Joe Satriani and Steve Vai have been bros since meeting at school in the 1970s. Although it was famously Joe who taught Vai how to play in the first place, the two today share a status as arguably, the most influential players of the last four decades. Heading out together for the first time ever in a joint project the SatchVai Band, it's exciting times for the oldest of friends. We sat down with Joe for a chat about the project, and reflect with the shredder about the rise of the solo guitarist, his thoughts on Vai's masterpiece 'Passion and Warfare', and the creation of some of his key albums including 'Flying in a Blue Dream' and 'The Extremist.' One big rush; Eamon O'Neill.
Photo; Jon Luini
Hi Joe, how are you doing?
I'm very good.
You're at home today; I notice all your custom guitar straps in the background.
Yeah, it's really empty because we're leaving for the tour in a couple of days, so all my guitars are gone. Usually the racks are filled with guitars and there's amps everywhere, but everything is being shipped overseas, so yeah, it's kind of empty, but the straps are here, the leftovers and the prototypes.
Obviously, you're talking about the SatchVai Band tour, which kicks off in June in the UK. You're in a band with your oldest buddy; how does this differ form say, a G3 show?
The G3 concerts are pretty straightforward. We have three acts, each act gets to take the stage for little less than an hour to do whatever they want to do, and then we get together for a three song jam. That's what I set up way back in late '95, and we started in '96, and we kind of stuck with that because it works. it's great for all of the artists because they feel they get enough time to connect with their audience, to do their songs, and then, on the business side of it, we can fit into the curfew of each venue because it's a finite set and that's important. An important part of touring is actually getting in, doing the show and getting out so the next band can come and you want to respect each venue that you play in.
SatchVai Band is a different kind of beast?
This is a bit different now because we have an actual band that Steve and I take to the stage with right from the beginning of the show together. We're in a band together, and there's only a few times during the show where one of us will walk off stage for a song or two, and then come back in. That's how we decided to do it. We wanted to get out on tour to celebrate finally doing this like this. We were only halfway through making our SatchVai album. so it's not like we can play all the new songs, so we thought; "well, how we're going to do this?"
So what are you going to fill a SatchVai Band live set with?
We figured, well, we can play some of the new songs that we've worked out, and then we can give the fans what they really love to hear, like they want to see Steve play 'For the Love of God', or they want to see him play the Hydra. And then how do we make those things special? We bring each other out to add to these songs that they've heard us play as solo artists before, but now it's a bit of a collaboration, and that's been really great. We had one really good week of rehearsals a few months ago, and it really worked. We were wondering how it was going to really work, but it really clicked. Everybody felt like it was a celebration, and so the real fun is when we get in front of an audience; I mean, that's really when the magic starts to happen!
SatchVai Band has reminded me of that moment where Steve Vai first performed the song 'Liberty', which was in Seville at the Guitar Legends concert in 1991. Brian May was on stage, Cozy Powell, and you were playing rhythm guitar, and that's the only instance I could think of where you have performed on one of Steve songs, or vice versa.
I think so. Yeah, I think that's the only time we did that. That was a very interesting experience for Steve and I, because we had never done anything like that. Brian was the musical director. and we spent about three or four days in London rehearsing while the Guitar Legends festival was going on in Seville. We got there the day before, so we missed the festival, basically until our night came. Everyone was wondering, like; "how's this going to work?" A tag-team kind of approach to a festival, you know? But it turned out it was a lot of fun, and it did give us the chance to collaborate in really bizarre ways that we would never have dreamed of like, you know, me just standing there and looking at Steve and Brian playing 'Liberty'; that was pretty fantastic. And we did a lot of things. I mean, by the end of that show, I'm standing next to Joe Walsh and Nuno [Bettencourt] and Steve and Brian, it was pretty crazy; Cozy Powell on drums, Rick Wakeman on keyboards. I mean, it was pretty insane group of people. It was a lot of fun. But yes, that was the first time, I think we ever did at least one of Steve's originals like that.
I'm very good.
You're at home today; I notice all your custom guitar straps in the background.
