Directed Energy: The Joe Satriani Interview, Part One Musoscribe: Bill Kopp's Music Blog informed pop

op music features, interviews, reviews and more

Musoscribe: Bill Kopp's Music Blog features, reviews, interviews and whatnot

Concert Review: Superhumanoids at Ashevilles Orange Peel, 20 Sept 2013

Directed Energy: The Joe Satriani Interview, Part One

Directed Energy: The Joe Satriani Interview, Part Two

Joe Satriani is that unique guitarist who is both revered by the crowd that digs technically amazing musicians, yet possesses a great deal of mainstream appeal. That success is a function of the fact that he writes accessible, catchy and memorable melodies, as opposed to merely crafting vehicles upon which to lay a bunch of dazzling fretwork. His latest album Unstoppable Momentum continues in that vein while pushing the boundaries in several directions. I recently spoke with Joe about the album and other topics. bk. Bill Kopp: Unstoppable Momentum seems like a perfect title for the new album; its something like your fourteenth album of new material. I have often wondered: when one removes the lyrical component from a song or, rather, never puts it in to begin with its up to the texture and melody to convey the thoughts and emotions associated with the song. When youre writing a song, do you have a story or ideas, so to speak, in your head? Put another way, even though there are no words, are your songs about things? Joe Satriani: Absolutely. I guess I took my cue from classical composers, jazz composers, and film score giants of the last few hundred years; they wrote amazing instrumental music about very specific things. Im writing music about people I know, people who I interact with, things that happen to me, things that I witness, things that I read about, and even things that are just fun to daydream about, to imagine. The songs are always about something. BK: I have your first two albums and the Dreaming #11 EP on vinyl. And I love those records. Your guitar playing is timeless,

http://blog.musoscribe.com/?p=4573[26/09/2013 19:26:57]

Directed Energy: The Joe Satriani Interview, Part One Musoscribe: Bill Kopp's Music Blog informed pop music features, interviews, reviews and more

and at least from the perspective of the record buyer seems to have exploded onto the scene fully formed. Two questions about that. One, how would you characterize the changes in your style, or approach to playing, since those early albums? JS: I like to think that in certain areas if I can go a little guitargeeky here that Ive gotten better at a number of things that I started working on when I was extremely young. A lot of that has to do with misdirected energy; when youre really young, youre full of energy, and sometimesyknow. Some of it gets burnt up in no direction at all. And you can keep at not only the composing, but the quest to be technically more effective. Because you dont want people to really be reminded of the technique; I prefer that its hidden. I dont want people to think of me that way; I just want my technique to serve the song. Sometimes, in other fields, you want to be rewarded for the display of technique, but thats actually the opposite of what Im looking for. The trick is to be able to have all that quality in your execution, but you only want your audience to hear the story, the emotion behind the playing. And thats what I hope Im getting better and better at with each record: at conveying music and emotion while the technique gets better. BK: The only thing about those early records that sounds dated is the drums; on the earliest material, its a little stiff and less organic than your later material. Would you agree, and if so, is that a function of (a) using real or non-electronic drums now, or (b) your loosening up in terms of your composition? JS: Its important to know that the very first EP that I did on my own label (Joe Satriani , 1984), there were no drums. There was no bass guitar, no keyboards. It was all guitar; a very avantgarde approach to making a guitar album. This was my reaction to trying to carve a new road out without stepping on accomplishments made by Jeff Beck, John McLaughlin, and other guitar instrumentalists who were very popular when I started learning to play. So I came at it from a really outside point of view. And then the second record I did was a full length record called Not of This Earth (1986), which got licensed by Relativity; that was the first full-length record that I did where I brought in some real drums, some drum machines, and I played bass and keyboards as well as guitar. I suppose that I and John Cuniberti, who engineered the record and co-produced with me, and drummer Jeff Campitelli we were always looking to do something a little bit strange. We were purposely saying, Were not gonna have a regular drum kit playing drum fills here and there. Were going to do, lets say, a drum machine kick drum, a real snare drum and hi-hat cymbals, and no drum fills. So in a song like Not of this Earth or even Flying in a Blue Dream, there are no drum fills at all. That might seem bizarre, but stylistically we were fans of Kraftwerk and unusual computer music as well as Hendrix and The Beatles. So what came out of that was a really strange combination of what you just mentioned, basically a stiffer rhythm section. What it was, was creating a different canvas for the guitar. And of course weve released so many live DVDs with all of those songs done in the human way, and its a very stark contrast, isnt it? Flying in a Blue Dream from Live in San Francisco (2001) and the version from the album are very different in their feel. continued

http://blog.musoscribe.com/?p=4573[26/09/2013 19:26:57]

Directed Energy: The Joe Satriani Interview, Part One Musoscribe: Bill Kopp's Music Blog informed pop music features, interviews, reviews and more

Follow the_musoscribe on Twitter and get notified when new features, reviews and essays are published. Tags: joe satriani

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 24th, 2013 at 5:34 am and is filed under instrumental, interview, new release, prog, rawk. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Leave a Reply
Name (required) Mail (will not be published) (required) Website

Submit Comment

The Musoscribe Blog is proudly powered by WordPress Entries (RSS) and Comments (RSS).

http://blog.musoscribe.com/?p=4573[26/09/2013 19:26:57]

