Paul Gilbert talks about his new Ibanez guitars
Paul Gilbert has a lot on his plate but he’s trying to play it cool. He’s just shown up at NAMM to sign autographs at the Ibanez booth for a line of fans that stretches down multiple corridors and probably out the door.
“Always nice to see that people actually remember me,” he says humbly, eyeing the crowd. For the briefest of moments he allows his expression to reveal what he’s really thinking: “Is all of for me?! Whoa!”
Tomorrow he’s going rock NAMM hard, reuniting with his old band Racer X to perform for the first time in years. “It’s going to be the ultimate,” Gilbert says. “Which means I can’t reveal what we’re going to do. Let’s just say we’ve been rehearsing quite heavily and we have a few surprises in store. ”
Beyond the show, Gilbert is here to promote two new signature models that Ibanez is bringing out for 2009.
The first is a beautiful reverse model of the Iceman guitar called the Fireman. It’s a gorgeous-looking instrument, with three single-coil DiMarzio pickups instead of the usual set of humbuckers. Paul asked for this pickup configuration after witnessing Frank Marino in concert. “I’ll never be the guitarist he is,” Gilbert says. “But at least I can copy his gear somewhat.”
The second Paul Gilbert signature model is an update of the PGM that was launched two decades ago. “This is the guitar people normally associate me with,” he says. “The F-holes and the whole bit. After all this time, I still think it’s a hell of a guitar. I’m thrilled to know that people still want it and Ibanez wants to continue making it.”
They’ll be updating it for years to come. Check out Paul Gilbert showing off his new Ibanez signature models on MusicRadar video.
Tags: From the show, Ibanez, Paul Gilbert
This entry was posted on Saturday, January 17th, 2009 at 6:47 am and is filed under Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
