Read more →

I’ve been really enjoying the new Mr Big album, ‘What If…‘, and it’s great to see them all back together. It is truly the age of the reunion

Anyway, I thought it would be cool if we looked at a riff from the new so here it is new MasterThatRiff! looking the riff from “Once Upon A Time”:

TAB available here

Check out this recent interview with Paul Gilbert over on musicradar:

Were somebody to have told guitarist Paul Gilbert in 1997, who had just quit the multi-platinum band Mr Big, that 14 years later he would be preparing to tour with the group, behind a new album no less, he jokes that he “would have said something unprintable” in response.

Just as quickly, he adds: “Then I would have thought that my joining or not joining Mr Big was less significant than the fact that somebody could look into the future 14 years. What about the stock market? Real estate prices? Had aliens visited the earth yet?

“The reality about 1997 was, I was very much in the mood to do my own thing,” he continues. “Now I’m in the mood to do lots of things. And it feels good to be friends with the Mr Big guys again. We had some amazing experiences during our first eight years together, and it’s nice to hang out and remember those good times.”

InjectorTM Neck and Bridge Models DP422 and DP423

We first heard about Paul Gilbert in the 1980s. Billy Sheehan told us about an amazing 18-year-old who had recently arrived in California and had blown everyone away with his musicianship, speed, and awesome technical ability in Racer X. Naturally, we immediately asked Paul to become a DiMarzio endorser. It was the start of a great relationship. Recently, Paul has been heavily into our AreaTM pickups. He’s also been playing a lot of Racer X-style instrumentals, so the time was right for signature Paul Gilbert single-coil sized DiMarzio pickups. The outcome of our teamwork is the new InjectorTM Neck and Bridge Model pickups. The InjectorTM Neck and Bridge Models are hum-canceling singles with superior speed, dynamic range and 40% less magnet-pull than standard single-coils for superior pick attack, speed and clarity. Hear both the Neck and Bridge InjectorTM pickups on Paul’s latest CD, Fuzz Universe.

Great interview with Paul Gilbert in the latest Premier Guitar magazine:

You’re a huge fan of the Beatles and all sorts of jangle pop. How does that affect your writing and performing for an all-instrumental album like Fuzz Universe? Is the instrumental format liberating or constraining—or both?


The Beatles are kind of my musical DNA. If I could sing like them, write like them, and make girls jump up and down and scream like they did, then I would never have to play instrumental music at all. But for some reason, playing athletic things on the guitar always came easier to me. So I try to do that in a musical way that even a Beatles fan like me could listen to. More specifically, I try to learn lots of chords from ’60s and ’70s pop songs and use them as the foundation for my melodies. On this album, I used a lot of min7b5 and 7sus4 chords. I love the sound of those chords, and I feel they are terribly underused in heavy rock. I felt it was my mission to bring up the average.

Also, it’s funny you mention the Beatles, because when I was working on the chorus for the opening track, “Fuzz Universe,” I was suddenly inspired with a chord progression and melody. I ran into my studio to record it while it was still in my head. First I recorded the chords, then I started overdubbing the melody, and—damn—I realized I had just written the bridge to a very famous Beatles song. I ended up changing it with a couple of chord substitutions and a totally different melody of my own, but you can still sing the Beatles melody over the top and it fits perfectly. I’ll let you guess which song it is.