Yeah, it's really empty because we're leaving for the tour in a couple of days, so all my guitars are gone. Usually the racks are filled with guitars and there's amps everywhere, but everything is being shipped overseas, so yeah, it's kind of empty, but the straps are here, the leftovers and the prototypes.
Obviously, you're talking about the SatchVai Band tour, which kicks off in June in the UK. You're in a band with your oldest buddy; how does this differ form say, a G3 show?
The G3 concerts are pretty straightforward. We have three acts, each act gets to take the stage for little less than an hour to do whatever they want to do, and then we get together for a three song jam. That's what I set up way back in late '95, and we started in '96, and we kind of stuck with that because it works. it's great for all of the artists because they feel they get enough time to connect with their audience, to do their songs, and then, on the business side of it, we can fit into the curfew of each venue because it's a finite set and that's important. An important part of touring is actually getting in, doing the show and getting out so the next band can come and you want to respect each venue that you play in.
SatchVai Band is a different kind of beast?
This is a bit different now because we have an actual band that Steve and I take to the stage with right from the beginning of the show together. We're in a band together, and there's only a few times during the show where one of us will walk off stage for a song or two, and then come back in. That's how we decided to do it. We wanted to get out on tour to celebrate finally doing this like this. We were only halfway through making our SatchVai album. so it's not like we can play all the new songs, so we thought; "well, how we're going to do this?"
So what are you going to fill a SatchVai Band live set with?
We figured, well, we can play some of the new songs that we've worked out, and then we can give the fans what they really love to hear, like they want to see Steve play 'For the Love of God', or they want to see him play the Hydra. And then how do we make those things special? We bring each other out to add to these songs that they've heard us play as solo artists before, but now it's a bit of a collaboration, and that's been really great. We had one really good week of rehearsals a few months ago, and it really worked. We were wondering how it was going to really work, but it really clicked. Everybody felt like it was a celebration, and so the real fun is when we get in front of an audience; I mean, that's really when the magic starts to happen!
SatchVai Band has reminded me of that moment where Steve Vai first performed the song 'Liberty', which was in Seville at the Guitar Legends concert in 1991. Brian May was on stage, Cozy Powell, and you were playing rhythm guitar, and that's the only instance I could think of where you have performed on one of Steve songs, or vice versa.
I think so. Yeah, I think that's the only time we did that. That was a very interesting experience for Steve and I, because we had never done anything like that. Brian was the musical director. and we spent about three or four days in London rehearsing while the Guitar Legends festival was going on in Seville. We got there the day before, so we missed the festival, basically until our night came. Everyone was wondering, like; "how's this going to work?" A tag-team kind of approach to a festival, you know? But it turned out it was a lot of fun, and it did give us the chance to collaborate in really bizarre ways that we would never have dreamed of like, you know, me just standing there and looking at Steve and Brian playing 'Liberty'; that was pretty fantastic. And we did a lot of things. I mean, by the end of that show, I'm standing next to Joe Walsh and Nuno [Bettencourt] and Steve and Brian, it was pretty crazy; Cozy Powell on drums, Rick Wakeman on keyboards. I mean, it was pretty insane group of people. It was a lot of fun. But yes, that was the first time, I think we ever did at least one of Steve's originals like that.
I recently asked Yngwie Malmsteen this, but back in 1990 and 1991, 'Passion and Warfare', and 'Flying in a Blue Dream' were big albums, there were all the Shrapnel players, and the big guitar magazines; would you say that was a real peak for the solo guitarist genre?
Certainly, the record making was given a lot more leeway, in a way, and it's a funny thing about the industry that when you're super successful and under the microscope, very often you're caged, and you feel that because there's this pressure to continue the success, and so the focus becomes more narrow. What Steve and I were experiencing was so unheard of in a way, and we still didn't sort of decide that we were going to. We were going to try to get more commercial, I guess, so we were still pushing the boundaries, but those albums were still crazy. I think, from 'Not of This Earth' [1986], 'Surfing [with the Alien', 1987], 'Flying in Blue Dream' [1989], 'The Extremist' [1991], all the way to the eponymous release in '95; they were all so different. Like, a pop artist would never do that, and change direction so radically, change production, and style of album making.
