The axe man cometh

Joe Satriani

Joe Satriani is getting photographed with his guitar collection after this interview.

The man whose been seen on his album covers playing, hugging, and even using one of his guitars as a walking stick, has been organising all 100-plus of them in preparation for the shoot with a Japanese magazine.

"It could be time for another cull," he laughs.

Satriani, one of the world's best and most technically gifted guitar players, plays one Auckland show on Saturday at the St James.

His collection of guitars includes vintage models that have "stood the test of time" like Fenders, Gibsons, Martin acoustics, telecasters, stratocasters, SGs, and Les Pauls.

But his favourite axe is the self-styled one that Ibanez make especially for him.

"Because it completely reflects what I need the guitar to do for a recording, and more importantly a live performance," says the former guitar teacher who taught Metallica's Kirk Hammett.

Apart from his 12-year-old son he doesn't teach anymore. "I just taught him Van Halen's Eruption and he picked it up really well," he laughs.

Satriani - number eight on Guitar Player magazine's Top 50 greatest guitarists list - is best known for setting the world alight with his instrumental rock on Surfing With the Alien, from 1987.

Growing up in Long Island, New York, and learning the guitar he was mad on Jimi Hendrix and played along to the guitar parts of Jimmy Page (Led Zeppelin), and Eric Clapton. He was also into jazz guitarist Wes Montgomery, blues guitarists Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters, Johnny Lee Hooker, and says Billy Gibbons from ZZ Top and Queen's Brian May had a huge influence on his playing.

He also pays tribute to Robert Fripp, the boundary-bending guitarist from King Crimson.

Fripp joined Satriani's last G3 tour, a series of concerts he does with fellow guitarist Steve Vai and one other guest.

During the tour Fripp got a lot of flack from the audience for his obscure sets. "But," says Satriani, "it was a classic example of the artists being ahead of the audience. That's okay, because I'm not putting the audience down I'm just saying that Robert is on to something that personally, is so moving, and so beautiful but finding the venue where to play it, is very difficult and it may not have been invented yet."

He says it was the same for Hendrix when he first started playing. No one liked the noise he made, especially the feedback.

Satriani faced similar opposition to, what he calls, his "instrumental rock".

"I recorded my first record [Not of This Earth, from 1985] on a credit card because I couldn't get anybody to fund it. That was back when rates in the US were like, 18 per cent," he laughs. "It was a stupid thing to do, but it seems like that [opposition] happens every time I release a record."

To this day, Rolling Stone magazine does not review his albums or put him in its tour listings even though he's sold 10 million albums.

He also remembers when Metallica were trying to get gigs in the San Francisco area in their early days and met similar resistance.

"I was in a band who really had no chance of success," he laughs, "and we were getting much better gigs [than Metallica]. I remember teaching Kirk Hammett and thinking, 'These guys are really where the future is, but why are they getting the short end of the stick'. Of course they went on to rule the world which is a common story in music, you hit resistance and you fight and eventually you win and take over."

While Satriani hasn't exactly taken over the world he is one of the most respected guitar players around - even if you don't think much of his instrumental jaunts.

But for such a technically proficient guitarist, where to from here?

"I'm pretty driven, and probably crazy about it. I've got notebooks filled with ideas for picks, straps and cables, amplifier circuits, guitar innovations, guitar riffs, and songs written on pads all over my house. And I'm very careful not to allow the convention of accepted guitar playing to control what I do with my compositions.

"You know, it was interesting, right before this interview I put on a record, Engines of Creation that I hadn't listened to in a year or two. It was a trance techno record. I was thinking, 'Boy, what was in my head to make me do that'. I realised that every time I go to make a record I'm always in some unusual space that seems right at the time and then a couple of years later I'm wondering, 'Who was that guy who insisted on recording that?"'

It shows Satriani isn't as earnest as his intricate guitar anthems imply.

Satriani is in New Zealand to support the release of his new album, Is There Love In Space?, which is out on wide release this month. Don't freak out, but he sings on it. So you'll hear Satriani sing as well as make-like-lightning and scorch up and down the neck. Although, he admits, he's no singer.

"I open my mouth as a balance between comic relief and to add a little variety for the albums. It's kinda tongue in cheek," he says.

Let's just say he lets his axe do the talking.

Performance

*Who: An evening with Joe Satriani, guitar legend
*When: Tomorrow night
*Where: St James, Auckland
Albums: Surfing With the Alien (1987), Time Machine (1993), Is There Love In Space (2005)