Joe Satriani
Joe Satriani |
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Joe "Satch" Satriani (born on July 15, 1956, in Westbury, New York, USA) is an American guitarist and former guitar instructor. His self-released debut album, Not of This Earth in 1986 opened the way to a world of instrumental rock music in a pop-dominated world at that time.[1]
Influenced heavily by Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck,[2] Joe Satriani often incorporates a warm sound of guitar with a dominant blues and rock tone. Since 1990, he has used his own signature guitar, the Ibanez JS Series, which is widely sold in stores.[3] Joe Satriani also has a signature series amplifier, the Peavey JSX.
In 1988, Joe Satriani was recruited by Rolling Stones' Mick Jagger as lead guitarist for Jagger's first solo tour.[4] Later, in 1994, Satriani was also asked to be a lead guitarist for Deep Purple which he ultimately turned down.[2] Satriani has also worked with a wide range of guitarists from many styles, including Steve Vai, John Petrucci, Eric Johnson, Yngwie Malmsteen, Paul Gilbert, and Robert Fripp through the annual G3 Jam Concerts.[1]
Biography and playing history
Joe Satriani was inspired to play guitar at age 14 after learning of the death of Jimi Hendrix. Satriani reportedly heard the news during a football training session where he immediately confronted his coach and announced that he was quitting to become a guitarist.
In 1974, he studied music with jazz guitarist Billy Bauer and with reclusive jazz pianist Lennie Tristano. The technically demanding Tristano greatly influenced Satriani's playing. Satriani also began teaching guitar, with his most notable student, at this time, being fellow Long Island native Steve Vai.
In 1978 Satriani moved to Berkeley, California to pursue a music career. Not long after his arrival he resumed teaching. His most notable California students included: Kirk Hammett (Metallica), David Bryson (Counting Crows), Kevin Cadogan (Third Eye Blind), Larry LaLonde (Primus, Possessed), Alex Skolnick (Testament), Rick Hunolt (Exodus), Tim Calvert (Forbidden, Nevermore), Phil Kettner (Laaz Rockit), Charlie Hunter and Steve Vai.
When his friend and former student Steve Vai gained fame playing with David Lee Roth in 1986, Vai raved about Satriani in several interviews with guitar magazines. In 1987, Satriani's second album Surfing With the Alien produced popular radio hits, and was the first all-instrumental release to chart so highly in many years. Satriani also toured Australia and New Zealand with Mick Jagger in support of the Rolling Stones singer's solo album. That same year, he helped produce the EP The Eyes of Horror for the death metal band Possessed.
In 1989, Satriani released the album Flying in a Blue Dream. The album sold well, particularly in Texas. It was heavily promoted by KLBJ-FM in Austin. "One Big Rush" was featured on the soundtrack to the Cameron Crowe movie Say Anything. "The Forgotten Part II" was featured on a Labatt Blue commercial in Canada in 1993. "Big Bad Moon", one of Satch's few singles with personally sung vocals, was a minor hit in late 1989.
In 1992, Satriani released The Extremist, his most critically acclaimed and commercially successful album to date. Radio stations across the country were quick to pick up on "Summer Song", while "Cryin'", "Friends" and the title track were regional hits.
In late 1993 Satriani joined Deep Purple as a short-term replacement for departed guitarist Ritchie Blackmore during the band's Japanese tour. The concerts were such a success Satriani was asked to join the band permanently[citation needed], but he declined, having just signed a multi-album solo deal with Sony.
In 1996, he formed G3, a concert tour featuring three instrumental rock guitarists -- originally Satriani, Vai, and Eric Johnson. The G3 tour has continued periodically since its inaugural version, where Satriani and Vai are returning members, featured with a floating third member, including among others Eric Johnson, Yngwie Malmsteen, John Petrucci, Kenny Wayne Shepherd, Robert Fripp, Patrick Rondat and Paul Gilbert.
In 1998 Satriani recorded and released Crystal Planet, which went back to a sound more reminiscent of his late 80's work. Planet was followed up with Engines of Creation, one of his more experimental works. During the subsequent tour, a pair of shows at the Fillmore in San Francisco were recorded in December 2000 and released as Live in San Francisco, a 2 disc live album and DVD.
Over the next several years, Satriani regularly recorded and put out new music, releasing Strange Beautiful Music in 2002 and Is There Love in Space? in 2004
In 2006 Satriani recorded and released Super Colossal and released Satriani Live!, another 2 disc live album and DVD recorded May 3, 2006 at the Grove in Anaheim, CA.
