As someone who has vividly shaped the role of the electric guitar in rock music, Paul Gilbert is someone who knows a thing or two about which rules to follow and when to break them. In Mr. Big, he was responsible for pioneering pop rock anthems that would see the group top charts and headline arenas around the world. In Racer X, he took the electric guitar to its furthest limits in more metallic ways, leaving listeners and audiences mesmerised by how his compositions could be so technically thrilling and tastefully musical at the same time. As a solo artist, he’s traversed both instrumental and vocal-led sonic landscapes that have crossed over from blues, classical and jazz to straight-up rock.

As well as phonetically spelling out the genre its tracks live in, the guitar superstar’s latest release WROC could very well be his most outlandish offering to date. Using George Washington’s Rules Of Civility as a conceptual homing beacon, Gilbert has dared himself to think outside of the box and use an etiquette guide dating back to the late 1500s as his only tool for inspiration. He may very well have wielded a cordless power drill for supersonic tremolo picking and a slide to summon the voice of Ronnie James Dio in the past, but this latest recording is the sound of a musician defiantly broadening himself into new uncharted horizons for his first vocal album since 2016’s I Can Destroy.

“It would have been easy to make a straight-ahead blues rock record,” he explains. “And it would’ve been good, but also probably a lot like everyone else’s blues rock albums! I can’t help searching for something no-one else would dare to attempt, something that could only come from my particular life, history and influences.”

The idea came to him on the flight home from the last show of Mr. Big’s final tour, where the group bid farewell to a packed house at Tokyo’s Budokan Arena. Naturally, creative urges took hold and left him wondering what to do next. One of the more unexpected ideas pointed him towards a near-ancient book he’d read many moons ago. It was perfect for a solo release, Gilbert admits, while joking there was little chance of convincing a band to record a rules of civility concept album.

“I don’t know why it came into my head,” he shrugs. “But I love using lyrics to build melodies. I think I was looking for my own Bernie Taupin – because Elton John has written very few lyrics. He has this partnership with his lyricist Bernie, and it’s a great partnership. Rush is another example. Neil Peart wrote the lyrics while Alex Lifeson and Geddy Lee came up with the music. I wanted to find my own Bernie or Neil, because while lyric writing is something I’ve done, it’s not really my favourite part of the process. So I got George Washington to be my Bernie Taupin!”

On further investigation, it became clear that the first president of the United States Of America had simply copied an English translation of the Rules Of Civility & Decent Behaviour In Company And Conversation as a school writing exercise, inadvertently becoming its most widely credited author. Its lineage, however, can be traced even further back to a 1595 French etiquette manual written by the Jesuits.

“Washington used it as a penmanship exercise when he was a teenager,” Gilbert grins. “He became the most famous person to be associated with them, a bit like how Eddie Van Halen got credited for inventing tapping, even if he might not have been the first. I started to wonder if the rules would work as songs. I started conversing with AI, asking it to put the short ones first and the long ones last, but it ended up getting some of them wrong. I had no idea AI could hallucinate and lie like that.”

The first track to be born came from the rule Show Not Yourself Glad (At The Misfortune Of Another). For Gilbert, there was a palpable excitement in resurrecting these 16th Century guidelines for the hyper advanced social order of today’s world. “I’ve never in my life had such a good time writing songs,” he admits. “I would look through the rules, sing them out loud and see which ones worked. Sometimes I’d have to flip something around or grab another rule for a bridge, but a lot of these songs are word for word.”

Other than the lead vocals, the album was recorded live in four days at The Hallowed Halls in Portland with Nick D'Virgilio on drums, Doug Rappoport on guitar and Timmer Blakely on bass. Given how Gilbert has managed to not only exist but thrive in all kinds of musical situations for the best part of four decades, it shouldn’t be surprising how many different styles and sounds are intelligently encased within its 13 breathtaking tracks.

“Maybe I just get bored easily, both rhythmically and harmonically,” he ponders. “With that first song, I took my initial vocal melody and later added some spooky chords, shapes I’d learned from Burt Bacharach songs, as well as Todd Rundgren and The Beatles. It completely changed the emotion and experience, even though the melody was the same. There are AC/DC-style riffs and another that came from The Pusher by Steppenwolf, twisted into 7/8 and other time signatures. The trick was to make it flow. The masters of that are Black Sabbath and Iron Maiden. Sprinkle in some Burt Bacharach and Todd Rundgren and you’ve got WROC.”

It all kicks off with Keep Your Feet Firm And Even, and though its virtuosic harmonised intro very much feels like business as usual for this particular guitarist, it quickly evolves into something startling, unanticipated and, ultimately, brilliantly electrifying. Gilbert admits it’s one of Washington’s more challenging rules.
“It’s not easy to keep your feet firm and even,” he laughs. “I always catch myself sitting or standing incorrectly and tell myself, ‘C’mon, remember what Washington said!’ That tune, because it was melody first, ended up with a metal-influenced riff. It’s got that minor Crazy Train note choice in it. But the way it falls is very peculiar. I never would have invented that riff without the vocal.”

Other key tracks include Go Not Thither, which pairs throbbing vibe pedals with regal harmonies, classic metal riffage and ZZ Top boogie blues, as well as the hook-laden Speak Not Evil Of The Absent, which saw Gilbert paying extra attention to the phrasing and delivery of a rule that’s now 430 years old, but still very much pertinent for modern society. A lot of these rules should still be easy to follow today, the singer/guitarist reasons, admitting he’s never spat in a fire and doesn’t intend to anytime soon.

“Speak Not Evil Of The Absent was interesting, because you have to remember these weren’t written to be sung,” he notes. “That wasn’t the goal back then. The line in the verse would work except for two words that didn’t fit. That was actually a good problem, because it forced me to add a couple of extra beats and make the song less predictable. That gave it a fingerprint it wouldn’t have had otherwise. The phrase endings are kinda arbitrary. I was doing that while playing this riff that was John Lennon-style I Want You (She’s So Heavy).”

More Beatles-worship can be heard on Conscience Is The Most Certain Judge, which despite containing simple chords also boasts what Gilbert proudly refers to as “wild modulations” and “big surprises”. It’s the kind of song that might look strange on paper, he grins, but in actuality it’s that same unpredictable quality that makes it work so well. “It’s classic pop,” he adds, “but with these interesting lifts that take you to places you didn’t expect... which end up being nice places!”

The final track, George Washington Rules, is the only track that can lyrically be deemed ‘original’ and it’s clear how much pleasure Gilbert takes in its double meaning. Being the musical chameleon that he is, the singer/guitarist chose to lean on his vintage blues influences, namely the Nina Simone song Chilly Winds Don’t Blow. Gilbert highlights the closer as “personally ground-breaking” thanks to the “sophisticated level of chord movements” that sit closer “to the compositions of Ray Charles” than anything he’s worked on before. 

“I’m really excited to play this music live and see how people enjoy it,” adds Gilbert. “I would say WROC is one of the most musical and listenable albums I’ve ever done. There’s very little that came from my fingers. It came from my sense of melody. As I improve as a songwriter, I’ve been trying to connect to that more and more. I feel like this is the most successful connection to my inner melodic generator, thanks to George Washington and those that went before him. They were my Bernie Taupins. That’s what made the process so enjoyable and you can hear that joy in the tracks."