That's such an interesting insight.
Steve, from 'Flex-able' [1984] onward, he did the same thing; he just keep changing, and, you know, Steve's completely nuts, and he can play anything and that he puts his imagination to, so in a way, it was an interesting peak because - let's say just focusing on Steve - not only was he breaking boundaries with his technique, but he was also changing the way that instrumental rock records were being produced; they weren't fusion oriented, they weren't like rock guys trying to get more jazzy, which was really what happened in the late '60s and the '70s, which was a progression for rock artists to become more complicated, and it got more jammy. But you have to understand, if we're just talking about Steve; here's a kid who loved Kiss, so he was going to make a solid rock record, no matter how difficult or complicated it was. What was so much fun was that the production sensibilities were at the top of what a rock artist would look to do, but there was this other thing that he was doing with seven strings; just pure brilliance of technique and doing things that couldn't be done before, and that did, in a way, as you said, represent a high point as time goes on.
So it was a time of experimentation and freedom?
You know, the industry has changed a lot. The internet really helped artists find their fans, but at the same time it made them rein it in and become more specific, so that EDM is just EDM, and blues is just blues, and instrumental guitar is just technique, to service these communities that now are identifiable. The artist can go directly to them. I know it's hard to believe, but back in 1990 it was like fly fishing; you'd throw your record out there and you'd have no idea what's happening out there in the world; "are fans liking it?!" I mean, there were just magazines, and most of the radio stations ignored us. So that was a gift - I'm going to say it that way. Let's put it simply; to be ignored sometimes is a great artistic gift because you don't feel any pressure to conform. So there was less conformity. Now, I think guitar playing is more outrageous, better than it's ever been before, but there's a lot of conformity, and that's because it's the only way that the musicians can survive. I don't blame them, it's just the reality of today.
Certainly, the record making was given a lot more leeway, in a way, and it's a funny thing about the industry that when you're super successful and under the microscope, very often you're caged, and you feel that because there's this pressure to continue the success, and so the focus becomes more narrow. What Steve and I were experiencing was so unheard of in a way, and we still didn't sort of decide that we were going to. We were going to try to get more commercial, I guess, so we were still pushing the boundaries, but those albums were still crazy. I think, from 'Not of This Earth' [1986], 'Surfing [with the Alien', 1987], 'Flying in Blue Dream' [1989], 'The Extremist' [1991], all the way to the eponymous release in '95; they were all so different. Like, a pop artist would never do that, and change direction so radically, change production, and style of album making.
That's such an interesting insight.
Steve, from 'Flex-able' [1984] onward, he did the same thing; he just keep changing, and, you know, Steve's completely nuts, and he can play anything and that he puts his imagination to, so in a way, it was an interesting peak because - let's say just focusing on Steve - not only was he breaking boundaries with his technique, but he was also changing the way that instrumental rock records were being produced; they weren't fusion oriented, they weren't like rock guys trying to get more jazzy, which was really what happened in the late '60s and the '70s, which was a progression for rock artists to become more complicated, and it got more jammy. But you have to understand, if we're just talking about Steve; here's a kid who loved Kiss, so he was going to make a solid rock record, no matter how difficult or complicated it was. What was so much fun was that the production sensibilities were at the top of what a rock artist would look to do, but there was this other thing that he was doing with seven strings; just pure brilliance of technique and doing things that couldn't be done before, and that did, in a way, as you said, represent a high point as time goes on.
So it was a time of experimentation and freedom?
You know, the industry has changed a lot. The internet really helped artists find their fans, but at the same time it made them rein it in and become more specific, so that EDM is just EDM, and blues is just blues, and instrumental guitar is just technique, to service these communities that now are identifiable. The artist can go directly to them. I know it's hard to believe, but back in 1990 it was like fly fishing; you'd throw your record out there and you'd have no idea what's happening out there in the world; "are fans liking it?!" I mean, there were just magazines, and most of the radio stations ignored us. So that was a gift - I'm going to say it that way. Let's put it simply; to be ignored sometimes is a great artistic gift because you don't feel any pressure to conform. So there was less conformity. Now, I think guitar playing is more outrageous, better than it's ever been before, but there's a lot of conformity, and that's because it's the only way that the musicians can survive. I don't blame them, it's just the reality of today.