On August 7, 2007 Epic/Legacy Recordings will re-release "Surfing With the Alien" to celebrate the 20th anniversary of its release. This will be a 2 disc set that includes a remastered album and a DVD of previously never-before-seen live show filmed at the Montreux Jazz Festival in 1988.[1]
Other work
Satriani is also credited on many other albums, including guitar duties on Alice Cooper's Hey Stoopid (1991), Spinal Tap's Break Like the Wind (1992), Blue Öyster Cult's Imaginos (1988), band members Stu Hamm and Gregg Bissonette's solo albums, and many others including countless guitar heroes-style albums. Interestingly, he was credited for singing background vocals on the 1986 debut album by Crowded House. In 2003, he played lead guitar in The Yardbirds' CD release Birdland. In 2006 he made appearances on several tracks for Deep Purple's vocalist Ian Gillan's solo CD/DVD dual disc Gillan's Inn. For Dream Theater's newest album, Systematic Chaos, Joe contributed spoken lyrics to the song Repentance.
He is also featured in the Christopher Guest film, For Your Consideration, as the guitarist in the band that played for the late-night show.
Technique and influence
Satriani is widely recognized as a technically highly advanced rock guitarist. He has mastered many performance techniques on the instrument, including two-handed tapping, sweep-picking, volume swells, harmonics, and extreme whammy bar effects. One of his trademark compositional traits is the use of Pitch Axis Theory which he applies with a variety of modes.[citation needed] Satriani approaches scales and soloing differently. Instead of practicing his scales in positions he practices his scales one string at a time. He calls this technique ‘linear scales’.[citation needed] Satriani falls into the category of guitarists who primarily achieve speed through hammer-ons and pull-offs, as opposed to guitarists who include lines with very rapid alternate picking of every note in their playing.
His success is notable in a genre typically unfriendly to instrumental musicians. Satriani has received 14 Grammy nominations,[2] and he has sold more than 10 million albums worldwide.[3] Many of his fans and friends call him "Satch," short for Satriani. The song "Satch Boogie" from the album Surfing With the Alien is one of possibly several hundred such songs numbered, but with no names ("Satch Boogie 1," "Satch Boogie 143," etc.). Other guitarists sometimes refer to him as "Saint Joe;" there are numerous t-shirts to this effect.[citation needed]
Satriani has endorsed Ibanez's JS Series guitars, and Peavey's JSX amplifier. Both lines were designed specifically as signature products for Satriani.
Gear
Satriani uses a variety of gear. Many of his guitars are made by Ibanez, including the JS1000, and JS1200. These guitars typically feature the DiMarzio PAF Pro (which he used up until 1993 in both the neck and bridge positions), the DiMarzio Fred (of which he used in the bridge position from 1993 to present day), and the Mo' Joe and the Paf Joe (of which he uses in the bridge and neck positions respectively, from 2005 to present day). The JS line of guitars is his signature line, and they feature the Edge Pro, which is Ibanez's exclusive tremolo system. Satriani has also been found to use some of the older Edge tremolo systems such as the Original Edge tremolo. The mirrored silver guitar he used on the "Live in San Francisco" DVD is called Chrome Boy for obvious reasons. Satriani also uses a lot of other JS models such as the JS double neck model, JS700 (seen on the 1995 tour "Joe Satriani", fixed bridge with P-90 pickups), JS1 (the original JS model), JS2000 (Fixed bridge model) a variety of JS100s, JS1000s and JS1200s with custom paint work and a large amount of prototype JSs.
Satriani has used a wide variety of guitar amps over the years using Marshall Amplification in 2001, And was using Peavey Triple XXX amplifiers, but has recently settled on his signature series amp, the Peavey JSX. His effects pedals include the Vox wah, Dunlop Cry Baby wah, RMC Wizard Wah, a made in Japan BOSS DS-1, BOSS CH-1, a made in Japan BOSS CE-2, a made in Japan BOSS DD-2 and a standard BOSS DD-3 (used together to emulate reverb effects), BOSS BF-3, BOSS OC-2, Barber Burn Drive Unit, Fulltone Deja Vibe, Fulltone Ultimate Octave, and Electro-Harmonix POG (Polyphonic Octave Generator), the latter being featured prominently on the title cut to his 2006 Super Colossal.
