Joe Satriani: metal express radio interview

It was a surprise as I got a call out of the blue from Sammy, we both live in the San Francisco Bay Area so we are practically neighbours and he was putting a band together. We were in a band together about 6 or 7 years ago called Planet Us with Neal Schon and Deen Castronova from Journey and Michael Anthony was playing bass as well but we could never really get together to record much as I got busy and Sam got busy and everyone else was busy too. We did however record 2 songs that ended up on Sammy’s last solo record. One of the songs we wrote together back then ended up on the Chickenfoot record. About a year and a half ago Sammy called me and asked me to come to a show he was doing in Las Vegas and he said Chad Smith and Michael Anthony were going to be there. I went down to the show and we jammed for 35 minutes and it was such a fun thing to do. When we finished, the response from the audience was great. More importantly we felt that something really important had happened between us. We didn’t want this to be a one time thing and we wanted to do something about it. We promised each other that we’d follow it up with some kind of writing session to see if we could make it last. I had a writing session with Sam and it turned out great and we had so many great ideas and I got a feel of the kind of mjoeusic he was looking to move into and he also got to know the kind of Rock `n` Roll I was into and how we shared the same roots. What came out of the writing sessions is how much everyone loved great music and all the guys were into all this great new music just like me too. It was very exciting and we felt it was going to provide a lot of energy for a new direction.

full interview