Creativity Quote by Brian May

There is a quiet flex hiding in Brian May's self-deprecation. By calling his technique "pretty basic", he sidesteps the gearhead mythology that often surrounds iconic guitarists: the idea that greatness is a shopping list of pedals, amps, and secret settings. It reads like humility, but it also draws a boundary. May is telling you where the magic is not.

The line works because it frames constraint as identity. "I don't use many gadgets" isn’t an anti-technology manifesto; it’s a declaration of priorities. In rock culture, gadgetry can become both status symbol and excuse, a way to outsource personality to equipment. May’s subtext is that tone is earned through touch, phrasing, and feel - through the musician, not the marketplace. The second clause, "and I like the sound my guitar makes, anyway", lands like a shrug with teeth: he’s already found a voice he trusts. Why chase novelty when recognition is the point?

Context matters because May’s sound is famously specific and deeply engineered in its own way: the Red Special guitar he built with his father, his coin-as-pick attack, those stacked harmonies that function like orchestration. So "basic" doesn’t mean primitive; it means intentional. The intent is to re-center craft and taste over accumulation, and to remind listeners that the most futuristic thing a guitarist can do is commit to a signature and stop apologizing for it.