You talked about the musical evolution in your career, and on 'Flying in a Blue Dream' you did a few rare vocal songs; was that the record company going ; "we want you to sing as you'll sell more records", or was that simply experimenting?
No, the thing to remember is that I was never an instrumentalist, and I was always a guitar player in a band that was a vocal-oriented band; whether it was a rock band or a funk band or whatever. Right before I put out my first album I was in a three piece power pop band, kind of like a Van Halen meets Green Day kind of thing. We weren't very good, but we were very excited about the whole thing, so I spent like, four or five years singing all the time, and then as a side project, as a personal development project, I created my own publishing company, record company, and I put out this ridiculous EP ['Joe Satriani', 1984], with just guitar, and no bass, drums, keyboards or anything. And then I decided I'm going to do a full length album that became 'Not of This Earth', but meanwhile, I'm still working in these bands that have singers, and so when I eventually signed up with Relativity Records, they were trying to figure out what do you do with me. I said; "well, I've been in this power pop kind of band, and I sing, and not too well, but I can keep a tune going", and in my association with Relativity and Bill Graham Management, it was like; "now's the time to spread your wings and do whatever you want".
So you decided at that point to focus on instrumental guitar?
I was given sort of carte blanche, not only by the record company, but also by Bill and the management team to spread my wings and just do whatever I wanted. And again, there was very little focus on me, which, as I said earlier, was a gift. Of course, when it's happening, you're really upset because no one's talking about you or listening to your music; it's only years later that you go back and you go; "wow, what a gift that was that no one paid attention to me and I could do whatever I want". So that's what I did.
My co producer John Cuniberti, had been with me since 1980, and he was not only our front of house mixer for the band The Squares, but he was also the producer for all of the demos that we made at Hyde Street Studios in San Francisco, and Tewksbury and Berkeley. So he knew me as a singer guitar player as well, and so we go to the studio when we were doing 'Surfing with the Alien', and he's like; "Joe, when are you going to sing", and I'm going; "not yet". So by the time we had a successful album, I'd been on tour with Mick Jagger [1988], there were a lot of things that had happened that made me feel a little bit more comfortable to share more of who I was with the audience, and the label really wanted me to, as I said before, experiment, and we could make the longest album we wanted. I mean, 'Flying in Blue Dream' was a long record, as CDs were coming out, so...
Yeah, 'Flying in a Blue Dream' has like, eighteen tracks, hasn't it?
Yeah, so we didn't know which ones were going to make it, but we recorded everything and then when we sat back and we listened to it, we thought; "wow, it works better if they're all included in the project, rather than just having one vocal song", like, if we tried to squeeze the album down to ten tracks, it just didn't make any sense. And I was really keen on putting out albums that I could live with for the rest of my career. I imagined I'd be in my sixties, still going on tour, and I thought; "what would I play? I wouldn't want to be stuck playing just one kind of song", and so I said to myself that the only way to do that is to take the risk and show people everything that you can do; you can play the blues, you can play funk, you can sing funny songs, you can sing serious songs, you can play slow, you can play fast, clean, distorted, you know what I mean? Just give everybody everything, and then hopefully that will give you this longevity, because people, when they start to show up and you do these things, they're like; "oh, yeah, that's what he does. He did that way back when, and that's normal for Joe to do that", so that worked out. I mean, it wasn't any genius or anything, it's just I took a chance artistically.
Was the ten-song, all instrumental follow-up 'The Extremist' a reaction to that? It's an album that's perhaps your most polished.
Well, that was a result of two failures and one success. So I started it at Bearsville studios in Woodstock, New York, with the rhythm section from the Mick Jagger band, and we got some really good stuff, like 'Rubina's Blue Sky Happiness' and 'New Blues', but the rest, the straight ahead rock stuff didn't really work at first for one reason or another. It just didn't click, so I broke that down, relocated back to San Francisco, and John and I decided; "let's just go back to the earlier 'Flying', 'Surfing', approach", and we started and we did 'Summer Song', and we started to build those other tracks that were a little bit more automated - they had some drum machine element in there - and then, after a couple of months, I said; "this is not working out. I don't want to go backwards". So I stopped, and I took maybe nine months off, and then my manager at the time, Mick Brigden, from the the Bill Graham Group, he said; "why don't we find a different producer and a different place to finish the album?"
