Regarding the new Chickenfoot album, what on earth is "exclusive heat sensitive artwork"?

It started out on the premise that everything we do has to be unusual. Once we established that we'd do a physical release rather than just a download, we asked ourselves what could we do that would make holding the actual CD more interesting. I think it was our art director Todd that knew about the heat sensitive stuff, so we thought we'd make the album black, which is funny in a Spinal Tap way! You put your hand on this black surface and then your hand reveals that there's something underneath.

Sammy Hagar and Michael Anthony from Van Halen, Chad Smith from the Red Hot Chili Peppers and yourself ... not a bad line-up! How did you guys hook up?

Y'know, it's a weird one. The cornerstone of this band is that a bunch of friends get together at an improbable location in front of thousands of people at a Las Vegas casino theatre. At the end of a crazy show, a bunch of guys who've never played together as a unit play three songs. In those three songs, the guys recognise an unusual chemistry that they've never felt with anyone else that they've played with. That's what led us to put the next foot in front of the other. The songwriting chemistry was intense. We ended up with seven songs in two days. It was totally different from a label putting famous faces together saying, "This will sell."

You filed a copyright infringement suit against Coldplay last December over the uncanny similarity between their hit single Viva La Vida and your song If I Could Fly. What was your reaction when you first heard Viva La Vida?

It was a very emotional moment because I knew it was my melody and I knew why I wrote it. It's a melody of love that I wrote from my heart for my wife. I spent more than years writing that song and a lot of special time on how I wrote it. Everything about that song is special to me, so when I heard it, it felt like a knife through the heart. I just wanted it to go away. We tried to very quietly talk to each other as musicians without going public. Sadly, now we're at this stage and there is nothing more I can say about it that would be prudent.

You've played with Deep Purple and the Rolling Stones, sold millions of albums, won a fireplace-full of Grammys and created a signature guitar, pedal and amp. Can you possibly isolate one career highlight?

I've had many, put it that way! I'll tell you one funny thing that happened when we were playing in New York just a couple of days ago. Before we went on, I told Sam, "My mother is in the audience tonight, so could you maybe tone down the language a bit when you're describing the meanings of songs?" So after the first or second song, Sammy points to the balcony where my mother is. She's 85 this August. He says hello to my mom and the audience and starts to explain that I told him to watch his language. He asks my mom, "Did Joe come out of the womb playing the guitar?" It was a funny moment because my mother has seen me play in just about every band I've ever been in, except, I think, Deep Purple, so she's been coming to my performances since I was playing in the high-school band at 14 and now I'm 52. That's a very warm feeling and a comfortable highlight of my career. I know that's very different to playing Smoke on the Water with Deep Purple at the Budokan or doing You Can't Always Get What You Want with Mick Jagger, but they're typical music industry highlights. It's those moments where you see your life in perspective and when your professional life and family life come together which mean more to me.

How do you rate Irish guitar legends Rory Gallagher and the Edge?

Rory was tearing it up when I was trying to learn guitar. Very often, you can feel inundated by the intense prowess of all these different players. I was a disciple of Hendrix and Jimmy Page and players of that era. When Rory came along, it was a completely different angle. I was wowed by his intensity and the emotion he put into his playing. Then along comes the Edge and he makes you completely rethink how an electric guitar can be arranged in a song. The Edge is one of my favourite players.

Chickenfoot play the Marquee, Cork on June 23

- Eamon Sweeney