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Many people think that is impossible to create anything new on guitar technique. Do you agree?
I agree with the reality that many of nowadays music it’s not in the style of today’s players. But, it’s true that there are still guitarist who manage to create sounds with the guitar that doesn’t sound like a guitar. And it’s not that they’re using any electrical machine to channel the guitar sounds but they manipulate the guitar itself and create textures and sounds that you would never expect from that instrument. People believes that by playing faster and creating new playing techniques you can progress forward, but then they realize that emotionally they don’t progress at all, they transmit nothing to the people listening and they stay at where Hendrix was three decades ago: something like that happened to Vai in the 80’s.
For this album I tried to keep the passion and the atmosphere that old teachers transferred then but using techniques they didn’t use back then. It’s not about moving forward, but it’s about moving to the sides and explore other ways. I partially agree with people who I respect, like Bjork, when they say we have to totally get rid of guitars, because I’m not satisfied neither with what it’s being done with guitars these days. But on the other hand, I’m a guitarist, I can’t help it (laughs), and it’s a challenge to me to do something unusual or new.
In the song “Animal Bar” for example, I use the pedals to create a guitar sound that sounds like a shyntesizer. I don’t usually use the pedals.Most of the times, when I have recorded the guitar parts, I pass them through the shyntesizer and then I pass them to tape again.
You have to break rules to keep forward and I’m afraid most of the guitarists these days just follow the rules with no risk.

Ray Manzarek (The Doors) said that one of the best ways to compose it’s being under the effects of some psicotropic substance. Do you agree with that?
I don’t like walking around doing drugs eulogy, but it is true in some way. At least with me. You can take advantage of weed or mushrooms when it comes to inspiration. But you can actually generate that “mood” yourself. In the sessions for this album, I’ve been meditating a lot. I use this technique to stop my mind from spinning around and just focus on the creative process. Meditation has given me mental states that could be similar to the one’s weed gives you. I isolate from worldly stuff and my mind just gets in peace with the universe. That is the most hallucinating experience I’ve ever had.

Which guitarists would you like to collaborate with?
Omar Rodriguez from The Mars Volta is a good friend and I feel very comfortable playing with him. However, I don’t think the rest of the band would like the idea of bringing another guitarist on board even if he was just a guest. I’ve tried that before but they wanna keep with the “we are four” idea. Sometimes we have like 17 different guitar tracks in some song and sometimes that can’t sound exactly like in the album when you play that song life, even if you try hard. For example, there’s a song in the new album where I play the “Mellotron” ( this old keyboard which reproduces symphonic sounds, very used by progressive rock bands in the 70’s) and I can’t imagine that song without the Mellotron onstage. Hendrix’ song The Burning Of The Midnight Lamp didn’t sound the same live without all that studio production sound.

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