So you were happy to try something, and someone else?
I thought; "okay, but who's going to want to take on an Instrumental guitar player?" I mean, grunge was coming out and everything, and that was the last thing on people's minds, but when he said Andy Johns, I thought; "well, of course I want to work with Andy Johns, but why would he want to work with me?" But I went down to L.A. and I met with Dave Jerden and Mike Clink, and then I met Andy at Ed Van Halen's studio at 5150, and we just really clicked. I played him all the demos that I had, and he was very encouraged. He really thought we could do something different, and I said; "look, I just don't want it to sound like 'Not of this Earth', 'Surfing' or 'Flying'; it's got to sound totally different", and; "I can do all this stuff, but how do we get it on the album? " So the key was, put a band together, rehearse the band, go into a big studio, which is very traditional, and that's why that album turned out the way it did.
'The Extremist' was a hybrid of those sessions?
He wound up using a lot of the tracks. Like, most of the guitar work, and all the melody solos for the song 'Summer Song' were done by John and I, nine months earlier, and we just worked around it. So there were 'Rubina's Blue Sky Happiness', 'Why', 'New Blues'; we used those tracks that went all the way back to the Bearsville sessions. We just recorded some new ones and then added to the previous tracks. But Andy's brilliance in the studio and the way that he would pull things out of me? I never would have been able to record a track like 'Friends' if it hadn't been me just standing right next to Andy and asking him; "is that Celtic?!" I'm from Long Island, I don't know Celtic! I kept saying; "I want it to sound Celtic!" So there are things that producers can do that really bring stuff out of you that you can't quite get out of yourself.
No, the thing to remember is that I was never an instrumentalist, and I was always a guitar player in a band that was a vocal-oriented band; whether it was a rock band or a funk band or whatever. Right before I put out my first album I was in a three piece power pop band, kind of like a Van Halen meets Green Day kind of thing. We weren't very good, but we were very excited about the whole thing, so I spent like, four or five years singing all the time, and then as a side project, as a personal development project, I created my own publishing company, record company, and I put out this ridiculous EP ['Joe Satriani', 1984], with just guitar, and no bass, drums, keyboards or anything. And then I decided I'm going to do a full length album that became 'Not of This Earth', but meanwhile, I'm still working in these bands that have singers, and so when I eventually signed up with Relativity Records, they were trying to figure out what do you do with me. I said; "well, I've been in this power pop kind of band, and I sing, and not too well, but I can keep a tune going", and in my association with Relativity and Bill Graham Management, it was like; "now's the time to spread your wings and do whatever you want".
So you decided at that point to focus on instrumental guitar?
I was given sort of carte blanche, not only by the record company, but also by Bill and the management team to spread my wings and just do whatever I wanted. And again, there was very little focus on me, which, as I said earlier, was a gift. Of course, when it's happening, you're really upset because no one's talking about you or listening to your music; it's only years later that you go back and you go; "wow, what a gift that was that no one paid attention to me and I could do whatever I want". So that's what I did.
My co producer John Cuniberti, had been with me since 1980, and he was not only our front of house mixer for the band The Squares, but he was also the producer for all of the demos that we made at Hyde Street Studios in San Francisco, and Tewksbury and Berkeley. So he knew me as a singer guitar player as well, and so we go to the studio when we were doing 'Surfing with the Alien', and he's like; "Joe, when are you going to sing", and I'm going; "not yet". So by the time we had a successful album, I'd been on tour with Mick Jagger [1988], there were a lot of things that had happened that made me feel a little bit more comfortable to share more of who I was with the audience, and the label really wanted me to, as I said before, experiment, and we could make the longest album we wanted. I mean, 'Flying in Blue Dream' was a long record, as CDs were coming out, so...
