Given how many times guitar heroes Joe Satriani and Steve Vai have toured together as two-thirds of guitar supergroup G3 — the third slot often being filled by a rotating cast of Eric Johnson, John Petrucci, Robert Fripp, Steve Morse and others — it’s a little hard to believe the two of them have never toured together as co-headliners.
At least that was the case until the “Satch Vai Tour” — Satch being Satriani’s nickname — kicked off in March.
A brief G3 tour with Johnson preceded it in January and February.
“We had a lot of offers to continue the G3 tour through the rest of the U.S. and even Europe, but the idea got started a bit late by modern industry standards,” Satriani says by phone from a Satch/Vai tour stop in Chicago. “You know, you’ve got to book things almost a year and a half in advance. So Eric was unable to do it.”
People are also reading…
There was also a lot of demand for Satriani and Vai to finally tour as a duo, to which they said, “Let’s do it,” Satriani recalls. “We can finally do what we’ve always talked about.”
To sweeten the deal even further, they were pitched the idea of recording a song together, so they came up with the Satch/Vai track “The Sea of Emotion, Pt. 1,” which they released in March.
Part 1 implies the need for a sequel, which will eventually be provided. Not only will there be a part 2, but also a part 3 that the duo will record for an album they expect to release next year.
Part 3 will begin with a snippet of a guitar duet that Satriani and Vai recorded a half-century ago.
Wait, what?
It’s true. When they were kids, Satriani and Vai lived in the same town on Long Island, went to the same high school and had the same music theory teacher. Vai, who was then 12, became one of 15-year-old Satriani’s first guitar students.
“I think the first lessons were $5,” Satriani says with a laugh. “He used to take them with a friend because they couldn’t afford the $5 separately, so they both chipped in $2.50.”
Somewhere along the line, they recorded some music on a reel-to-reel tape, which Vai has managed to preserve for all these years.
The way the Satch/Vai concerts break down is that Vai opens the show with an hourlong set that includes a song performed on his famous three-necked “Hydra” guitar. Then Satriani takes over for the second hour, after which they join forces for the encore.
Together, they’re playing “The Seas of Emotion, Pt. 1,” of course, as well as some cover tunes. So far, they’ve included the Kinks’ “You Really Got Me” (via Van Halen), and Metallica’s “Enter Sandman.” That band’s lead guitarist Kirk Hammett was also a Satriani guitar student, but that is another story.
Briefly, though, Satriani notes, “Every night I go, ‘Well, I’m up here in front of thousands of people and I’m playing one of my student’s guitar solos.’ It’s a great reversal.”
Both Vai and Satriani have had long, storied careers. When he was 18, Vai was hired by Frank Zappa to transcribe his work. He later became part of Zappa’s band, demonstrating a prowess so astonishing that Zappa referred to it as “stunt guitar.”
After that, Vai became a solo artist, joined David Lee Roth’s post-Van Halen band, portrayed the Devil’s guitarist in the film “Crossroads,” and played in bands or on albums by Whitesnake, Alice Cooper, Ozzy Osbourne and many others. He’s released 10 solo albums and won three Grammy Awards.
Satriani rocketed to fame with his second solo album, 1987’s “Surfing with the Alien,” which produced several instrumental radio hits, a rare thing. He has followed that with 16 more solo albums including “The Extremist,” “Crystal Planet” and most recently “The Elephants of Mars.”
He initiated G3 in 1996. Satriani has no Grammy wins, but he’s been nominated 15 times.
He only needs a few more nods to match Susan Lucci’s Daytime Emmy drought.
Among Satriani’s many guitar gigs are stints with Mick Jagger, Deep Purple and the Sammy Hagar/Michael Anthony/Chad Smith supergroup Chickenfoot.
After the Satch/Vai tour, he’ll join Hagar, Anthony, and Jason Bonham for the “Best of All Worlds” tour. He’s working on learning Eddie Van Halen’s solos now — no small task.
“It’s fun. It’s frightening,” he says.
Speaking about Vai, Satriani says, “He’s got a heart of gold and is just really determined when it comes to focusing on what he wants to achieve at any given moment. He has natural talent, the physicality — the hands, the fingers — the timing, the rhythm, the pitch, all those things.”
Comparing and contrasting their styles, Satriani says that he grew up listening to his siblings’ and his parents’ records, giving him an education in the Beatles and the Stones, of course, but also the Dave Clark Five, Jimi Hendrix, Wes Montgomery and Beethoven and Mozart.
Vai’s tastes are younger. When they were student and teacher, Satriani recalls, Vai would bring in records by Bachman-Turner Overdrive and Kiss. So even though there was not much of an age difference between the two, “there was a slight generational shift there.
“So that means I play maybe more in a blues-rock/classic-rock style, and Steve is just a little bit more of the next generation. I don’t know what you’d call it. He sort of invented his own genre.”
Given that Satriani and Vai more or less started out together, played similar gigs and joined forces at various points in their careers, it’s still a pleasant surprise for them to wind up together right here and right now.
“There are a lot of things that will make Steve and I look at each other in disbelief,” he says. “Last night, we were having dinner at his brother’s restaurant in Naperville. And we were reflecting on how unlikely and impossible our lives have gone to get to this point. I mean, we were just two little New York, Italian-American kids that wanted to rock and roll forever, you know? And somehow, we’ve been able to do that.”