One of the things I hear JT playing in this song, and you can see it in the video, is a lot of hammer-ons. He's not sitting on a note, he's playing a lower (or sometimes higher) note then hammering on to the root note.
I will try this today! And about breath after breath, I think John uses an acoustic bass in this song and Cuccurullo uses guitar.. It's difficult for me to separate these different lines.