Yeah, 'Flying in a Blue Dream' has like, eighteen tracks, hasn't it?
Yeah, so we didn't know which ones were going to make it, but we recorded everything and then when we sat back and we listened to it, we thought; "wow, it works better if they're all included in the project, rather than just having one vocal song", like, if we tried to squeeze the album down to ten tracks, it just didn't make any sense. And I was really keen on putting out albums that I could live with for the rest of my career. I imagined I'd be in my sixties, still going on tour, and I thought; "what would I play? I wouldn't want to be stuck playing just one kind of song", and so I said to myself that the only way to do that is to take the risk and show people everything that you can do; you can play the blues, you can play funk, you can sing funny songs, you can sing serious songs, you can play slow, you can play fast, clean, distorted, you know what I mean? Just give everybody everything, and then hopefully that will give you this longevity, because people, when they start to show up and you do these things, they're like; "oh, yeah, that's what he does. He did that way back when, and that's normal for Joe to do that", so that worked out. I mean, it wasn't any genius or anything, it's just I took a chance artistically.
Was the ten-song, all instrumental follow-up 'The Extremist' a reaction to that? It's an album that's perhaps your most polished.
Well, that was a result of two failures and one success. So I started it at Bearsville studios in Woodstock, New York, with the rhythm section from the Mick Jagger band, and we got some really good stuff, like 'Rubina's Blue Sky Happiness' and 'New Blues', but the rest, the straight ahead rock stuff didn't really work at first for one reason or another. It just didn't click, so I broke that down, relocated back to San Francisco, and John and I decided; "let's just go back to the earlier 'Flying', 'Surfing', approach", and we started and we did 'Summer Song', and we started to build those other tracks that were a little bit more automated - they had some drum machine element in there - and then, after a couple of months, I said; "this is not working out. I don't want to go backwards". So I stopped, and I took maybe nine months off, and then my manager at the time, Mick Brigden, from the the Bill Graham Group, he said; "why don't we find a different producer and a different place to finish the album?"
So you were happy to try something, and someone else?
I thought; "okay, but who's going to want to take on an Instrumental guitar player?" I mean, grunge was coming out and everything, and that was the last thing on people's minds, but when he said Andy Johns, I thought; "well, of course I want to work with Andy Johns, but why would he want to work with me?" But I went down to L.A. and I met with Dave Jerden and Mike Clink, and then I met Andy at Ed Van Halen's studio at 5150, and we just really clicked. I played him all the demos that I had, and he was very encouraged. He really thought we could do something different, and I said; "look, I just don't want it to sound like 'Not of this Earth', 'Surfing' or 'Flying'; it's got to sound totally different", and; "I can do all this stuff, but how do we get it on the album? " So the key was, put a band together, rehearse the band, go into a big studio, which is very traditional, and that's why that album turned out the way it did.
'The Extremist' was a hybrid of those sessions?
He wound up using a lot of the tracks. Like, most of the guitar work, and all the melody solos for the song 'Summer Song' were done by John and I, nine months earlier, and we just worked around it. So there were 'Rubina's Blue Sky Happiness', 'Why', 'New Blues'; we used those tracks that went all the way back to the Bearsville sessions. We just recorded some new ones and then added to the previous tracks. But Andy's brilliance in the studio and the way that he would pull things out of me? I never would have been able to record a track like 'Friends' if it hadn't been me just standing right next to Andy and asking him; "is that Celtic?!" I'm from Long Island, I don't know Celtic! I kept saying; "I want it to sound Celtic!" So there are things that producers can do that really bring stuff out of you that you can't quite get out of yourself.
I wanted to ask you what you thought of Steve Vai's 'Passion and Warfare' when you first heard it?
