I'm doing musically is revolutionary in any way, shape, or form.

One of these days, when I get tired of it all, I'll keep six guitars and the amps I'm using, and I'll have a big old auction for charity.

I'm not one of those people that has to share personal experiences. That's not really the kind of writer I am. I'm a very private person to begin with.

I like to be in the room with players that are better than me. That's always a good place to be.

When you've done so many records in 20 years like I have, you're going to have ebbs and flows and go through peaks and valleys.

Being a niche kind of artist, you're not going to make a lot of friends in the traditional music biz.

My first memory of guitar was seeing my father play one.

My first proper 'Here's your guitar, Joseph' was a 1981 Chiquita, one of those Erlewine travel guitars. And it was good for a four-year-old because it was small.

At the end of the day, I think having some life experience is helpful to play any kind of music.

There's a certain thing when you start getting into your late thirties or early forties where you stop caring. Not to the extent where you stop caring about the music, you just stop caring about what anyone thinks of you, and you just kind of let it go - let the chips fall where they may.

British blues was my favorite music, and it still is.

I'm actually much more of a rock player than many people think.

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 probably a more intentional acoustic player than I am an electric player because of lack of influences. I just play acoustic to see what happens.

I play acoustic when I need to play acoustic, and I say I'm probably a better acoustic player than I am electric.

I'm always looking for something new to do.

I feel like I always learn from somebody who can do something better than I can.

I work well under pressure.

It doesn't matter if people take the music for free, because you can't illegally download a ticket to a concert.

I dislike all those cookie-cutter Nashville songs. You know the ones: about tight jeans and pick-up trucks.

I love to collect guitars made in the 1950s. I like preserving and playing them.

When you play a gig in Poland or Australia, or you play a gig in Toledo, they all clap at the same parts of the show. They're clapping for the solos in the exact same way.

I learned that if I put my mind to something vocally, I can pull it off. You just have to get your head-space right.

Some people don't like me at all. But... whatever. It comes with the territory.

I've never been universally loved from the beginning.

I think what I do really well is that I can 'chameleon' myself into many styles at a very fast pace, sometimes in the same verse of a song.

I'm not a household name; I'm just a household name to guitar freaks.

There was a rumour that I was buying Gibson. It circulated around the Internet... And I just go, 'How well off do you think I am?' I play blues-rock for a living. It's like a vow of poverty.

A great solo is one that's so frail that it actually teeters on the edge of falling apart, but doesn't.

It's nice just to be able to go out and, basically, be able to play other types of music and not have any pressure to almost explain it and justify why you did. I just do it because I like to have some fun.

I'll tell you, what the world doesn't need is another Joe Bonamassa DVD.

Carnegie was a life-long dream because I was a born New Yorker. I was born in upstate New York, and we've played Radio City, and we've played The Beacon, but Carnegie was this mystical place, you know?

I collect as many acoustic guitars as I need for a specific purpose. Acoustic guitars are really just tools for me.

When you go into a situation, and you're honest and straight-up about something, you put all your cards on the table.

I've always been a fan of the five-speed transmission - on anything.

There are good '59 Les Pauls, and there are not-so-good ones. There are ones that are just OK, that don't sustain as well.

My goal for 'Black Rock' was pretty simple: I wanted to make the feel-good record of the summer.

Greece is so beautiful and inspiring.

That's right, I take vocal lessons - done it for years. There's nothing wrong with it.