Joe Satriani: I Heart guitar interview



Chickenfoot III. You know the joke by now: the band feels so comfortable in what they’re doing that they feel like they stepped over the difficult second album and went straight to the third. The band – Sammy Hagar, Joe Satriani, Michael Anthony and Chad Smith – are indeed in fine form on the newly-released album. It still sounds like the Chickenfoot who whipped up such a frenzy with their 2009 debut, but it’s at once more relaxed and more intense, heavier and more detailed.

The first thing that really struck me about this album was that there’s a really identifiable Chickenfoot sound. It doesn’t sound like a Joe Satriani album, it doesn’t sound like a Sammy Hagar album.

That’s great, I’m so happy to hear you say that. That’s something that I’ve always felt that we were very lucky to naturally stumble upon. But we didn’t want to overthink it or intellectualise it. Just do it naturally and let it happen.

This album is almost like an essay on the right hand of Joe Satriani – there’s a lot of great rhythm stuff going on.

As I was writing the demos for this record I was once again conscious of trying to not hold back and to use as much as I had to flesh out a lot of the songs. It’s a funny thing, because when we’re away, we’ll maybe be taking a flight somewhere and we’ll be talking about what kind of songs we like as a band, and that’s one thing, but when we get together to play there’s really no time for discussion or any of that stuff. We basically have to record very quickly, and everybody has to bring all their stuff to the table and just do it. And so I hate to talk about it and give the wrong impression and that we thought about it, because we didn’t, but I all I can tell you is that I prepared for the experience by making sure that everything I knew how to do was fresh on my fingers and ready to be exploited at a moment’s notice. So I like to say that I’ve taken all the good stuff that I’ve ever heard from any guitar player and I’ve tried to learn it and to use it and to understand it. So a lot of my roots come out when I’m making a Chickenfoot record. more

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