Quotes from Paul Gilbert

My life is a glorious tornado of musical projects!

Being a fan of pop music and rock bands, I am a reluctant convert into the art of instrumental rock music.

Philosophically, I think riffs that start with E repeating itself are almost guaranteed to be great.

I've realized that, as the years have gone on, I have become completely impatient with the demo process.

I especially like the songs Hurry Up and The Curse Of Castle Dragon, and I often include them in my live show.

You could take any four people, no matter how wonderful they are, and if you make them live together on a tour bus for eight years and don't give them any time off, after a while everybody gonna start going crazy.

Being in a band is hard. Even if you like somebody, you start to argue over silly things.

Everyone has to start somewhere! I certainly didn't sound great when I first started playing, and I remember all my guitar teachers, both good and bad, and what it felt like to struggle with even the simplest of things.

When you record an album in six days, you don't have time to work out a lot of stuff.

One of the things I like to do is to try to jam with everybody.

I probably spent more time as a kid playing air guitar to Jimmy Page than any other guitar player.

A scale is just the notes that are in a chord played one at a time instead of together. That's what has allowed me to go through the possible notes that work with a chord and make choices about which ones I like best. I go through by ear; you can do it by theory too, but the best way is to learn by ear.

Recently, I had some powerful magnets glued into the lower horn of a few of my guitars. This holds a metal slide in place so I can easily get to it and put it back, even in the middle of a song.

The first song on my first album is not a song - it's a guitar solo! It's called 'Frenzy,' and it's pretty much nonstop maniacal guitar playing. I had just turned 19, and I had some serious muscle then.

I love all my guitar solos.

As always, my influences are diverse and not what you might expect from a 'heavy metal' artist.

When it comes to songwriting, I grew up in the Seventies listening to AM radio. So I've all these pop songs running through my head from Paul McCartney and Elton John, and a lot of stuff that was written on piano.

To me, you had to have a least a couple of ugly guys in the band. That's why Saxon was great.

I think I had heard Al Di Meola on the radio when I was a kid, that acoustic record, 'Friday Night In San Francisco,' with Paco de Lucía and John McLaughlin. His picking was unbelievable. I thought it was incredible.

When I look back at the span that Mr. Big lasted, we had some unbelievable times. But there were grueling times, too.

My initial ideas are just a starting place. As a record goes along, it becomes more about making discoveries and getting excited about new songs.

Teaching has made me realize that a lot of my fast playing is the musical equivalent of, 'Umm... umm... uhh...' - it's like when you're trying to think of the next thing to say that actually has meaning, you fill space. 'Umm' has about the same meaning as my fast playing.

It took me years to get my hair right... after years of perms, conditioning... Nirvana came out and it wasn't cool to have big hair anymore. It was just a horrible injustice.

Normally, I can get through a whole show with one guitar pick.