I'll let you off then, but let's look at it another way… I’m going make my mum a CD to make her smile and I’m going to put one of your tracks on there for her, so much should I pick?

Okay! Put Starlight on there because that’s probably going to be the next single.

Done, she'll be air guitar-ing in no time. Now, the whole album is really good and you’ve chosen some amazing musicians to feature, but how did you choose which guys and girls you wanted to work with?

Well I wrote the music first and the music really dictated what style of singer I wanted for vocals. I would listen to a piece of music and go: “Oh man this would work for so-and-so.”

Believe it or not because I picked Adam Levine everyone was like: “Are you serious?!” He’s so different from my normal thing. Adam Levine has an amazing and personal RnB voice and it just sounded perfect!

I think I made the right choice with Fergie because I wanted a female rock singer and I knew she is amazing rock singer  after I heard her sing three years ago at a one off gig and was like: “Wow,” I would never thought of her for a rock song based on the Black Eyed Peas, but I knew she had this great rock voice so when I wrote the music for “Beautiful Dangerous” she was the first singer that came to mind and thankfully she was really excited because she never really had an opportunity to show her rock charm.

Were there any singers that you wanted but couldn’t?

Well I mean pretty much everybody I went for I got, but there was a couple of situations where there was one song where we were ready to go and record but the record company wouldn’t let me release it! So obviously I couldn’t use that singer which was sort of a drag and then another couple of people were just scheduled in completely. Nobody was sort of like: “Oh fuck you” I didn’t have that kind of thing.

Obviously, who would say that?!

Oh I’m just saying….

So can we expect to see you in the UK performing anytime in the next year?

Yeah in the next year we’ll be over this summer, I want to do a proper UK tour. We’ve just done the festivals this summer.

Awesome, so which one if your favourite?

Download is always my favourite so that was the one I was most looking forward to and I was really happy because we got such a fantastic response but Glastonbury and Wireless but maybe it was  because they were so eclectic and we’re like the token rock band for the Wireless festival, and Glastonbury too?

We were the only real hard rock group and we managed to pull it off and you can get into that situation where the crowd are just not buying it but it worked out really well.

You could just feel the love….

Yep!

Finally, you’re such an inspiration to so many people of all different ages how does it feel to be one of the greatest guitarists of all time?

I don’t feel like that. I know people say that sometimes but, as a guitar player I know a lot of  guitar players and I have a lot of heroes as well so I know when I am working as a player and I have a long way to go.

I take those kind of compliments as flattering but at the same time I’m still plucking away trying to get better at it and I was out last month with a bunch of phenomenal guitar players [at the Classic Rock awards] and it's embarrassing to even be put in that category because these guys are really fucking amazing.

That is so humbling.

No, its true… I mean what can I say, it was nice to be recognised for my work but I am still working my way up. But definitely not at that point.

Aww bless that’s lovely, well, all the best of luck with everything and thank you so much for taking the time out to talk to me and I look forward to seeing you in Manchester next year.

Oh no worries… Yeah probably August! See you later.

FemaleFirst - Ruth Harrison

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