Posts Tagged ‘Paul Gilbert’

Asiaone talks Paul Gilbert & Mr Big

Friday, September 18th, 2009

It’s not an interview strictly speaking and is probably mostly interesting if you live in Singapore but it’s still an interesting article on one of the ways Mr Big changed Paul Gilbert’s career. Here’s an excerpt below:

Before joining Mr Big, Gilbert was the founder of heavy metal band Racer X, renowned for its chugging guitar riffs and fast solos.

Though Mr Big’s style of music is vastly different from Racer X’s, the versatile Gilbert did not have any difficulty adapting to sing-a-long pop rock anthems such as Just Take My Heart and To Be With You.

‘I enjoy many musical styles. In fact, I hardly notice the division between genres,’ he said.

‘Personally, I just like to play good songs with solid musicians and I feel very fortunate to have played with both bands (Racer X and Mr Big).

‘After playing a loud and fast track, playing a melodic, acoustic song sounds especially lovely in contrast.’

Mr Big is due to play in Singapore on 18 October at 8pm.

Not one but two Paul Gilbert Interviews

Monday, September 14th, 2009

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 ;) )

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 :mrgreen:

Cheers Jenn :D

Crazy Paul Gilbert Videos Shred Batman!!!

Thursday, September 10th, 2009

Okay that was a little over the top but I always get excited when I come across videos of Paul Gilbert that I’ve not seen before, especially good quality ones.

In this instance the videos are courtesy of Lick Library. There’s a really cool ~25mn video interview plus live performance of Technical Difficulties (\m/), Scarified and The Rhino taken at LIMS 08 (I know it’s a bit old but who cares?!).

Check it out, it’s awesome :D

7 questions to Paul Gilbert & Steve Vai

Thursday, September 3rd, 2009

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 ;)

Paul Gilbert Bach Prelude on Guitar

Saturday, August 29th, 2009

Here’s a really cool article from Music Radar: A free lesson by Paul Gilbert on how to play Bach’s prelude in D Major on the electric guitar. You may think it’s a bit outlandish to play classical music on the electric guitar but bear in mind that both Paul Gilbert and Yngiwe Malmsteen regularly cite classical composers among their greatest influences. People such as Bach, Paganini or Mozart (Bethoveen’s kinda cool on the guitar too ;) ).

Check it out here, looking at the tab and all those even 16th notes, my brain isn’t sure if it can instruct my fingers to do that ever ;)

Welcome on board flight AF2, my name is Paul Gilbert and I will be your captain today!

Friday, July 31st, 2009

Remember a few weeks ago, I mentionned the new Paul Gilbert Ibanez flanger stomp box AF2. This is one of those products that encases the signature sound of the artist, and in the case of Paul if you’ve had a few listens of Silence Followed by a Deafening Roar, you’ll know what I mean.

Well Ibanez have recently posted a promotional video featuring the man himself going over his expectations and his first test drive of the new pedal. A fun watch ;)

(more…)

Mr Big. European tour dates revealed

Wednesday, June 17th, 2009

Pinged back from various sources but original from Jenn again.

That’s right Mr Big. is back and they’re coming to Europe in September. The good news is, they’re coming to the UK, the bad news, not to Scotland… in fact they seem to only do one date per country, except Spain where they do 3 gigs, go figure. Here are the details:

(more…)