United States sounds like the sum total of what Gilbert has been trying to achieve throughout his career as an instrumentalist, a songwriter, and a composer: at times succeeding in combining all of his aspirations, at times taking an unexpected turn towards the fantastic and the wacky, and at times surprising the listener with the sheer latitude of the stylistic ground Gilbert and Nelson together lay claim on.

Warm retro glow of Beatle-esque psychedelia finds itself next to ‘80s-style rock peppered with Gilbert’s outer-space guitar extrapolations, but that’s not all. The record goes on to daze you further, adding some Queenly crooning, crafty pop melodies and the ‘70s funk vibe.

For someone who remained unfamiliar to the wider public despite his name being known for decades on the East Coast muso circuit, Freddie Nelson makes bold vocal statements right off the bat on such standouts as “Waste of Time”, a tune which goes beyond Freddie Mercury-ish pathos and turns it into a mix of vaudeville and operetta, and “I’m Free”, a soaring ballad boasting a sprawling vocal melody and spaced-out shimmering guitars. Contrasted by Gilbert’s dizzyfing chops, all this works to whip up an off-the-wall, mulligan stew of a record which in the end manages to get through its central statement—that a mixture of rock, pop, good taste, plus a sheer sense of fun and creative freedom can surprise, inspire, excite, and can certainly make you think again before you say you’ve heard it all before.

ALISSA ORDABAI: Hi Paul, Alissa Ordabai here from Crusher Magazine.

PAUL GILBERT: How are you doing?

AO: Not too bad, how are you?

PG: I’m doing great.

AO: Thank you for taking time to do this interview with us.

PG: No worries.

AO: I’d like to jump right in and talk about your new album with Freddie Nelson.

PG: OK.

AO: I’ve been reading in your other interviews that you’ve been hearing about Freddie for quite some time but only got to hear his stuff relatively recently. What was it about his style that gave you an idea to collaborate? Were you looking for something specific in a vocalist or did Freddie’s voice just strike you as something interesting?

PG: I think I was looking for more than a vocalist. I was looking for a person. And I wanted to have somebody I could relate to and who could relate to me in terms of… sort of generation and the music we knew, and I was fortunate that with Freddie we were chips from the same stone. That made sense to me. I remember before when I was sort of pondering getting a singer I thought I could hold auditions and find somebody with a great voice, but it would be… When you have singing, you also have things like lyrics and what a 19-year-old kid might be singing about is different from where I am now. So it was great to find Freddie, we are really on the same plane as far as from where we came from, both from our generation, the music we grew up with, the place we grew up in, it was really easy to relate right away. And then, of course, his voice is stunning.

AO: The last time you and I spoke you mentioned taking composition lessons and being really interested in exploring the craft of songwriting. Is this album a result of new knowledge being incorporated into your approach to writing music?

PG: Well, hopefully with all the brainwork when you intellectually study all that stuff and then hopefully it’s enough when you start writing you sort of forget it and then do it more intuitively. I look at those things as a toolbox. You grab a tool when you are having some trouble with something. I would say that any knowledge I have is helpful, that’s why I do it, but when it comes down to it, it’s more of an intuitive process. Especially when you are working with another person and you really got a flow going of ideas. At least that’s how this collaboration is going.

AO: How difficult, would you say, is it to draw balance between songcraft, writing songs, and having these expansive guitar parts?

PG: I guess it depends on the song. On this album we’ve had a combination of semi-pop-like vocal leads on some of the songs and some pretty wild guitar soloing. There’s been a lot of that. There’s been a million of great pairings in the past. If you look at David Lee Roth and Eddie Van Halen, Robert Plant and Jimmy Page, Freddie Mercury and Brian May, a lot of cool pairings of vocalists and guitar players. This combination has happened before.

AO: It sounds like you’ve had a lot of fun with this record. Stylistically you go from almost pop-sounding tracks to those retro-sounding tunes that almost have echoes of Beatles-style Sixties psychedelia. And then there are echoes of Queen and ‘80s rock. Was there an initial concept behind going from one style to another or did it all come together spontaneously?

PG: I think we just like different stuff. I mean, when we first got together, we really didn’t know where exactly to go because we both have the luxury and the problem of being able to do more than one thing. I love all kinds of things, and I’ve studied all kinds of different music and Freddie has, too. Actually, in the beginning we just got some guitars. Freddie is a great guitar player, too. He started as a guitar player. And we just spent about a week just doing guitar jams, you know. [Laughs] It was about a week of like Lynyrd Skynyrd-style guitar trade-offs and finally we just started writing songs really organically, there wasn’t a specific direction. We were trying to find one, we were talking about it, we had a long conversation about what we’d do, but I think it ended up just being what we got from playing a lot which is a method that I like. I almost wish sometimes that I didn’t do that. I think I would be better at marketing myself if I could just be one thing. I could do like cornflakes and people could depend on it, and when they opened up the box they could get cornflakes. But I think as a musician, and a fan, and an artist I just like doing different things. So unfortunately I make marketing difficult for my record company because they never know if I’m metal, or pop, or blues, or ‘70s, or ‘80s. Hopefully it’s the same human being performing that music who ties it all together.

