Spotted via Mark’s website, a guy called Jason Shadrick has kick started a series of interviews made up of 7 questions. So far he’s done it with Paul Gilbert (excerpt below):

What has been your most significant musical experience?

I auditioned for a band when I was 12 years old. The other guys in the band were 16-18 years old and played really well. It felt so good to jam with them and to make a sound that “sounded like a record”. They never actually told me that I didn’t get the gig, they just gave me a long list of difficult songs to learn to try to discourage me from calling back. The songs were beyond my ability at the time, but I tried hard to learn them, and I called them up daily to see if I could try out again. They stopped answering their phone, but I ended up learning a lot of good songs.

and Steve Vai:

Describe your first experience playing music.

I walked up to a little spinet organ and played the theme song for the horror flick with Bette Davis called “Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte”. The movie sacred me to death and the melody haunted me until I plucked it out and then I thought…”Hmmm, that’s not so scary”. I think I was 4 years old.

So there, good advice for you kids