My early influences were the Shadows, who were an English instrumental band. They basically got me into playing and later on I got into blues and jazz players. I liked Clapton when he was with John Mayall. I really liked that period.
Democracy is fatal for the arts; it leads only to chaos or the achievement of new and lower common denominators of quality.
The first 2 weeks, they didn't learn the piece - they went through the process of how the piece was made.