You know, when Michael Jackson does the moonwalk, he's showing off! When Prince or Hendrix do a guitar solo, it's confidence! I would hate to be at a show and some nervous wreck is sweating up there and doesn't feel like he deserves to be there.
Since I was seventeen I thought I might be a star. I'd think about all my heroes, Charlie Parker, Jimi Hendrix... I had a romantic feeling about how these people became famous.
I've always loved the blues, John Lee Hooker, Janis Joplin, Hendrix.
The best thing I ever heard was in the '60s. I heard Jimi Hendrix play 'I Can Hear The Grass Grow' after a rehearsal, and it was brilliant.
We were into Hendrix and Cream, who were like the heaviest bands around at that time. We just wanted to be heavier than everybody else!
I wanna be one of those special guys. Jimi Hendrix wasn't afraid of who he was. That's the part I emulate.
I just want to be an inspiration. I'm a rock star, I'm Future Hendrix.
I consider the guitar a tool for the most part. I do pick up the acoustic now and then, I certainly don't have any routine. Usually the only time I practice is when the band gets together. Hendrix has always been one of my favorite players, but I was a sucker for Nugent in the late 1970's.
Hendrix was the bass player for Little Richard. We were both left-handed, but we would use a right-handed guitar held upside down and backwards. He developed my slides and my riffs. In fact he used to say, and this is documented, 'I patterned my style after Dick Dale.'
And um, when I came back to England I put a very complex soundtrack on it, featuring everyone from Jimi Hendrix, right through to Neil Diamond, you know, everybody that was kind of popular who was kind of popular at that time.
When I hear myself singing, I hear Iggy Pop and Jimi Hendrix. There's a conversational thing going on. I suppose it depends on which The Pretenders song you're listening to.
I was very friendly with Jimi Hendrix because my boyfriend at the time, Tommy Weber, was making a film about him, so I would go to all of his shows.
I thought Jimi Hendrix... was just phenomenal.
But people are now realising why I was playing bass with Hendrix.
Jimi Hendrix played loud and free, Sergeant Pepper was real to me.
I was the first guy to join the band with Hendrix.
I also played with Jimi Hendrix. Jimi would come down and sit in with Retaliation and we would have a ball. He offered me the gig with him at 20 pounds a week, which at that point, was like 60 bucks.
I liked the Beatles because there was so much melody. Jimi Hendrix is still one of my heroes.
I listen to country music. I listen to jazz. I listen to R&B. I listen to Jimi Hendrix a lot.
I liked back in the sixties where you'd turn on the radio and go 'Oh that's Hendrix, that's Creedence Clearwater, that's The Doors, there's The Grass Roots, The Monkees, there's Big Brother.' You could just instantly hear it and tell. But in the eighties and nineties there's no way you could do that.
I had a Super Beetle that I restored and painted deep purple in honor of Jimi Hendrix that was stolen. After that, I got a Ford Falcon that had no windshield wipers, so whenever it rained - which, thankfully, in L.A. it doesn't do very much - I'd have to lean out my driver's side window like 'Ace Ventura: Pet Detective.'
Hendrix was a natural genius who played many beautiful styles. Talent as great as his doesn't come through life very frequently. Hendrix was one in a billion.
As a young man growing up in that era, I was very influenced by Hendrix and took to a wah wah, and I learned how to really use one effectively as Hendrix did.
Jimi Hendrix came from the blues, like me. We understood each other right away because of that. He was a great blues guitarist.
Prince got some Marvin Gaye and Jimi Hendrix and Sly in him, also, even Little Richard. He's a mixture of all those guys and Duke Ellington.
I'm like a middle-aged person; when my friends go on about modern bands, I don't know what they are talking about. I'm into rock n' roll, like Jimi Hendrix. Not so much because of my parents, who used to play a lot of Nina Simone and older blues, but my brother and sister.
The ultimate part that I want to play in my life is Jimi Hendrix, so I guess I'm drawn to music even though I can't sing or dance very well.
I don't know if anybody will ever be as good as Hendrix again.
I've always loved the guitar. You see Jimi Hendrix playing the guitar with his teeth, and OK, you know you're never going to be able to do that, but I always wanted to play an instrument of some sort.
My own personal melting pot has no room for Hendrix or heavy metal, filled as it is with European ancestors such as Debussy, Sibelius, Bartok, Lutoslawski, and Ligeti.