Directed Energy: The Joe Satriani Interview, Part Two Musoscribe: Bill Kopp's Music Blog informed pop music features, interviews, reviews and more

Musoscribe: Bill Kopp's Music Blog features, reviews, interviews and whatnot

Directed Energy: The Joe Satriani Interview, Part One Album Review: Pete Ham Keyhole Street: Demos 1966-67

Directed Energy: The Joe Satriani Interview, Part Two

Continued from Part One Bill Kopp: Youve used keyboards before, of course, but the new album (and the last couple) features Mike Keneally , as opposed to on some of the earlier albums where you sometimes overdubbed keys yourself. Does having Mike on board allow you to expand what the keyboard is able to do in your music? Joe Satriani: Oh, absolutely. I still play keyboards on the album, but its easy to pick my stuff out: mine is the slow-moving keyboard kind of stuff the odd noises and things like that and Mike is a full-on keyboard player. Hes a virtuoso musician. BK: I remember him from his days with Frank Zappa . JS: Right. So if you take a song like Lies and Truths form the new record, there are some weird sustaining synthesizer notes going on throughout; thats my performance, from my home studio. But all of the really cool moving keyboards organs and harmonic synthesizer stuff going through the choruses thats all Mike, cause I cant play that kind of stuff. And Mike can improvise: he can give you unbelievable performances one after the other. Youre always spoiled.

http://blog.musoscribe.com/?p=4575[26/09/2013 19:27:06]

Directed Energy: The Joe Satriani Interview, Part Two Musoscribe: Bill Kopp's Music Blog informed pop music features, interviews, reviews and more BK: Following on that point, to what extent do you map out what you want Mike and the other players, for that matter to play on the records, and to what degree do you leave it up to them?

JS: Some of the songs come with quite a lot of recorded information that I prepare in my home studio. And we record along with the prerecorded tracks. Ill play the melody and solo live, and well be listening to my rhythm guitar tracks from the home studio. It might be that theres already an organ part, and I want Mike to play grand piano live, or there might be a song where theres almost nothing. In that case were playing as a live band in the studio. So it really depends song to song. Ill play the music for them in the morning; well listen to it two or three times. Then theyll make their own charts, and go out and fiddle with their gear to find the instruments and amplifiers that they thing are going to work best. And then we start recording impressions; I guess thats what youd have to call it. And I give them the freedom to do something to the song that they think would make it better. They listen to each other, and bounce off what theyre hearing. And then after about seven or eight takes, generally weve got something thats worth hearing. Its that easy. BK: If pressed to put into words how Unstoppable Momentum differs from your previous work, how would you respond? JS: Well, it might beits hard for me to say. Because thats a critics view, and I dont have that perspective. Im too close to it. But I can tell what I went into it trying to do. I tried to make it my most melodic record, and I wanted to break free even more from the constraints of the instrumental guitarist. So I felt like, If I want to do a song like Ill Put a Stone on Your Cairn, or I want to do Three sheets to the Wind, or I want to have songs like Jumpin Out and A Celebration on the same record, Im just gonna do it. Im just gonna let it happen; Im not going to let any exterior force make me think that I have to make all the songs sound the samethe same guitar sound, or playing a certain way. So in that way, if I try to distill the answer into the smallest sound bite, Id say it was really a melody-driven record. I tried to create some new contexts for myself as an instrumental guitarist. BK: I interviewed you in 2006 when Super Colossal came out. At that point you mentioned that for your G3 series, you had hoped someday to get Jeff Beck to participate. Do you still hold out that hope? JS: Were still bugging him! BK: Last question, completely out of left field. But Ive always wondered about this. Youre credited as a backing vocalist on the first (1986) Crowded House album. How did that happen? JS: I was in a band called The Squares . It was a three-piece out of the San Francisco Bay area. A guy named Andy Milton was our bass player and vocalist, and I was sort of the second lead vocalist and guitarist. We were almost produced by an up-andcoming producer named Mitchell Froom . So Mitch ended up producing Crowded House , and he was in L.A., working on that record and trying to figure out who to get to be background singers for this band. And he didnt want the usual L.A. guys. He remembered the vocal blend that Andy and I had, and he gave us a call. We flew down for about three days, and we sang background vocals on about six songs.

http://blog.musoscribe.com/?p=4575[26/09/2013 19:27:06]

Directed Energy: The Joe Satriani Interview, Part Two Musoscribe: Bill Kopp's Music Blog informed pop music features, interviews, reviews and more

I think its the only time Ive ever been paid to sing! That was the beginning and the end of my career as a singer. Its a wonderful album; you can really hear Andys voice; he had a beautiful voice. I just kinda blended with the drummer [Paul Hester ], and Andy would sing along with the lead vocal [Neil Finn ]. BK: Thanks for answering that, because I know its about as far off-topic as we could possibly go. JS: Youre right! Twitter and get notified Follow the_musoscribe on when new features, reviews and essays are published. Tags: joe satriani

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 25th, 2013 at 5:39 am and is filed under instrumental, interview, new release, prog, rawk. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Leave a Reply
Name (required) Mail (will not be published) (required) Website

Submit Comment

The Musoscribe Blog is proudly powered by WordPress Entries (RSS) and Comments (RSS).

http://blog.musoscribe.com/?p=4575[26/09/2013 19:27:06]