AO: A lot of your fans certainly knew that you’ve always had an eclectic approach to music and that you have a great sense of humour, but a lot were taken by surprise by tracks like “Waste of Time” which went beyond the Freddie Mercury/Queen vibe and which almost sounded like something that Mika would do.

PG: Like who?

AO: Mika.

PG: Mika?

AO: Mika is a British pop singer who takes the Freddie Mercury atmosphere to the extreme, to a grotesque kind of degree.

PG: Oh, yeah! Mika’s great. [Laughs] It’s funny, I don’t think we were going after that but sometimes you [inaudible]. Yeah, that was more Freddie’s tune, but I really liked it. Because he is a singer I think he follows what his voice would do. If you are a singer or a guitar player you can’t help being influenced and inspired by your instrument. And Freddie has this amazing range. I think he was trying to play around with what his voice would do.

AO: There’s another song, “The Last Rock’n’Roll Star” which took a lot of people back to the ‘80s rock atmosphere. Are you nostalgic about that time or was it a tongue-in-cheek reference to the general vibe of those days?

PG: Actually, I think it was serious even though the lyrics were very much… What was it, “Can’t wait to get out of high school,” or, “Thank god I finally got out of high school, no more wasting my time…” I did well in high school, but I couldn’t wait to get out so I could be a guitar player. [Laughs] There were no guitar lessons at high school. So I was counting the days so that I could go on to become a professional musician. It’s funny because the first line, “Put me in a road case,” that was actually inspired by Billy Sheehan because I remember in the old Mr. Big days he would sometimes tell our manager, “Just look at me like a piece of equipment.” [Laughs] “Put me in a road case, and when we get to a gig, open me up and I’ll come out and give you all my energy.” And in my many years of touring I’ve often felt like I’m being put in a road case and moved around.

AO: That’s what I thought. I thought the song was you psyching up to Mr. Big dates later on this year in Japan.

PG: Oh yeah! We’ve done it so many times but we’ve got to do it again!

AO: Do you think being a musician has changed in any fundamental way since the time when you were in Mr. Big?

PG: Oh, of course, there’s been the digital revolution! And if you are a musician you can’t help but notice. The thing that used to sell, the format is changing at a blinding pace. For me, the way I responded to that is by playing live more. And I’m really glad I did that. I should probably thank all the chaos in the recording industry for getting me off my ass and getting me to play live more. Because that’s great, I love all the touring and it’s really good fun.

AO: My next question may not be related to the new album in particular, but I’d still like to ask: Does any of the music that you write ever surprise you? Do you ever listen back to a song or a track, and go, “Wow, I didn’t know there was this aspect to my character?”

PG: Let’s see… That’s a good question. What surprises me?.. I think when I listen to stuff back I can’t believe how much effort, and time, and work I put in. A lot of the classical pieces I go back to listening to like “Gilberto Concerto” from Flying Dog which is Johann Christian Bach’s harpsichord concerto that I learnt on guitar. And that was a lot of work putting it together. I played the harpsichord parts, which was a thing by itself, all those details—I had to track down the score which is incredibly rare, the path for finding that was just ridiculous. [Laughs] And then the score only helps you for the certain amount because there is the part where the harpsichord player improvises it and I had to play it by ear, and all the violin parts and cello parts I had to play… That piece alone was ridiculous. And there are a lot of other classical pieces on other records that were also mounts Everest of music, of guitar playing. I think I’m sort of stunned at the amount of work I put in that. [Laughs] It comes from growing up… That’s one other thing about Freddie and me, that we both grew up in a part of Pennsylvania where the work ethic… Most people there aren’t musicians, most people there are really hard-working doing physical labor. The culture of the place… It was the place that made steel and mined coal. And so the mindsets and the culture there is that you go out with big tools and break up rocks with your hands. [Laughs] And, of course, Freddie and I are fortunate enough not to do hard physical labor, but it’s still admirable. I think that’s where it comes from, we have the culture that admires really, really hard work. And the result is good. If you work hard at something, it’s going to improve it.

AO: Well, there’s a different physicality it to it, but the work ethic probably remains the same. Would you say that instrumental virtuosity—doing really hard work with the instrument, putting in time, being serious about it—is it something that for a musician is related to the notion of control? You know, this desire to have total control over your instrument and this desire to say, “I can play anything?”

