Happy Monday and thanks to Jenn once again, there are no less than 2 brand new interviews with Paul Gilbert.
The first one is with Guitar Gear Heads and there’s a cool excerpt:
John: You have had a long career with Racer X, Mr. Big, as a solo artist and in other collaborations, such as G3. How would you say that your style varies between projects in terms of technique, approach and gear?
Paul: I’m pretty much the same guy no matter what kind of music I’m playing, but I do try to adapt to the song. So if it’s metal, I play something metally, if it’s got some blues elements, I’ll add some of that. I still learn a lot of cover songs just to keep expanding my vocabulary and get new ideas for chords and solo techniques.
(Be sure to check Jenn’s blog as well for lots of cool pictures 
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The second interview is with Metal Sucks again with a few interesting passages:
That’s awesome. Do you feel like you’ve gotten a second chance with Mr. Big, an opportunity to maybe improve things with which you’d been dissatisfied in the past?
One thing I was excited about was my own playing. I love what we did in the old days, but one of the ingredients of Mr. Big is the blues-rock sound. When I joined I was just coming out of Racer X, so I was very, very metal. I was able to adapt pretty quickly, but [since then] my vocabulary in the blues-rock idiom has expanded enormously. I’m excited to apply that to Mr. Big. I’ve got a lot more stuff that works in the style of the band.
What I don’t think I appreciated before, but really appreciate now, is the vocals. Eric’s always been great. But as for the background vocals, we just fell into them. Pat’s a great singer. Billy and I sing a lot. The three- and four-part harmonies that we do live are a blast! I feel singing is a healthy thing to do as a human being. Your body is the instrument and you’re actually resonating from the inside out. If I can rehearse with a band or just ride around singing in my car, I’m a much better balanced, happy individual than if I don’t sing. It keeps me sane as a human being, and there’s a lot of [singing] in Mr. Big. I’m really glad to have another opportunity to do that.
The following is interesting:
More recently, with all the clinics I’ve been doing, I made a conscious decision to never play with backing tracks again. [It comes] from seeing so many people sitting down and playing with backing tracks, [thereby] taking guitar playing in a direction I’d rather not see it go: the nerdy bedroom guitar player.
Why? Because that’s ME, the nerdy bedroom guitar player with no friends to play with 
Cheers Jenn 
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