"- What’s the difference between a student in 1986 and 2006?
- A lot of young players who are into shred now are really good at it, but they came to it directly, bypassing guys like Mick Ralphs, Mick Ronson, and Brian May—so their base is shred. But when I started playing, the first Van Halen record wasn’t even out yet, so when I turned on the radio to hear some hot guitar, I heard Jimmy Page, Aerosmith, Bad Company, and Ted Nugent. Maybe if I researched, I could dig up, say Uli Jon Roth, but early Scorpions was certainly not on the radio, and there was no internet, so guys my age had no choice but to listen to the old school players. So when I see these young guys just blazing, it's like seeing a kid who somehow got up on the roof of a house without a ladder—part of me is amazed—how did they get up there? I’ve been up there before, and I needed the ladder!
-Do you see this as a positive or a negative?
-Neither. They’re so young, you can’t expect them to know everything and every player that came before them. If a student is passionate about any style of music, I want them to go as far into it as they can. However, I do love that wide, ’70’s rock vibrato, so when I jam with students, I do a lot of that to try to open their ears to it. If they like it, they'll do it."
http://www.guitarplayer.com/article/paul-gilbert39s-shredvolution/9006