Joe Stump

"Since I'm kind of the high-tech metal specialist, I spend a lot of time demonstrating these techniques. It's really a player's approach. Rather than holding the student's hand and saying, 'Do it like this,' I'm showing them how it's done and fielding questions, making it clear how to execute certain things. Then they come back after they've worked on it a bit."

"I think in this day and age, since there's so much instructional material available—whether it's guitar CDs or DVDs or transcriptions on the Internet—a lot of the material comes easy to a certain extent. But it takes a lot of dedication and work ethic to play at a virtuosic level. It looks kind of effortless, but as far as putting it all together, it's another story."

"One thing my students come away with is inspiration. This is their time, when they're supposed to be living, eating, breathing guitar. I've been doing it since I was younger than them, and I'm still doing it after however many different records and tours. So that kind of love of playing and inspiration and intensity and dedication to the instrument comes through. Not every student shares that, and I'm not the kind of guy that beats people with a stick and says, 'What do you mean you don't want to be a virtuoso?' If you want to work hard and break your back and do it that's great, but if you don't have that kind of dedication, you shouldn't aspire to play like that. I'm not going to give you a detention. It's not about As and Bs. We're playing rock here."