I grew up in Greenwich Village. Dad was friends with John Lennon and Yoko Ono.

I think there's nothing better than laughing in life, so that's nice, to be thought of as someone who can make someone laugh. It's 'cause I think life is hard. You know, my dad was a really silly man. A great Irish silly man. And that's fine.

I'm a dad and that's pretty important.

My dad was a football player - a soccer player - for Manchester United, and I loved playing football, but I also happened to be the guy in class who was pretty good at sight reading. My teacher gave me scripts, and I was very comfortable.

Well, Steve Vai joined my dad's band right around the time when I actually started playing guitar. So he gave me a couple of lessons on fundamentals, and gave me some scales and practice things to work on. But I pretty much learned everything by ear.

And, you know, my dad would show me some things sometimes, but the best things that I got to do were to actually see really good players play up close. That gives you an idea of fingering and technique and what not.

I liked a lot of the things other people liked - Jimi Hendrix, The Beatles, Van Halen, AC/DC - but if I compared it to my dad's music, there just seemed to be elements missing.

I didn't really hear any other music other than what my dad was working on until I was 12. My recollection of hearing other music was that I liked some things that I heard but I always thought, 'Where's the rest of it?' It didn't have the same amount of detail or instrumentation or imagination in the arrangements.

My dad taught me to be a leader or a follower, and he said follower ain't fun. So I want to be the leader of Bubba Watson.

I had just lost my dad and I remembered all the songs we used to go and hear at concerts, and the records around the house and sometimes we'd play together.