Man, when I was 16 I had eight regular session gigs playing all the parts of Bach's Goldberg variations at once on the guitar and I could play every piece by everyone you've ever heard of - especially those you haven't heard of so I sound cooler for speaking in a reverential way about a band that you don't know. Oh, I started playing about 3 months before my 16th birthday. I think I was learning chords still and trying to play along to my favourite U2 albums.