I was like; [puts arms in the air] "YES!" I was cheering as soon as I saw it. First of all, the cover, I thought; "oh, this is going to be amazing!" You have to remember, I knew Steve when he was 12 years old, and we just came from this little town on Long Island and went to the same public high school, so any time there was a step forward in his career, I was the guy cheering the loudest in the crowd. But every time I see him put out a new project, I hear him put out or write a new song or something, I think back to how we spent so many hours together as young kids playing, and how amazing it is that I got to witness this young person that turned into this amazing artist as an adult, and he continues to develop. I don't know how to really put that into words, but that was that same feeling I had when I was listening to 'Passion and Warfare' the first time. I'm going; "this is amazing! I remember THIS element of his playing, and THAT element", and seeing the light bulb go off in his head when we were talking about this kind of scale or that kind of harmony, and I started to hear it come to fruition on that album.
So you were blown away, by the sound of it!
The first thing I thought was; "you've got to put a band together and go out on tour!". but that didn't happen because he was too popular; Whitesnake, David Lee Roth, you know what I mean? He took advantage of some great job offers that, again, allowed him to show the world the depth of his musicianship. He wasn't just a technician.
Finally, the SatchVai Band dates take in Hellfest, and I couldn't help but notice that Glenn Hughes who sings on 'I Wanna Play My Guitar' is on the bill with Black Country Communion the same day; might you coax him on stage to join you?
Yes! Yeah, we've already talked about it, and I was just texting Jason [Bonham]. It'll be a great coming together of a lot of good musician friends, our circle. And yeah, Glenn already, boy, I think a month ago we already started talking about it, so yeah, hopefully it works out, timing-wise. I haven't seen our schedule yet that day, but we will be playing that song, and Glenn has been officially invited to come out and start the set with that, so hopefully it all works. Festivals are crazy, and we have to play a short set that day. As I've said before, you've got to get on, you've got to get off, so we'll see what happens. Fingers crossed on that one.
Catch SatchVai Band on tour in the UK in June. Tickets are available here.
York Barbican – Friday June 13
London Eventim Apollo – Saturday June 14
Glasgow Royal Concert Hall – Tuesday June 17
The Halls Wolverhampton – Wednesday June 18
O2 Apollo Manchester – Thursday June 19
I was like; [puts arms in the air] "YES!" I was cheering as soon as I saw it. First of all, the cover, I thought; "oh, this is going to be amazing!" You have to remember, I knew Steve when he was 12 years old, and we just came from this little town on Long Island and went to the same public high school, so any time there was a step forward in his career, I was the guy cheering the loudest in the crowd. But every time I see him put out a new project, I hear him put out or write a new song or something, I think back to how we spent so many hours together as young kids playing, and how amazing it is that I got to witness this young person that turned into this amazing artist as an adult, and he continues to develop. I don't know how to really put that into words, but that was that same feeling I had when I was listening to 'Passion and Warfare' the first time. I'm going; "this is amazing! I remember THIS element of his playing, and THAT element", and seeing the light bulb go off in his head when we were talking about this kind of scale or that kind of harmony, and I started to hear it come to fruition on that album.
So you were blown away, by the sound of it!
The first thing I thought was; "you've got to put a band together and go out on tour!". but that didn't happen because he was too popular; Whitesnake, David Lee Roth, you know what I mean? He took advantage of some great job offers that, again, allowed him to show the world the depth of his musicianship. He wasn't just a technician.
Finally, the SatchVai Band dates take in Hellfest, and I couldn't help but notice that Glenn Hughes who sings on 'I Wanna Play My Guitar' is on the bill with Black Country Communion the same day; might you coax him on stage to join you?
Yes! Yeah, we've already talked about it, and I was just texting Jason [Bonham]. It'll be a great coming together of a lot of good musician friends, our circle. And yeah, Glenn already, boy, I think a month ago we already started talking about it, so yeah, hopefully it works out, timing-wise. I haven't seen our schedule yet that day, but we will be playing that song, and Glenn has been officially invited to come out and start the set with that, so hopefully it all works. Festivals are crazy, and we have to play a short set that day. As I've said before, you've got to get on, you've got to get off, so we'll see what happens. Fingers crossed on that one.
Catch SatchVai Band on tour in the UK in June. Tickets are available here.
York Barbican – Friday June 13
London Eventim Apollo – Saturday June 14
Glasgow Royal Concert Hall – Tuesday June 17
The Halls Wolverhampton – Wednesday June 18
O2 Apollo Manchester – Thursday June 19
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