Though he’s fast approaching his 70s, Joe Satriani remains one of the busiest guitar players in the game. There’s a new live album out, documenting the original G3 lineup’s sold-out reunion tour of last year.
He’s been paying tribute to Eddie Van Halen in the ongoing Best of All Worlds tour alongside Sammy Hagar, Michael Anthony and Jason Bonham. And there’s the recently announced Surfing with the Hydra tour with the Satch/Vai band, where they’ll be performing new original music written together and solo tracks as one group for the very first time.
For a six-stringer who released his debut EP way back in 1984 and now has 18 solo full-lengths under his belt, plus two albums with Chickenfoot and all kinds of collaborations stretching across the last four decades, there’s no shortage of wind in the sails.
Perhaps it all comes down to his work ethic – despite all the awards and accolades, he’s still humble enough to see himself as a student of music with plenty of room for expansion.
You can hear it on G3 Reunion Live, where Satriani, Steve Vai and Eric Johnson play some of their most famous tracks alongside more recent innovations that document their growth as world-commanding purveyors of melody and harmony.
“It’s pretty remarkable,” says Satch from a studio room where he’s surrounded by 3rd Power heads, Marshall cabs and Fender combo amps, as well as nearly every iteration of his Ibanez JS series.
“Every night I’d be watching them create new worlds to inhabit. Steve is the kind of player who wants to redesign his whole space before filling it with new music. Then you have Eric, who has pursued a sonic refinement that’s very special.
We all have different ways of building our own gain structure to create melodies that soar. Eric has more of a germanium fuzz sound. Steve is more of a preamp gain guy
“He’s tireless in trying to enhance the sound of a Stratocaster going through his pedals and his amps. I have the best seat in the house. They are both so original and yet so different to each other in how they play.”
The tonal differences are also huge. Eric uses a lot less gain than you and Steve, and it’s more of a fuzz sound than overdrive or distortion.
“Funnily enough, the day after we recorded the live album, we were at EastWest Studios. The three of us stood together and plugged into my Marshall, passing the cord around. The one thing Eric said to me was, ‘Wow, there is so much gain!’
“We all have different ways of building our own gain structure to create melodies that soar. Eric has more of a germanium fuzz sound. Steve is more of a preamp gain guy. And I’m more of a power amp circuitry kind of player. It didn’t matter who had the cable, we all sounded like ourselves, but you can hear the differences in our own rigs.”
Eric’s take on Jeff Beck’s Freeway Jam is terrifically moving.
“Eric knows how to reach into a song and find something unique. Jeff was a fantastic example of someone who was always moving forward. He was continually reinventing himself.
“Beck’s Blow by Blow is loose and makes you go ‘Wow!’ because the performances were comped and no one’s really in tune. But the vibe and compositions supersede that and achieve this magical thing.
“Whenever I saw Jeff, he was always in the moment. Every time he played Where Were You, one of the most brilliant things any player has conceived, it would be different. All of his recordings were mostly improvised. He would prepare but then invite danger into every performance. That’s why he sounded fresh.”
Is The Sea of Emotion, Pt. 1 a good indication of what to expect from the Satch/Vai debut?
I pictured us growing up and referenced all the classic bands we loved – Hendrix, Zeppelin and Sabbath – almost like private jokes between us
“I wrote that song as a first volley. I pictured us growing up and referenced all the classic bands we loved – Hendrix, Zeppelin and Sabbath – almost like private jokes between us. Then I wrote a second part and Steve wrote a third. It sounds like a Spinal Tap joke, but it’s a trilogy. The rest of the album is quite diverse. Stylistically, it’s all over the place. We’re both venturing into unknown territory.”
You designed a new amp for the Best of All Worlds tour, geared more toward chordal ideas than single-note lines higher up. Talk us through the 3rd Power Dragon 100.
“Going back some years, when David Lee Roth and Alex Van Halen first called me about a tribute, I started this deep search into Ed’s tone. His sound was lighter and thinner than my JVM, which was designed to make all my high notes super-fat.
“That’s what I usually do for two hours on stage. I’m not playing many chords. But when I play with Sammy, it’s 95 percent rhythm and then eight or 16 bars of solo. A quick rip before coming back.”
Edward’s tone changed a lot through the years, which probably makes this gig even more challenging.
Ed had a million sounds. Ain’t Talkin’ ’Bout Love to Panama is a huge jump, then to Summer Nights is a crazy jump
“Ed had a million sounds. Ain’t Talkin’ ’Bout Love to Panama is a huge jump, then to Summer Nights is a crazy jump. He went from mono to mono with a little bit of stereo from the Eventide to widen the pitch, and then full stereo. He used Marshall, Soldano, Peavey and EVH. Those are huge changes in terms of preamp gain and compression.
“He went from a lot of midrange to quite scooped. So I asked Dylana Scott at 3rd Power Amplification to solve it for me. We went for the 1986 Live Without a Net tone, because it was all Marshalls but with the extra stereo-ness.”
What have been your favorite tracks on the setlist and why?
“Opening with Good Enough, Poundcake and Runaround is amazing. I quickly realized that the order of Eddie’s embellishments is really important to the fans. Even though Ed would move things around, this audience knows the studio versions and they will want the scream here, the harmonic cascades there and the finger tapping there.
“As for challenges, the Poundcake drill is hard to nail. The beginning of Summer Nights is difficult because of the picking and gain structure. I don’t think I got the intro right until halfway into the tour. It felt so odd to my fingers.”
- G3: 25th Anniversary Tour is out now via earMUSIC.
