How did you view the role of the guitar when you were writing these tunes?
There are lots of ways to build an arrangement, but I’m a guitar nut. I like all sorts of guitar tones and I wasn’t shy about putting them in these songs. I’ve got a reissue Strat from Japan, and I have a Tele, and I like those for big clean sounds, and also the middle position of a Les Paul. I also really love good dirty tones, but I try to keep them sparser. The more distortion you use, the less notes you have to play.

A lot of your distorted tones are pretty dense, though.
True. When there are two guitars, I might use an open tuning up against a regular tuning. That helps, because you can play two really solid voicings, and when you put them together it makes it massive. Two guitars can play a triad apiece.

Are you playing an open tuning against standard tuning on “Wishing You Well”?
Yes. There are a lot of guitar tracks on that song. The open tuning is on the track that’s mostly harmonics, although I don’t remember exactly what the tuning was. I wrote the part, but I had Wes Stiles play it because we were trying to record as much as we could live. I was playing a GMP Roxie model through a little Gretsch combo with a 10" speaker. It’s a great amp with just one knob. The acoustic was my Takamine N-20 dreadnought that I’ve had since the Slash days, which is my main acoustic. After we tracked those parts, I went back into my cave and added some layers to make it more epic.

At what point in the songwriting process do you come up with a part like that track of harmonics?
It can happen at any time. It’s about hearing compositionally what I want to achieve, and then assigning it to some instrument or voice. I’ve always been a huge fan of alternate tunings. I guess that goes back to Jimmy Page.

Talk about the guitars in “Wild to Make You Mine.”
Unfortunately, I don’t have that main guitar anymore. It was a 1968 Pete Townshend-style Gibson SG with P90s. The P90 is one of the most awesome pickups ever. That SG is all over the Imperial Drag record. The amp is probably my 1973 Marshall JMP 100-watt. I follow up the dirty track with spanky clean sounds. That’s two different tracks interacting—one playing the downbeats and the other doing the answers.

Are the bubbly arpeggios after the chorus keyboard or guitar?
Those are actually tones off a vinyl test-tone record. I took the notes off the record, mapped them on a grid, and flew a bunch of them in. I used turntable speed to match them to the song’s key as best I could, and I put some overdrive on the track. The tones are kind of suspended in this major/minor cadence and I knew I wanted something like that in the song. I like creating sound that way. I love musique concrete and I love any piece of old gear. If it makes a noise it can be fun, depending on how stoned you are.

In the chorus of “Crazy3 4 You,” are you creating those string sounds with guitar?
That’s my English Electronics Tonemaster lap steel. I also had my buddy Robert Powell from San Francisco add a track. There’s a part before the second chorus where there’s this contrary motion resolution chord that sounds like a train coming at you, and that’s all lap steel. Robert is awesome. My engineer Mark Fuller knew him and suggested I use him and, sure enough, he kicked ass.

What did you learn about guitar working with Slash?
Soul. The guy’s got a lot of soul. There’s a lot of fire in his playing. Tone, too. He has such a unique tone, especially live. It really is sweet live. Sometimes I hear him on record and it almost doesn’t do him justice.

Did you ever play through his rig?
Never. It was kind of a state secret. You weren’t supposed to see what was going on. You know, that “man behind the curtain” thing.

What are your recollections of your time with Alice Cooper?
We went all over the world several times. Playing that classic material for me was a dream come true. Those were some of the very first records I ever listened to. One of the highlights was the last time I ever played with him, the 25th anniversary of his greatest hits record. We went to XM radio and they recorded us playing it down from top to bottom. It was so much fun playing lead guitar with him. It really got my chops up. There was a time in Cooper where I could not believe how well I was playing.

What was it like when you joined Jellyfish?
I was very young and pretty green. It was the best thing for me because they were such perfectionists and consummate musicians. We spent three months rehearsing every day before we played our first show, which I love. That’s what my favorite bands do, like Queen. Andy [singer/drummer Sturmer] and Roger got it so dialed and good, but they didn’t take the life out of it. I have them to thank for getting my s*** together and creating good musical habits.

There is still an insanely loyal cult in the Jelly-fish Army. What do you attribute that to?
I attribute it to the fact that Andy and Roger were completely uncompromising. They knew their music would polarize and alienate some people, but that the people who got it would latch on. I love all kinds of music, whether it’s simple or complex, but a lot of people frown on those who want to do grand things. They think it’s arrogant. Fortunately, Andy and Roger didn’t care about that, and they left us with some really good music that was written and recorded with care and attention. They let real musicians put their soul into it and shine through.

Both Jellyfish and Imperial Drag were great bands. Why do you think they didn’t happen the way they might have?
Well, I think about this often. You can always say “shoulda, woulda, coulda,” but we did what we wanted to do so it’s all a success to me looking back. Whether we sold a zillion records or not is irrelevant. Michael Stipe once said that only 300 people bought the first Velvet Underground album, but they all started very important bands. Maybe I can look at it like that. I know we left enough of a legacy, and I’m very pleased that people still find joy in it.