Satriani has also partnered recently with Planet Waves to create a signature line of guitar picks and guitar straps featuring his sketch art.
Although Satriani endorses the JSX, he has also used many different amps in the studio when recording including the Peavey Classic, and has also been known to have used Marshall heads and cabinets, including live, prior to his Peavey endorsement. Most recently Satriani used the JSX head through a Palmer Speaker Simulator. Joe Satriani has also released a Class-A 5 Watt Tube amp called the "Mini Colossal".
Recurring themes
Satriani's work frequently makes references to various science fiction stories and/or ideas. "Surfing With the Alien", "Back to Shalla-Bal" and "The Power Cosmic 2000" are references to the comic book Silver Surfer while "Ice 9" refers to the secret government ice weapon in Kurt Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle. "Borg Sex" is a reference to Star Trek, which features a homogeneous race known as the Borg. Additionally, his albums and songs often have other-worldly titles, such as Not of this Earth, Is There Love in Space?, and Engines of Creation.
On the album Super Colossal the song titled "Crowd Chant" was originally called "Party On The Enterprise". "Party On The Enterprise" sampled sounds from the Starship Enterprise from the Star Trek TV show. But, as Satriani explained in a podcast,[4] legal issues couldn't get resolved and he wasn't able to get permission to use the samples. Satriani then removed the sounds from the song and called it "Crowd Chant."
"Redshift Riders" another song on the Super Colossal album is "...based on the idea that in the future, when people can travel through out space, they will theoretically take advantage of the cosmological redshift effect so they can be swung around large planetary objects and get across [the] universe a lot faster than normal," Satriani said in a podcast about the song.[5]
Discography
Solo albums
- Not of This Earth
- Surfing with the Alien
- Dreaming #11
- Flying in a Blue Dream
- The Extremist
- The Beautiful Guitar
- Time Machine
- Joe Satriani
- Crystal Planet
- Engines of Creation
- Additional Creations
- Live in San Francisco
- Strange Beautiful Music
- The Electric Joe Satriani: An Anthology
- Is There Love in Space?
- Super Colossal
- Satriani Live!
With other artists
| Year | Artist | Album |
|---|---|---|
| 1986 | Greg Kihn | King Biscuit Flower Hour Live |
| 1988 | Stuart Hamm | Radio Free Albemuth |
| 1991 | Alice Cooper | Hey Stoopid |
| 1996 | Joe Satriani / Steve Vai / Eric Johnson | G3: Live in Concert |
| 2003 | Joe Satriani / Steve Vai / Yngwie Malmsteen | G3: Rockin' in the Free World |
| 2005 | Joe Satriani / Steve Vai / John Petrucci | G3: Live in Tokyo |
| 2006 | Ian Gillan | Gillan's Inn |
| 2007 | John 5 | The Devil Knows My Name |
| 2007 | Dream Theater (spoken voice only) | Systematic Chaos |
Satriani has also composed many songs that are featured in the series of NASCAR based video games including NASCAR 06: Total Team Control.
Satch's "Summer Song" is included in the soundtrack for the video game Gran Turismo 4. "Summer Song" is also included on the Formula 1 game for the Sony PlayStation, along with "Back to Shalla-Bal."
Philanthropy
In 2006, Satriani signed on as an official supporter of Little Kids Rock, a non-profit organization that provides free musical instruments and free lessons to children in public schools throughout the U.S.A. Satriani has personally delivered instruments to children in the program through a charity raffle for the organization and, in common with Steve Vai, sits on its board of directors as an honorary member.
References
- ^ a b John R., Luini. "Joe Satriani Biography". ForeverJoe. Retrieved 2007-1-13.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|accessdate=(help); Cite has empty unknown parameter:|coauthors=(help) - ^ a b Shrivastava, Rahul. "Joe Satriani Interview". BBC. Retrieved 2007-1-13.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|accessdate=(help); Cite has empty unknown parameter:|coauthors=(help) - ^ Harris, Rich. "Ibanez JS Joe Satriani Guitar Specs". Retrieved 2007-1-13.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|accessdate=(help); Cite has empty unknown parameter:|coauthors=(help) - ^ Joe Satriani's G3 rounds up another trio of guitar slingers
External links
- Official Website
- Audio Interview with Joe Satriani on Guitar Jam Daily, June 2007
- 2006 Joe Satriani Interview by Brian D. Holland, for Modern Guitars Magazine
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