“He said, ‘I wish I could let that go, but it’s hard!” Paul Gilbert explains why Joe Satriani feels the need to “prove” he can shred on his records
You’d think that once you’re Paul Gilbert or Joe Satriani, the need to prove you can shred would quietly disappear. Between platinum records, sold-out tours and decades of jaw-dropping guitar technique, what exactly is left to demonstrate?
Quite a lot, as it turns out.
Speaking to MusicRadar, the Gilbert admits that resisting the urge to tear into full-blown shred mode isn’t always easy – even when the song might benefit from restraint.
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“Well, I try to be aware of my own habits, both good and bad, and so, if I find myself getting too dense, I’ll try to slow down,” he says. “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.”
That need to “prove” yourself isn’t unique to Gilbert. And he realised just how universal it was during a conversation with one of guitar’s biggest names.
“It was funny, I did a [guitar] camp once with Joe Satriani,” he recalls. “I can’t remember exactly how he worded it but he said something like, ‘Every time I do an album, I feel like the first song I have to prove that I can play guitar.’ And he said, ‘I don’t like that. I wish I could let that go. But it’s just really hard!’ I thought, ‘I know exactly what you mean.’”
“There’s like this athletic element where you want to prove that you can still swim – like you’re Michael Phelps, ‘I can still swim just as fast as I did when I was 22!’”
And yet, some of his most effective playing arrives when he does the opposite. On Orderly And Distinctly, from his forthcoming album WROC, Gilbert deliberately reins it in.
“The solo is almost like something the Edge from U2 would do, just basically playing a three-note melody over and over again,” says the musician. “And then there is a little bit in the end where I play the vocal line on guitar. But the majority is almost like it’s just a riff. That one, to me, it was perfect for the song, and it’s not a shred thing, and it’s not a prog thing. It is just, like, this melody fits here.”
WROC is now available for pre-order and arrives on 27 February via Music Theories.
The post “He said, ‘I wish I could let that go, but it’s hard!” Paul Gilbert explains why Joe Satriani feels the need to “prove” he can shred on his records appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
Source: www.guitar-bass.net
