In the world of guitar heroes, Paul Gilbert is the everyman's shred god. Vai has the Alien freak thing down, Satch is the shiny silver surfer, and Yngwie is the neoclassical reincarnation of the roadrunner. Gilbert just comes across as a cool guy who loves to rock. With a career spanning classic shred band Racer X, through to Mr Big (admit it, youve heartily strummed along "To Be With You" at least once on an acoustic guitar) covers projects with Mike Portnoy of Dream Theatre and a solo career that's seen him play everything from jangly guitar pop to all-out metal with a few classical detours along the way, its surprising to note that his new release, 'Get Out Of My Yard' is his first all-instrumental album. Gilbert took some time out from defending his yard to tell Mixdown all about it.

Paul is currently using PAF Pro, Humbucker From Hell, Super Distortion, Tone Zone, PAF Classic Neck, and PAF Classic Bridge pickups. " I bought my first Super Distortion pickup when I was 13 years old. I loved the power and the sound, so I've been using DiMarzio pickups ever since! I love DiMarzio pickups!

MD: Why did you wait untill now to release an all instrumental CD, and what inspired you to do it?
GILBERT: When I was a kid, all the coolest guitar players were in big rock bands, playing arenas, and being played on the radio. And all of these bands had SINGERS, Eddie Van Halen with David Lee Roth, Jimmy Page with Robert Plant, Randy Rhoads with Ozzy, Alex Liefson with Geddy Lee, Michael Schenker with Phill Mogg. I loved these guitarists but I also loved their bands. So when flashy guitar playing started to become a niche , that was aimed at soley an audience of guitar players, I wanted to stay away from it. From the beginning, my band Racer X had singing and songs. Mr.Big of course went even further in that direction. And as a solo artist I surprised everyone and went in a pop/punk direction rather than make the shred album that most people were expecting. But as much as I love Rock and Pop songs. I am a guitar player. And after playing for 30 years , my guitar had some things to say. So I thought I would quit complaining about the guitar niche and heartily join in by making the coolest CD of pure guitar music I could dream up.

MD: Did you stumble across and cool new techniques during the recording of the album.
GILBERT: The first song I recorded was the Haydn Symphony. I tries to replicate every Instrument in the orchestra. I learned bassoon parts, Oboe parts, Cello, Clarinet, Flute, Bass, Viola and ofcourse the main Violin parts. The arpeggios and scale sequences in classical music are always a challenge to play on guitar, so I have no choice but to invent some unsual fingerings to make the notes happen. After recording the whole piece, I was definitely warmed up to do the rest of the record!

MD: What happened tothe song title for the album that you originally posted on your website, that when strung together formed a paragraph about pesky kids in the yard?
GILBERT: Ahhh! You saw that! I thought that would be really cool at first, but I couldnt remember which song was which, so I went back to my original titles.

MD: How did you get to be so damn good on the guitar? Do you practice a lot these days or do you not need to anymore?
GILBERT: Thankyou for the compliment. I don't practice ALL the time, but often enough. I definitely had to practice for the Haydn Symphony!

MD: What's the strangest place you've heard one of your songs played?
GILBERT: The first thing I can think of is ..... a few years ago I was doing a guitar clinic... I think it was Kansas. A kid who worked at the music store picked me up from the airport and as soon as we got in his car he turned on his stereo and started listening to 'The Jam'. This is the last song on my first solo album "King Of Clubs". Its a twenty minute long guitar battle where the rhythm section basically never changes and bruce bouillet and I just solo and solo and solo. So back ot the story... the song was about 17 minutes into when he turned it on. That meant he had already made it that far. And then , 3 minutes later, songs ended.... and STARTED AGAIN. He had the thing in loop mode . 20 minutes of non-stop soloing was NOT ENOUGH for this kid. He needed it AGAIN. INSANE!

MD: Godzilla is tearing apart the city. You have limited time to save one guitar before he eats the rest. What guitar will it be.
GILBERT: At the moment, I really love my 79' Artist hollowbody. I havent played hollowbodies much before but the thing just resonates so beautifully. Even at a low volume I get great feedback and sustain. Plus its nice to have a guitar thats more my size. Maybe, armed with this guitar, I could fight off Godzilla and preserve the rest of my guitar collection. I would certainly try.