PG: I think you can gauge the feeling as you are practicing, between the stuff that you can control and the stuff that doesn’t work, stuff that doesn’t make you feel good. The more of that you have, the more you push the bounds to the control side. But for me in the beginning I remember very clearly just wanting to play what I heard in my head. Before I could play guitar I had musical ideas, I’d just hum things… I used to get together with a friend of mine who was my neighbor. I was probably six or seven years old, and we would set up a tape recorder and get together and make up songs and put them on the tape recorder, and I was thinking, “If I could only play those melodies on the guitar, it would be so cool!” And that was one of the motivations to learn to play.

AO: Did you challenge yourself technically on this record? Were there guitar parts that you had to practice before you went into the studio to record them?

PG: Well, of course. One that comes to mind is “I’m Not Addicted” where I doubled the guitar solo and when you double it, you have to play it the same way twice, so I had to learn it. And the reason that’s novel is because most solos that I do are just a single track. I might work out a general plan and there might be a little bit of improvisation or a lot of improvisation. I sort of jump in and see what happens and if I get something good even by accident, it’s good, I don’t have to go back and relearn it and make it happen twice. With double-tracking you have to act one day as a composer and then the other day to act as a performer.

What were the other tricky ones? Actually, the beginning melody of “Paris Hilton Lookalike” is really… That one’s crazy. It doesn’t sound… It’s not incredibly fast like some other things I’ve done in the past, but I think any guitar player trying to play it will tear their hair out. [Laughs] It something that… I don’t know if it’s my cool habit but a lot of my playing over the years, it’s almost like leaving booby traps for the poor guitar player who is trying to learn my stuff. I can’t help but make things difficult. [Laughs] OK, it may sound easy, but when you try it, you’re not going to be able to play it, or at least not without a lot of practice. So that’s a good example of that: you first go, “Oh, that shouldn’t be too bad,” and then go, “Oh, no!” I also played all the bass on the record, so that was an interesting challenge.

AO: Was it the first time you played bass on your record?

PG: No, I think I played bass on King Of Clubs, my first solo album. I wasn’t really planning on doing that, I just… I played bass on the demos and demos kind of became the album. It sounded good so why have someone else learn the parts and play them again when they are as good as they are?

AO: Do you completely forget about the guitar when you play bass or are they still somehow connected in your mind?

PG: Because some of the songs have the pop element, it’s really enjoyable for me to play bass in pop-style songs. A lot of time there is just a lot more melodic room in a pop song than there is in a metal song. On “Paris Hilton” and some of the poppier stuff like “Bad Times Good” playing bass was really fun, moving around a lot, it was almost like a lead guitar part than a bass part.

AO: How do song melodies come to you? Do you have to lock yourself in a room, do you have to isolate yourself, or do they come to you as you go about your daily business?

PG: Well, fortunately, I had Freddie work on this record. To me sometimes the problem isn’t coming up with the ideas, it’s knowing which ideas are good because you have so many of them. The thing is what I literally do is to get a little cassette recorder, a battery-powered thing, and always keep it cued up to a blank spot and just record an idea after an idea after an idea. Basically, if I sit there and play, in about ten minutes or so something that I like will come out. It’s just exploring. It’s like walking through the music woods until you find something interesting and you take a photo of it. But at the end of the day I’ve got way more ideas than I know what to do with. So it really helps to have an objective outside ear to listen to stuff and go, “Oh, I can do something with that.” When I do it myself, I get really close to the things and I can sort of lose objectivity, so it’s really helpful to have another person to take a look at it.

AO: I have one last question. It’s a bit goofy, it may sound a bit funny, but I’ll give it a go.

PG: OK.

AO: Do you ever play for yourself? Not for practice, not for anyone else but just for yourself, for your own enjoyment?

PG: Yeah! [Laughs] For that I play drums. [Laughs] I really have good fun playing drums. I remember doing a lot of drum solos lately and my wife is very patient with that. I come out of my studio all sweaty and go, “That was great!” while she has to listen to me banging away in the background. And the guitar, too. I love playing guitar. For me, writing, actually, can be a little bit of a chore just because it’s not as convictable, you don’t know what you really get. Whereas with playing and practicing I feel more in control. If I want to train my fingers to do some new thing, I can feel pretty confident I can do it and it’s just a matter of time, take it methodically and sit down and do it bit by bit. But with songwriting the analogy is walking through the woods, finding interesting things. But you never know what exactly you are going to find, this makes it a little bit more unpredictable. Still, the more you do it, the more you get. That itself in the end gives you quality.