DETAILS
Jack Singer Concert Hall
Friday, October 3 - Friday, October 3
More in: Rock / Pop
Joe “Satch” Satriani is a living icon.
Even those unfamiliar with his name have undoubtedly heard his fingers tear through guitar strings like a hot knife through butter. If they haven’t heard any of his 12 studio efforts, most recently the verbose Professor Satchafunkilus and the Musterion of Rock, there’s still his fretwork with rock luminaries including Mick Jagger, Alice Cooper, Spinal Tap, Blue Oyster Cult and Deep Purple. Or maybe they’ve absorbed his music through one of his pupils, who have included the likes of Steve Vai, Metallica’s Kirk Hammett and members of Counting Crows, Testament and Primus.
Suffice to say, this is one guitar virtuoso who has his prodigious digits in every pie, his most recent endeavour being a rock quartet tentatively dubbed Chickenfoot, along with former Van Halen members Sammy Hagar and Michael Anthony, and Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith. Revered as the quintessential blender of technical musical mastery and soulful delivery, the 52-year-old shredder can do no wrong.
“I wouldn’t say that,” Satriani chuckles. “I’m human. I’ve ruthlessly blown songs. It’s inevitable that the calamity will visit one of us in the band at some point. [Sometimes when performing] you’re so stuck in the moment that you forget to go to the next part of the song. We find that comical, though. I can get so focused on one aspect of the song [that] I leave the group. If you could represent it in a cartoon, it’s like someone blowing up full of air and floating away. Other times, though, it’s just one big, wrong note. It’s like slow motion. You can see yourself going to it, and you tell yourself to stop, but you do it anyway. That’s when the rest of the band ruthlessly chastises me.”
In an almost Zen-like manner, though, Satriani confesses that he is even able to turn those bum notes — few and far between as they may be — into stimulation, constantly culling the inspiration for his songs from the human condition. To that extent, while seemingly impersonal to the outsider, he notes that Professor Satchafunkilus is the direct result of transforming his emotions into music.
“There’s no end to the mysteries, complexities, pure chaos, suffering and joy of life,” he says. “There’s not enough time to filter it and write about it. I wish I could slow the world down when I find something inspirational — stop time and write a song about it — but it just doesn’t work that way. Some songs present some answers to personal questions, some are fun and others are introspective. By the end of a project like Professor Satchafunkilus, you get the feeling it’s been some strange, cathartic process. It’s not fodder, it’s inspiration. Even reading the paper, you get stuff. When you’re like me, though, you have to turn it off sometimes. It can bring you down when you have other stuff to do.”
Discussing what inspires him the most, though, Satriani is adamant that the true essence of his music remains in the soul. While ability can be flashy and awesome, it is the passion with which something is related that makes it enduring and timeless. To that extent, he feels blessed that he has the mechanical means to reproduce these sentiments.
“The real musicianship is in your head and heart, a mixture of the visceral and visual,” he explains. “I like to blend technique with emotion, but I also think it happens somewhat inherently. I naturally use technique in my songs to project an emotion; to inspire the feeling that I want people to have.”
