MusicRadar.com recently caught up with CHICKENFOOT guitarist Joe Satriani and bassist Michael Anthony. An excerpt is available below:

Q: The set you did on the Road Test dates was probably 80 percent the new album. What was it like playing shows where you've actually had to cut songs?

Michael Anthony: "It was pretty cool being able pick and choose songs instead of having to draw everything out. I mean, we did some jamming, but there has to be some limits. Sammy's a pretty talkative frontman, but even he runs out of stories to tell!" [laughs]

Joe Satriani: "I think we did practically the whole new record – the only thing we didn't play is the song 'Different Devil'. We held off on that one because it's going to be released as a single in January, I think."

Anthony: "'Different Devil' should sound really great live. It'll be cool to do that when we do our full-on tour. What I like now is that we can really move songs around. We don't have to stick to an exact script."

Satriani: "Putting a set together is a funny thing: You want it to have ups and downs sand tell something of a story, and I'll admit that I had a hard time picturing how some of the new songs would translate without the production of a big show. Because we just played clubs for the initial run, we did things pretty bare bones. I was concerned about that, but as turned out, everything was fantastic. People reacted to the new stuff like they were old favorites."

Q: Chickenfoot III is a bit darker in nature than the first album. How have you seen the songs going down live?

Anthony: "Really, really well. A song like 'Come Closer', which is a different type of thing for us, or 'Something's Going Wrong', which is way different from anything I ever did in VAN HALEN, to slow it down that much – the audiences were reacting."

Satriani: "The themes and the feel of the new songs seemed to have an exhilarating effect on the audiences. Exhilarating in a funny way: there's a kind of relaxed vibe to the songs on the record; they're very loose. So even though some of the things are darker and heavier, they still come as being fun."

Anthony: "You do a run of dates like this to test the waters, to see what's going to work. Luckily, we found out that it all works."

Go to this location for the complete interview.