Paul Gilbert – I Can Destroy

By starrymag | May 19, 2016

By: Jamie Steinberg

 

Q) This is your seventeenth solo album. How does that feel?

A) Thank you for counting because I lost count! I’ve been kind of living in the present. It’s hard to compare because I’d have to know how it feels to not have seventeen albums and then I could compare the two. I’ll never forget the first time I sold out a club and that was in 1986 or 1987 with Racer X in Los Angeles. Before that, I played a lot of clubs, but nobody really cared. That was the first time when we really sold it out and I could barely walk in the place. That’s when I really felt I might have a place in the music business. Ever since then, it’s been a gradual uphill and it’s getting better and better. That was really the moment when I felt, emotionally, sort of blown away that this crazy idea might work.

Q) What was it like for you to first hold a guitar? Did it almost feel empowering or meant to be?

A) That was a long time ago because the first time I held a guitar I didn’t know how to play it. I think I had a lot of toy guitars before I had a real guitar. So, I spent a lot of time just in front of a mirror. I’d put on a Beatles album or the Rolling Stones album and pretend to play guitar. I just loved it and loved music. It wasn’t necessarily about playing the guitar, but I knew I wanted to do something with music. I thought playing piano would be cool or singing and playing the drums. I was always better at guitar and people responded the best to that. I still play piano sometimes. I still play the drums sometimes and try to sing. Guitar really is my best vehicle.

Q) You have at least three singles out at the moment, but how did your song “I Can Destroy” come up and what the name signifies?

A) The name was inspired by my very young son. I’m a recent dad and my boy is about a year and a half old now. This was last year so he was really young and anything you would gave him he would crush it, eat it or throw it on the ground. I got the sense he wasn’t angry or doing this out of some emotional angst. He was doing it because he wanted to find out what it was. What is a cup? Let’s crush it up and see. Destruction was just a method of discovery. I thought about a much more sophisticated version of that is CERN, the scientists over in Switzerland working on atom smasher. They smash two atoms together, destroy them and figure out the pieces. Obviously, they are doing a lot more sophisticated work than my son when he crushes up a cup, but it’s the same principle. Sometimes to figure out what something is you have to crush it up. Certainly, some of my biggest guitar heroes are Pete Townshend and Jimi Hendrix. They were guitar smashers. It’s part of rock n’ roll as well.

Q) There is a range of music on this album from hard songs like “Everybody Use Your Goddamn Turn Signal,” your signature drill bit sound on “One Woman Too Many” and then there is a ballad of “Love We Had.” How did you arrange the song on the new album?

A) Sometimes that is hard and sometimes this is easy. I think this one was easy. Most of the album is up-tempo. If you have an album with a lot of slow songs that can be tough because you start craving the fast ones. We did the recording of the album in two separate times. We did one session in June of last year and one in August. They were really short sessions so I had about a month in a half in between to write the songs for the second session. I asked Kevin Shirley (the producer) for some suggestions on what to write for the second session. He just said, “up-tempo.” So, then we got “One Woman Too Many” for the up, energetic stuff. Then, it’s “I’m Not The One Who Wants To Be With You.” That was the second session. I was lucky enough to have enough fast songs to make it easy.

Q) What was it like for you working with Kevin?

A) I worked with Kevin before with Mr. Big and we did a record called What If. From doing that record, I really enjoyed the process and the result. It’s just a quick way of making records because it is basically live. You don’t go back and do much or any overdubbing. Because of that, I wanted to put together a band that didn’t need any overdubbing. So, I got two additional guitar players that not only play guitar really well, but they sing really well. I knew that I would have good vocal harmonies. I knew that if I was struggling a bridge where the notes were too high for me to sing that Tony could do it. I knew the songs that would just sound like an album. I knew that they would have that produced sound because there were enough instruments, but without having to go back and layer stuff on. We ended up recording really quickly. With Mr. Big, we would do like one song a day. On my record, we did two a day, which was actually kind of frightening because we really weren’t all that rehearsed. We rehearsed as much as we could, but it wasn’t like we had been playing these songs on tour for a year. So, we were still tweaking lyrics and figuring out what solos were going to be. It was a really intense experience, but I loved it. I always love working with Kevin. It was great.

Q) What was it about “One Woman Too Many” that made you want to add your signature four-pick Mikita on it?

A) I always forget that I’m the guy that uses the drill. Fortunately, I had enough wits about me to remember to actually bring the drill to the studio. It was actually kind of a rhythmic thing to it. I was kind of looking for any place to put it and that just seemed like a song where it worked. So, it was kind of an after-thought, but it worked out nicely.

Q) What inspired the titles to each song?

