The Electric Fence

The Electric Fence was a cover band formed by Paul Gilbert, Jeff Martin, and Russ Parrish. The band performed at MI in the early 90's while Paul was in Mr. Big.

Formation and shows
In the early 1990's, Paul Gilbert was in Mr. Big but still returned to Musician's Institute to do clinics. Often asked about developing fast picking, he quickly grew bored with teaching the same thing over and over. Russ Parrish, Paul's house-mate and also an instructor at MI, was experiencing the same phenomenon, and the two resolved to start a cover band in order to avoid teaching picking exercises.

The two joined up with Racer X singer Jeff Martin, who was also a talented drummer. With Martin's addition, the band was now complete; all three would trade off lead vocal duties, while Paul and Russ would switch between guitar and bass.

The band's fictional biography suggested that they were a band from England who were performing "original" songs, not aware that they'd been "plagiarized" by other artists. The band would play songs from Deep Purple, Jimi Hendrix, Black Sabbath, David Bowie, Judas Priest, The Beatles, and several other acts from the 60's and 70's. The trio would dress in bizarre outfits and speak with accents. Jeff Martin estimates that they had a repertoire of 127 songs.

Martin speculates that the band's comedic nature is what got Russ Parrish interested in comedy/parody elements in music, and that his work in The Electric Fence eventually led to the idea of Steel Panther.