basic in my playing to really
hold it down.
Joe, with this band, do you
feel Eddie’s shadow lingering
over the music?
Satriani: It was obvious that, at
least for me, I’m not going to
try and recreate the over-playing
heroics of the ’80s that was pio-
neered really by Eddie. Nobody
can do it, really, like Eddie. So
why would you do it?
Anthony: I don’t want Joe to
do anything like Eddie Van
Halen or sound like him. We
get enough comparisons to Van
Halen the way it is [laughs].
People on the internet are like,
“Chickenfoot III...they’re jab-
bing at Van Halen III.” I have
to laugh at these references—
they’ll make them musically,
too. I’m thinking, “Do these
people sit around all day long
and try to find one note that
Joe has in common with Eddie
and just go off on it?”
Joe, on this record you seem
to play less technically than
someone might expect, given
the band’s lineage.
Satriani: That can be said for
everybody in the band. Sammy
can try to sing higher than he
did with Van Halen, although
I can’t imagine trying to sing
higher than that [laughs]. Chad
can try to be funkier than he
is with the Chili Peppers and,
as you mentioned, I can try to
do flashier, more outside stuff,
but that’s so calculated and so
wrong to me. It’s the antithesis
of why we got together.
Anthony: Obviously, when you
have a lead singer, you don’t
We’re always hopping stylistic fences or at
least, I should say, I am. I’m always playing
lots of different things on an average day at
home playing music. When you’re making
an album you can’t do that. It’s very difficult
to have a career based on being scattered
stylistically. —Joe Satriani
have to be playing notes every
second. So now Joe doesn’t
have to play the melody and
everything all the time on the
guitar. I know he enjoys doing
all the rhythmic stuff, too, and
not just being the guy playing
the lead all the time. Maybe he
is making his own conscious
effort to kind of hold back on
the album. All I can say to that
is that people should come see
us live—Joe’s on fire.
Joe, your older stuff like Not
of this Earth is more cerebral,
whereas this is more feel-good, jam music. Is it hard to
switch gears?
Satriani: No, it’s not. I know
that it seems odd from the
outside looking in. Twenty-four
