PAUL GILBERT: 'Every MR. BIG Album Is An Event'

Fredrik Polback of classic rock program "Radio Fireball" (Twitter) in Jönköping, Sweden recently conducted an interview with MR. BIG guitarist Paul Gilbert. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

On the new MR. BIG record, "... The Stories We Could Tell", which will be released on September 19 in Europe and September 23 in North America via Frontiers Music Srl:

"It rocks. It got some great grooves. Eric [Martin, vocals] is amazing on it, he really sings well. Some great harmonies. I love all my guitar solos. There are some great rhythm parts. But it's hard to describe. I think you just have to put it on and start nodding your head and singing along.

"Every MR. BIG album is an event. This one was not as live (as previous MR. BIG album 'What If'),more put together in the studio because of everybody's schedule. Billy [Sheehan, bass] was on tour, Eric's been doing a lot of shows. When anybody was in town, we recorded as much as possible. It still came together really well. If I'm playing live with somebody or if I'm just hearing the recording and playing along with them that way, I can still connect. So I had a good time."

On Pat Torpey's health (it was recently announced that the drummer has been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease):

"Pat's actually doing a lot better. He's dealing with a serious disease and it's certainly been difficult for him and for us. We try to support him as much as we can. Along with the physical part of the disease comes the mental part and that actually noticed the most. He was just down. It was very difficult for him to deal with it. But recently he's been much more up. He's been happier and I hope that his work with us cheers him up. He's learning how to deal with this new challenge in his life and I think he's dealing with it better and better so I'm really proud of him."

On the tensions in MR. BIG in the past:

"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. We worked really hard in those early days. We all loved the band and we wanted to establish the band in the world. We hardly ever took a vacation. If anything, we just needed a break."

On the vibe in MR. BIG today:

"It's fantastic. We just did a bunch of photo sessions, and a couple of days ago, we were in the studio to do a couple of background vocals together and had a great time. We've experienced so much. We can always remember things that happened to us on tour. We just start laughing. It's nice to have that depth of shared experience."

On his new solo album, "Stone Pushing Uphill Man", a guitar-oriented instrumental record on which Paul covers some of his favorite songs, including "Back In The Saddle" by AEROSMITH and "Why Can't We Do It On The Road" by THE BEATLES:

"I was doing a lot of teaching on my online guitar school and I started to use vocal melodies as a way of teaching my students. To be able to do that, I had to learn them myself. And I was really enjoying it. It was very interesting to work on the vocal part and try to play it on guitar. It was very enjoyable, because I never had a problem with how high the vocal was. If I try to sing something, my voice isn't high enough to hit the high notes. But with the guitar, it's easy. I just had to get some of the expression that a vocalist has, and that was a challenge. I enjoyed it so much, so I though I'd keep going."