I've probably gone a month or two without playing guitar, just because I've gotten so burnt on it touring all year or whatever.
When we first started playing we did a lot of rehearsing. We used to write out everything. In fact, that's the way everybody rehearses: we play the tunes and improvise.
When I was writing 'The White Tiger' I lived in a building pretty much exactly like the one I described in this novel, and the people in the book are the people I lived with back then. So I didn't have to do much research to find them.