Joe Satriani
Joseph Satriani (born July 15, 1956)[1][2] is an American rock guitarist, composer, and songwriter. Early in his career he worked as a guitar instructor, with many of his former students achieving fame, including Steve Vai, Larry LaLonde, Rick Hunolt, Kirk Hammett, Andy Timmons, Charlie Hunter, Kevin Cadogan, and Alex Skolnick. Satriani went on to have a successful solo music career, starting in the mid-1980s. He is a 15-time Grammy Award nominee and has sold over ten million albums, making him the bestselling instrumental rock guitarist of all time.[3]
Joe Satriani
Joseph Satriani
Satch
July 15, 1956
Westbury, New York, U.S.
- Musician
- songwriter
- composer
- guitar instructor
- producer
Guitar
1978–present
In 1988, Satriani was recruited by Mick Jagger as lead guitarist for his first solo tour.[4] Satriani briefly toured with Deep Purple, joining shortly after another departure of Ritchie Blackmore from the band in November 1993.[5] He has worked with a range of guitarists during the G3 tour, which he founded in 1995.[6] Satriani has been the guitarist for the supergroup Chickenfoot since joining the band in 2008.
Early life[edit]
Satriani was born in Westbury, New York[1] of Italian descent.[7][8][9][10] His paternal grandparents were from Piacenza and Bobbio, while his maternal grandparents were from Bari.[11] He was raised Roman Catholic.[12] He was inspired to play guitar at age 14, after hearing of the death of Jimi Hendrix.[13] Satriani heard the news during football practice, where he then announced to his coach that he was quitting to become a guitarist.[14]
Satriani graduated from Carle Place High School.[15] 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. He began teaching guitar, with his most notable student at the time being fellow Long Island native Steve Vai (who also went to Carle Place). While he was teaching Vai, he was attending Five Towns College for studies in music. In 1978, Satriani moved to Berkeley, California, to pursue a music career. Soon after, he resumed teaching. His students included Kirk Hammett of Metallica,[16] David Bryson of Counting Crows, Kevin Cadogan from Third Eye Blind, Larry LaLonde of Primus and Possessed, Alex Skolnick of Testament, Rick Hunolt (ex-Exodus), Phil Kettner of Lȧȧz Rockit, Geoff Tyson of T-Ride, Charlie Hunter, and David Turin.
Music career[edit]
1980s–2000[edit]
Satriani started playing in a San Francisco-based band called Squares, which he formed with his brother-in-law Neil Sheehan in the late 1970s.[17] He was later invited to join the Greg Kihn Band, who were on the downside of their career, but whose generosity helped Satriani pay off the overwhelming credit card debt from recording his first album, Not of This Earth, released in 1986.[18] The same year, he also sang backing vocals on the self-titled Crowded House album.[19]
In 1987, Satriani's second album, Surfing with the Alien, produced radio hits and was the first all-instrumental release to chart so highly in many years. The track "Crushing Day" was featured on the soundtrack of a low-budget film titled It Takes Two.[20] In 1988, Satriani helped produce the EP The Eyes of Horror for the death metal band Possessed. That same year, he also released an EP titled Dreaming #11, which featured the song "The Crush of Love". In 1989, Satriani released the album Flying in a Blue Dream. It was said to be inspired by the death of his father, who died in 1989 during the recording of the album. "One Big Rush" featured on the soundtrack to the Cameron Crowe movie Say Anything.... "The Forgotten Part II" was featured on a Molson Dry commercial in Canada in 1993. "Can't Slow Down" featured in a car chase sequence in the Don Johnson-starring show Nash Bridges.
In 1992, Satriani released The Extremist, his most commercially successful album to date. The album was certified Gold in the United States and peaked at number 22 on the Billboard 200.[21] Radio stations across the US picked up "Summer Song", which got a major boost when Sony used it in a major commercial campaign for their Discman portable CD players.[22] "Cryin'", "Friends", and the title track were regional hits on radio. In late 1993, Satriani joined Deep Purple as a temporary replacement for departed guitarist Ritchie Blackmore during the band's Japanese tour. The concerts were a success, and Satriani was asked to join the band permanently, but he declined, having just signed a multi-album solo deal with Sony, and Steve Morse took the guitarist slot in Deep Purple.[23]
In 1996, Satriani founded G3, a concert tour intended to include a rotating trio of guitarists. The original lineup featured Satriani, Steve Vai, and Eric Johnson. The G3 tour has continued periodically since its inaugural version, with Satriani the only permanent member. Other guitarists who have performed in G3 include Yngwie Malmsteen, John Petrucci, Kenny Wayne Shepherd, Robert Fripp, Andy Timmons, Uli Jon Roth, Michael Schenker, Adrian Legg, Paul Gilbert, Steve Morse, and Steve Lukather. In 1998, Satriani recorded and released Crystal Planet, followed by Engines of Creation, one of his more experimental works featuring the electronica genre. Two shows at the Fillmore West in San Francisco were recorded in December 2000 and released as Live in San Francisco, a two-disc live album and DVD.
Musical themes[edit]
Satriani's work frequently makes references to various science fiction stories and ideas. "Surfing with the Alien", "Back to Shalla-Bal", and "The Power Cosmic 2000" refer to the comic book character 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 cybernetic race known as the Borg. His albums and songs often have otherworldly titles, such as Not of this Earth, Crystal Planet, 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". It would have featured sampled sounds from the Starship Enterprise from Star Trek. But as Satriani explained in a podcast, legal issues regarding the samples could not be resolved, and he was unable to get permission to use them.[72] He then removed the sounds from the song and called it "Crowd Chant". Its ending theme was inspired by composer Gabriel Fauré's "Pavane in F-sharp minor, Op. 50".[73] The song is used as goal celebration music for a number of National Hockey League and Major League Soccer teams, including the Minnesota Wild (NHL), New York Islanders (NHL), and New England Revolution (MLS).[74] The song is also used in the 2K Sports hockey video game NHL 2k10.[75]
"Redshift Riders", another song from Super Colossal, is "...based on the idea that in the future, when people can travel throughout 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", according to Satriani.[76] On the album Professor Satchafunkilus and the Musterion of Rock, the song "I Just Wanna Rock" is about a giant robot on the run who happens to stumble upon a rock concert.[77]