Has there ever been a song you couldn’t get the hang of?
Romy Whyte, Edinburgh

“There’s never been a song that I’ve sat down and tried to learn and didn’t stick with it until I could play it, but speaking about Van Halen earlier, there’s one song on that first record called Show Your Love [later renamed as I’m The One], which has this up-tempo guitar part. I remember learning that, and it sounded easy, but turned out to be a lot harder than I’d thought it would be.

“There’s also a Rolling Stones song called Let It Loose that had some chords, which I had the hardest f**king time figuring out. Likewise, [Led Zeppelin’s] The Rain Song was pretty daunting at first, because it was all in strange tunings. So, yeah, I can think of a lot of different songs, but I usually stick with it until I get it right.”

Will there be a new signature Les Paul in 2013? And any news on the five-watt AFD combo you mentioned on Twitter?
Jamie, via email

“There aren’t any plans for a new guitar. There is another AFD [Les Paul] model coming out, probably next year, that will be a red version [of the original]. The AFD was a limited edition, but there’s been so much demand for it. We don’t want to release exactly the same guitar and upset those original buyers, so this is going to be a different colour version.

“The five-watt amp is actually coming from Marshall. I have a couple of prototypes. I don’t know when it’s coming out, but it’s relatively soon. It’s pretty cool. It goes from five watts to one watt – it’s a great practice amp.”

Do you have any pre-gig rituals?
Matija Veber, Slovenia

“I don’t have any ritual other than I play my guitar a lot before shows – and that’s just a total insecurity thing. I don’t have any standard guitar practising routine, but I just try and make sure that I’ve put some effort into playing before we actually go out on stage, because I’m scared s**tless that when I go out there I won’t know how to do it!”