Systems and methods for controlling a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) system to simultaneously excite multiple different slice locations. A multiband (MB) radio frequency (RF) pulse waveform is combined with an RF pulse waveform that results in periodic excitation of the slice locations, such as a power independent of a number of slices (PINS) RF pulse waveform. Before combination, the MB RF pulse waveform is preferably transformed to traverse the excitation k-space trajectory defined by a plurality of slice-encoding gradient blips. The combined RF pulse waveform is used to generate an RF excitation field generated while the plurality of slice-encoding gradient blips are played out. The portions of the combined RF pulse associated with the MB RF pulse are played out during the gradient blips, and the portions associated with the PINS RF pulse are played out between the gradient blips.