SIXTY SECONDS WITH...

A minute’s all it takes to find out what makes a great guitarist tick. Before he jumped into his limo for the airport we grabbed a track-by-track chat with virtuoso instrumentalist Joe Satriani about his new album, What Happens Next.

Joe Satriani gets technical in a track-by-track chat about his new CD, What Happens Next.

1 Energy

GT: Clocking in at around 180bpm this uptempo riffer is in your ‘uber surf’terrain with a melody that’s catchy and laid back feel; do you find you can have more to explore when the rhythm guitars are riffing fast?

Eb This is in tuning. What encouraged that and do you feel a noticeable sonic difference? JS: All tracks use E flat tuning. I started tuning down when I joined Chickenfoot and decided to stay there. I now use .010s on all my guitars as they sound very expressive with the E flat tuning. Fast tempos and riffing offer some interesting opportunities for lead guitars to either ‘join’ the stampede or lay back and provide a different point of view.

2 Catbot

GT: This is a great riff stomper. Is that a bass or synthesiser playing the riff? The lead guitar sounds like a Fuzz-Face pedal and an Octaver; what did you use? JS: I played the riff first on a synth then doubled it on guitar. The melody utilises a plug-in called Recti-fi. I played my JS through a wah-wah then into a SansAmp plug-in followed by the Recti-fi.

3 Thunder High On The Mountain

GT: There’s a sense of modern dance music to this. Do you listen to much electronic music? How are you playing the opening pedal-tone melody, tapping or pull-offs and hammer-ons? When the riff kicks in, it’s huge – how many guitar tracks were recorded? JS: Not much, but I seem to find the good stuff. The main riff is almost entirely first-string hammer-ons and pull-offs. The chorus riff is three guitars going through a Sola Sound Tone Bender MKll Pro. Awesome!

4 Cherry Blossoms

GT: There’s a rich tribal drum loop over which the guitar plays the melody. Is it neck pickup turned down? Pizzicato strings and guitar double up on a pattern that spans a couple of octaves. How did you come up with this? JS: Yes, I played the melody with my JS MCP with its volume control set at about 5. The chorus arpeggios just came to me in a flash. I thought they sounded like cherry blossom petals falling in the wind.

5 Righteous

GT: A very vocal sounding, effectenhanced melody. There’s a great pop music vibe to this, funky and nice chord changes. When you create melodies do you use guitar or prefer trying them out on a keyboard? JS: The melody is played through a Voodoo Vibe, no wah-wah. I prefer to sing the melodies over and over until I feel they are worthy of being played. It’s a great way to trim the note count down to its essential form.

6 Smooth Soul

GT: Your laidback sense of rhythm and syncopation is again to the fore here. When recording a piece like this, do you get the melodic feel on the first take or do you need to shape it over a few takes? How do you like to set your EQ as your tone is never piercing and has some low-end weight to it? JS: I go over songs like this with special care taken for each phrase. Sometimes you get lucky and the first take or two is the one. I think we paired a (Mezzabarba) Mzero pedal with a KSR amp to get the right tone.

7 Headrush

GT: This feels like a nod back to Surfing With The Alien. How do you balance new music with popular recordings you did many years ago? Do you feel a need to make links backwards? JS: I never think about it that way. I write how I feel then pick the songs that feel right for the band and the album. But, I do love boogies!

8 Looper

GT: The funky swing feel (as on Why from The Extremist) is present here. What funk music do you like? Did you create the melodic material first or was the groove the foundation to it all? JS: The loop and groove came first on this song. I just leaned on my roots listening James Brown, The Meters, Sly And The Family Stone, etc. Sixties and 70s funk and soul is a big part of my musical foundation.

9 What Happens Next

Bb. GT: This is in When sequencing the tracks, how conscious are you of different keys? Why did you choose this track to be the album’s title? JS: In E flat tuning it plays more like C# Dorian and B Mixolydian. I consider everything when writing a song: keys, key signatures, tempos, and modulations. They are all extremely important. The title refers to asking myself about what artistic direction to go in next, and soul searching about life in general.

10 Super Funky Badass

GT: Not only is it the longest track on the album but also one of GT’s favourites due to the groove, the melodies and the energy. When dealing with grooves with drummer Chad Smith how much room does he have? Did he know what you wanted or is there some discussion to be had? JS: This song came to me all at once with my guitar in hand. It’s a real celebration of the electric guitar for me. I love trying to wrestle a distorted guitar into submission and make it groove and wail. When you’re doing it right you feel like a Super Funky Badass, Ha! Chad is such a great musician that you can trust him with your material. He always swings, grooves, stomps, wows and shines all at once.

11 Invisible

GT: For the tremolo picking sections did you layer many guitars? The breakdown at 1:26 featuring Glenn Hughes’ bass and you joining in is tight and huge. The bass is quite distorted – do you like the bass to carry both low-end weight and enough treble to sit in with your guitars? JS: Just one melody guitar with two rhythms I think. Lots of quick vibrato bar work combined with finger vibrato for some unique melodic wiggles. Glenn makes such a huge sound with so much personality. He’s a great soloist as well. I like it when he’s given lots of room to fill up the sonic spectrum.

12 Forever And Ever

GT: There’s a mix of single-coil and humbucker tones on here; how do you decide what pickup and position you’ll use for a part? Is a lead melody always bridge humbucker? Around 1:33 there’s a syncopated dance/ Ibiza rhythm played; what inspired this? JS: The single-coil sounding stuff is actually my JS ART’s Sustainiac neck position pickup when it’s turned off. It has a wonderful tone that sits between a PAF and a sweet single-coil neck pickup. This song has quite a few sexy/romantic/exotic influences at play, and all combined with a very melodic blues element. I find that different compositional arcs allow you to present emotions and stories in unique ways. Some songs are best ‘through-composed’, whereas others benefit from a more ‘sectional. approach. Once again it’s a song-by-song decision you make. Joe Satriani’s new album, What Happens Next is released by Legacy Recordings/Sony Music on 12th January 2018. The G3 UK Tour featuring Joe Satriani, John Petrucci and Uli Roth starts April 24th 2018 at Southend Cliffs Pavilion. Tickets: www.satriani. com/road