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Paul Gilbert may be a virtuoso shredder, and he may have been Eddie Van Halen’s pick to teach guitar to his son, Wolfgang. However, he’s also very much aware of the importance of quality songwriting and the idea that, sometimes, less is more – and it all goes back to Todd Rundgren.
“I remember being about 22. I was teaching every day at GIT [L.A.’s Guitar Institute of Technology] and having a blast, and every day I'd come up with a new 16th note phrase,” he says on the No Cover Charge Podcast.
“Every time I'm a 16th note genius, every day I get something new, and what I realized, [is that] they all sound the same emotionally. They're the same. They're all some version of [the same time thing].”
However, his obsession with mastering 16th notes and virtuosic technique soon abated when he went to a concert that wholly changed his perception.
“With an eight-minute song, [it] completely changed my life,” he says matter-of-factly. “So Todd Rundgren [was] doing a song called Hawking. It was almost like a gospel song, a really slow tempo – all these harmony background vocals and horns, two keyboard players – and there's Lyle Workman [renowned session and touring guitarist] playing guitar.”
Although Gilbert admits that Workman “was great,” it wasn’t the guitar that truly moved him. Rather, “it was the song and the vocal and this arrangement”.
He remembers, “I was sobbing for eight minutes, and after that I was like, ‘I don't care so much about guitar solos anymore.’
“I want to write something that follows that beacon of emotion, whatever it is,” he continues. “It didn't have to be that emotion all the time, or everything I do be a crying festival, but just something moves myself and hopefully some other people.
And, speaking of stepping back from crazy guitar solos, earlier this year, Gilbert released his first album in 10 years featuring vocals, WROC, which stands for “Washington’s Rules of Civility.”
“To me, that is actually a courageous thing to do, to not go crazy all the time, and rely on the fact that it works for the song – and not have to prove yourself every single second,” he told Music Radar about practicing restraint when it comes to shredding.
Elsewhere in that same interview, he talks about the universal need for guitar players – even ones as established as himself and Joe Satriani – to prove their skills with every album.