A) A lot of the titles I really had to edit down. With “Everybody Use Your Goddamn Turn Signal,” I supposed I could have called it “Turn Signal,” but it just wouldn’t feel the same. With “I Can Destroy,” it started out as “I Love Anything I Can Destroy.” I just couldn’t remember that even though I was singing it in the chorus. The title was just too long. That’s the same thing with “Love We Had.” I couldn’t remember the lyric because it was so long. A lot of them I had to cut because I couldn’t remember the words for the title, but this worked out much better. With “Everybody Use Your Goddamn Turn Signal,” that’s a title I just really enjoyed. I’m hoping I can actually save some lives with it. It’s sort of funny and horrible at the same time, but right after we recorded that song (no one outside the story had heard it yet) there was a new story about a woman in Texas who got pulled over for not using her turn signal. She got into an argument with the police and they would have given her a ticket, but her argument caused them to take her to jail – where she hung herself! So, she died because she didn’t use her turn signal. I thought, “If she’d only had heard the song she might still be alive!” Of course, we had just recorded it, but I thought I might really make a difference with this tune. [laughs]

Q) What can fans expect from a live Paul Gilbert show?

A) I am really excited about going on tour this year. I’ve toured a lot and YouTube is an interesting thing because in the old days you would tour you would have your own memory of your experience, but maybe there would be a video of one show. You could watch that a little bit. With YouTube, whether you like it or not, you end up seeing yourself all the time and you feel a lot more naked and a lot more criticized because of all the comments. In general, I do okay because people are nice to me most of the time. The artist is always the worst critic though. I think the more that I play the more I want to make things relatively easy on myself in order to really perform well. If you have songs where everything is so structured and so demanding that you are just worrying the whole time then you can’t really be yourself and you can’t really enjoy it. Music is to be enjoyed or to express emotion. If you’re overly concerned with technique, then emotion doesn’t get a chance to come out. I think on this tour the songs where I would normally worry I’m just going to practice enough where I don’t have to worry about them. The songs are a little bit easier to play so I can go nuts without worrying. So, it’s going to be a worry free rock show.

Q) Does the drill bit come with you?

A) I’ll try to remember! I should be able to remember. Plus, I have a new one that is smaller so it doesn’t weigh as much. I won’t get charged the extra baggage fee as much.

Q) You’ll be hosting Great Guitar Escape 3.0. Can you talk a little bit about what people will experience when they attend?

A) It is the 3.0 so I’ve done two of these before. It’s a camp and you are there for all the week days, Monday through Friday. It’s a combination of being very intense because from morning to night you are immersed in guitar. You’re jamming or listening to amazing people give seminars and hanging out with other musicians. But it is also at a location where if you need to step back for a minute and chill that it’s right by the ocean ad you can take a walk on the beach, get some food and have a drink. It’s a really good combination of intensity and relaxing. I think that one of the things that is important about it for people, and for me, is not just being a guitar player, but being a musician of any kind it is a passion that you put time into every day. A lot of time the people you have around you don’t necessarily understand or support your passion as much as you’d like them to. This is a chance to be around people just as crazy as you are about your passion and to feel, “Maybe I’m okay after all.” A lot of guitar players are stuck down in the basement trying not to bother the family. And you start to think, “The thing I’m doing, is it really worthwhile?” After you come to something like this, you are recharged and feel like, “This is my art. This is my passion. This is what I love. I’m so inspired. I’m going to keep doing it.” That’s the really good thing about it.

Q) Who are some of the guest instructors you can share?

A) I’ll be doing a ton of lessons and jam sessions. I make myself available to jam with everybody. There is Andy Timmons, who is a legend and amazing guitarist. There is Bruce Bouillet. Everyone is really a legend. I should just have that as a blanket statement! Bruce played with me in Racer X and has done some amazing things on his own. There are two guys from Megadeth: Kiko Loureiro and Dave Ellefson. A guy named Bumblefoot who spent about six years with Guns N’ Roses so he is going to have some amazing stories and is an amazing solo artist in his own right. We have some other guys from GIT to host some of the jams at night. There will be all kinds of amazing music going on that you are going to wish you didn’t have to sleep.

Q) You are a part of social media. Do you enjoy the instant fan feedback you receive?

A) I’m horrible at social media. I wish I was better, but I still don’t quite understand Facebook. My manager will put stuff on for me. The thing I am involved in which keeps me in touch with people around the world is I have an online guitar school. I’ve been doing it for about four years now and I’ve done around four thousand guitar videos for it. These videos are lessons for specific students at the school. A student will send in a video and I’ll send an answer to them. They get paired together and put on the site so everyone on the site can watch it. So, if I can teach one person I can teach a thousand. That’s really been a blast! The company that hosts the site is called Artist Works and they have got teachers of every style. I’m the rock guitar guy, but they have jazz saxophone and classical piano, etc. But I spend half my day doing lessons for people all over the world. It’s really a blast!

Q) What would you like to say to everyone who is a fan and supporter of you and your music?

A) If you are a guitar fan, absolutely sign up for my site at Artist Works. I get to know people there. Before when I would teach, I would give seminars and it was more like speaking to an audience. This is more individualized so I hope to see you there. If you are not a guitar player and you just want to listen to the music, thank you! Come to the shows. If you see me on YouTube, please be kind with your comments.

 

www.paulgilbert.com

www.facebook.com/paulgilbertmusic

www.twitter.com/PaulGilbertRock

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http://artistworks.com/guitar-lessons-paul-gilbert