Joe Satriani: richard hallebeek applies the electrodes to get joes inside track

News:
29-03-2009:

Richard Hallebeek has ways of making you talk...

:: Your tone has been very special over the years, it's unlike anything else. Some of it can be easily tracked to Jimi Hendrix, but then it's also so much more and different. Where is it from?

'(laughs ) You know, there is something about it, when I think about it..'

:: And it's not heavy metal at all.

'No, it's definitely not. You know, one of the issues that I realized, I fell into doing the instrumentals by accident, I was always just the guitarist in a rockband. And in '88 when Flying.. when I was on tour, starting out, a three week tour really, for Surfing With The Alien that was the first time I'd ever been a solo artist and I really didn't know..'

:: I heard the recordings of that tour at the time, that was awesome high energy.

'Yeah. But I didn't know what to do, walk out on stage, not singing and just play for people. And I also did not know what to do with my equipment, exactly how it was gonna get through this gig. Because for years, decades , I was always playing… rhythm. And then I'd play solo for about eight bars and then go back to playing rhythm. And this gig that I do now is very different. It needs different sounding equipment to be able to go melody-solo-melody, melody-solo, song after song after song 2 ½ hours every night. The strangest job ever. So right about that time that Flying In A Blue Dream (I think joe meant Surfing here…-Rich) , it was after that one tour, I toured on my own and I toured with Mick Jagger and I got this big (pauses) lesson in live performance in twelve months. It was like going to school. And I came out and I was, wow, that was very interesting. Everything changed, all the gear I used, everything was different. And all the stuff I thought that would work didn't work at all. And so when we went into doing Flying In Blue Dream we had a more refined thing, 'cause by then myself and John and Jeff, we had done…this is our third record. And so.. we felt confident that when we did 'Flying In A Blue Dream' with that signature tone, we could get it in the simplest of ways. Just the guitar, a very old Boss DS-1 we had I think at the time I think a Boogie, but it was just a clean tube amp.'

full interview