Mr. Big guitarist Paul Gilbert is featured in a new career-spanning interview with Total Guitar, discussing his evolution as a player and a teacher. Following is an excerpt from the chat.
Q: What’s the fastest you’ve ever played in BPMs (Beats Per Minute)?
Gilbert: “Oh, I have no idea! And I find whenever a student of mine brings up BPMs, I’m like, ‘Oh no!’ That mindset is not a musical mindset. Some songs have tempos, and that’s where BPM matters. But to me, the practical way of dealing with BPM is to move your body with the groove of the song and be able to keep physical motion while you play. But worrying about BPMs – that’s the wrong door to get in the building.”
Q: After all the great times you’ve enjoyed in your career, can you recall a moment when you felt like you’d failed as a player?
Gilbert: “Definitely! I’ve made huge mistakes sometimes. But the one I remember most is when Mr. Big was at the peak of its popularity in Japan, and we were doing multiple nights at Budokan with all these cameras documenting it for a TV special.
So, my wife at the time said, ‘Oh, you should learn this famous Japanese melody called ‘Sakura’, which means Cherry Blossom. She hummed it to me, and I said, ‘Yeah, this is perfect.’ Well, I opened my guitar solo with it, got it perfect, and then I played my whole solo, and everything went great.”
“My solo was somewhat improvised, so at the end, I thought, ‘I should play ‘Sakura’ one more time at the end, but an octave higher.’ And, again, I’m much more fluid now with melody because I’ve worked on it, but back then I wasn’t. I’d worked on it in the lower range for the opening of the solo, but I had not worked on it in the high range, and I messed it up really badly. If you mess up something that’s fast, nobody notices, but if you mess up a melody, it’s really obvious. And I remember after that show, which was broadcast across the country on television, I was in a dark place for about a week! Maybe that was the seed of me wanting to get more fluent in playing melodies – just to make up for that horrible mistake!”
Read the complete interview here.
Mr. Big released their tenth studio album, appropriately titled Ten, on July 12. You can order the album in various configurations here.
Tracklisting:
“Good Luck Trying”
“I Am You”
“Right Outta Here”
“Sunday Morning Kinda Girl”
“Who We Are”
“As Good As It Gets”
“What Were You Thinking”
“Courageous”
“Up On You”
“The Frame”
“See No Okapi” (Instrumental – Japan Bonus Track)
“Good Luck Trying” lyric video:
“Up On You”