JOE SATRIANI - "I Think Most Artists Forget The Space They Were In When They Return To Earlier Work"

May 20, 2012, 12 years ago

news joe satriani riff notes

Ultimate-Guitar.com recently caught up with guitar legends JOE SATRIANI to discuss his new Satchurated: Live in Montreal DVD. An excerpt from the interview is available below:

UG: What do you find when you go back and listen to the earlier songs that appear on Satchurated?

Satriani: "It is unusual because I think most artists forget the space they were in when they return to earlier work. They can listen to it and go, 'Yeah, I know these were the chords and this was the setup but what was my mindset? What was I thinking of? Was it a person? Was I heartbroken? Was I happy about something? Why did I choose to express it this way?' And that seems to be for me the key is to try to get into the heart of that previous guitar player that I was to try to understand why I made those musical choices."

UG: On Satchurated did you try to bring back the emotions you first felt on an older song like 'Memories'?

Satriani: "Yeah, that’s the main thing is to try to jump into that cathartic experience again. But it’s been a long time I gotta say. 1988 was when the first live version of 'Memories' was recorded at the California Theater in San Diego that was a crazy day. A lighting guy fell from the rig right in front of us and his heart stopped twice while we revived him before the ambulances came and took him away. When they took him away he was dead. He subsequently recovered but we didn’t know that that day. So he gets wheeled out and the three of us—Stu Hamm, Jonathan Mover and myself—we’re like completely shell shocked. It was the last show of a two-month tour and we were completely burnt and we just saw this guy die and we all administered whatever CPR we knew. We were recording our second chance of the King Biscuit Flower Hour that night."

UG: That must have been pretty heavy.

Satriani: "That version of 'Memories' is pretty funny because right at the beginning of it, I make a big mistake and it was clear for everybody to hear when we released it on the EP, Dreaming #11, that there was nothing I could do about it. I just remembered that was such a cathartic day; just the whole day was incredible. Just to be able to get to the point where we could put on a good show for people that night was pretty intense and then having it turn into a live record. It became for a lot of fans a sort of what would you call it? A peak of live performances they expected us to get to but every time we would go to play it we’d be thinking about that afternoon and how difficult it was. And so every time we go to play 'Memories', I can’t help but think about that whole thing and not only the studio version but the live version. Then there’s the physical thing of being in my 50s now and I just have a different body and I’ve learned so many other ways to play things. As my fingers start moving in the old way I go, 'Boy, why did I do that? I should do it like this.'"

Go to this location for the complete interview.

Satchurated: Live in Montreal was produced by Satriani and Mike Fraser (AC/DC, METALLICA). The film by Pierre & François Lemoureaux, will also be available on 3D Blu-ray and standard definition DVD on the same date.

Satchurated was filmed live during Satriani’s The Wormhole Tour, supporting his studio album Black Swans and Wormhole Wizards, at the Metropolis in Montreal, QC. The December 12th, 2010 concert was filmed by Grammy and Emmy award-winning concert filmmakers Pierre and Francois Lamoureux.

Satchurated: Live in Montreal tracklisting:

Disc 1:

'Ice 9'

'Hordes Of Locusts'

'Flying In A Blue Dream'

'Light Years Away'

'Memories'

'War'

'Premonition'

'Satch Boogie'

'Revelation'

'Pyrrhic Victoria'

'Crystal Planet'

'The Mystical Potato Head Groove Thing'

'Dream Song'

Disc 2:

'God Is Crying'

'Andalusia'

'Solitude'

'Littleworth Lane'

'Why'

'Wind In The Trees'

'Always With Me, Always With You'

'Big Bad Moon'

'Crowd Chant'

'Summer Song'

Bonus tracks:

'Two Sides To Every Story'

'The Golden Room'


Featured Video

SANDVEISS - "Standing In The Fire"

SANDVEISS - "Standing In The Fire"

Latest Reviews