YOUTUBE IT
This performance showcases Satch’s holier-than-thou tone, while he and Anthony break it
down for a killer guitar-bass shred duet
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Chickenfoot - Get Your Buzz On Live
Click here to see a particularly rockin’ (check
out Satriani’s wailing solos) cover of Hendrix’s
“Foxy Lady,” with Chickenfoot playing to a
packed crowd in Cabo. The video is an out-take from the group’s Live in Cabo webcast.
You Tube search term: Chickenfoot -
“Foxy Lady” (Live in Cabo) [HD]
Chickenfoot performs “Oh! Yeah!,” the first
single from their 2009 self-titled album
You Tube search term: “Oh! Yeah!” by
Chickenfoot from the Tonight Show with
Conan O’Brien
hours in the day of Joe Satriani,
there are so many different
kinds of music running through
my head, and if I’m hanging
around at home I play lots of
different stuff. Stuff that you
would never release or you
wouldn’t want people to hear
because they wouldn’t know
what you were or what kind of
stylistic box to put you in.
But that’s typical for the way
that a musician thinks. An art-
ist is just simply being artistic,
so when they see a mandolin,
they start playing some man-
you’re making an album you
can’t do that. It’s very difficult
to have a career based on being
scattered stylistically.
But you’re the guy who
whipped rock guitarists of the
’80s into getting serious about
learning music theory and
studying the enigmatic scale
and pitch axis, among other
things, and now it’s back to
the basic blues scale. Isn’t that
quite a contrast?
Satriani: It is. That’s a really
good question you’re asking
carry any more extra weight
than a 12-note scale. Whether a
scale is called Lydian Dominant
or whether it’s called blues, it
doesn’t mean one is better than
the other.
Whether a scale is called Lydian Dominant or whether it’s called
Blues, it doesn’t mean one is better than the other. A complicated
arrangement is not necessarily better than a simple arrangement.
It’s just music and what matters is whether it’s powerful—does it
move people? Does it move you, the artist? —Joe Satriani
Joe, Chickenfoot’s music is
definitely less complex than
a lot of your own music. No
adjustment issues?
Satriani: Well, Sammy’s always
dogging me about two things.
He wants me just to go crazy.
He doesn’t want me to work
things out, and he’s always trying to convince me that commercial success is a good thing.
My success is based on being
under the radar, so it’s natural
for me to go for the odd, not
the accessible. The joke in the
band is that whenever we’re
working on a song that we
think might have some commercial success, it’s guaranteed
to put me in a bad mood and
I’ll want to stop working on it.
dolin music. Someone says,
“Check out this piano,” they sit
down and they play whatever
piano music they know or like
at that moment. We’re always
hopping stylistic fences or at
least, I should say, I am. I’m
always playing lots of differ-
ent things on an average day
at home playing music. When
and the answer is quite pro-
found for someone like me who
started out knowing absolutely
nothing and, little by little,
learning from very gifted and
patient teachers. What I’ve
arrived at, which is what all
musicians arrive at once they
get through all the learning, is
that a three-note scale doesn’t
it. I’ve been as good a student
as I can possibly be all these
years. So I can say, “Yeah, I can
play harmonic minor scales har-
monized in any way that you
want, in any key, anywhere on
the guitar.” None of that phases
me anymore. So that means
that everything’s equal. I’m not
impressed by complications.
“Different Devil” comes to
mind as one with a commercial sound.
Satriani: I think the worst
mood I was ever in with
Chickenfoot was when we
recorded that song. When I
brought the song in it was
about 90-percent finished and
I thought it could be a really
good and weird song—the
typical way I think of things. I
bring it in and everybody starts
tidying it up, and then I start
