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In 1988, when Mick Jagger needed a guitarist who could easily play roles played by Keith Richards, Brian Jones and Mick Taylor, he called Joe Satriani. Five years later, when Deep Purple needed to sign a guitarist at the last second after Ritchie Blackmore left the band, they also chose Satriani. And when Alex Van Halen was looking for someone to somehow fill in for his brother Eddie Van Halen on a possible tribute tour with David Lee Roth in 2022, he also turned to Satch.
The Van Halen drummer’s suggestion to honor Eddie, who died in 2020, never got beyond the idea stage, but Satriani is still eagerly learning VH’s songs. That’s because Sammy Hagar and Michael Anthony – who had previously worked with Satriani in Chickenfoot – recruited him, along with drummer Jason Bonham, for next summer’s Best of All Worlds Tour. The concept is to give fans a super dose of Van Halen classics from all eras, along with a few tunes from Hagar’s first band Montrose, his solo career Chickenfoot and Satriani’s own extensive catalog of work.
We hopped on Zoom with Satriani to talk about the genesis of the tour, his history with Van Halen, his approach to Eddie’s playing, and his upcoming G3 reunion tour with fellow shredders Steve Vai and Eric Johnson.
Tell me your first memory of ever hearing Van Halen’s music.
I was in my apartment in Berkeley. I had my guitar on and practiced early in the morning. I usually turn on the radio, drink my coffee and just play along with whatever is playing. And suddenly, without any introduction, “Eruption” sounds. I was shocked, spellbound, overjoyed.
I was so glad that someone decided to actually do it. I heard all of these elements that were part of my upbringing as a guitarist. At the same time, I felt that guitar playing was under siege. People always said, “Play less, turn it down, clean it up.” And here comes this guy who pushed all those comments aside. He said, “No, I’ll just do what I want to do and I’ll put everything into it.”
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I remember getting this [first Van Halen] Record it, bring it to rehearsal, bring it to a friend’s house and say, “You have to hear this. This guy is really doing it.” And back then, people either loved it or they hated it. When they heard Talking Heads, they didn’t want to hear Van Halen. But I looked past the whole thing they were doing culturally or stylistically. I was just mesmerized by Eddie’s playing. I just thought, “This guy is a genius, what he does with six strings is incredible.”
Before we delve deeper into Van Halen, I want to talk about the year ahead. I’m just looking at your calendar and I think there are just so many appointments.
This will be great. It’s so diverse, so confusing. I’ve never cruised before and I’m taking the Monsters of Rock cruise. And then spending so much time with Steve [Vai] will be great. We will have a lot of fun on our own tour.
Before the co-headlining tour with Steve, you’re doing the G3 tour with him and Eric Johnson. What made you decide to return to the original trio from the 1996 tour?
Someone reminded me that the anniversary was coming up in a few years and I thought it would be fun to recreate it. And then my son ZZ called me and said he wanted to make a film about the beginning of his touring life at the age of four, which coincided with the first G3. I thought, “Well, I’ve got to get the reunion done so we can get the movie and the tour and integrate everything all at once.” It just grew momentum from there.
I just saw a jam where the three of you played “Red House” on the first G3 tour. Do you have any idea what jams you’ll be playing here?
It is interesting. Steve isn’t a blues player, but he loves to try. He loves to put himself in there and subvert the genre with his bizarre interpretation. Eric is a true traditional blues player. I’m in the middle. And so there are things like this where we have to deal with our differences. When we started, I said, “The jam songs aren’t going to be our songs. There will be songs from our past that everyone knows, but they will be shocked when they see us play because they only know us from the songs that made us popular.”
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I want to go back to the Mick Jagger tour that you did in 1988 because that’s the first time you did something like that Sammy Hagar tour. What did you learn from this experience?
It was completely wrong that I got this job. I thought, “Oh, I don’t play like Brian Jones and Keith Richards and all those great players who were part of the Rolling Stones.” And one day in rehearsal I told Mick, “I don’t play like any of those guys.” What should I do? How close should I get?” And he said, “Oh, just forget about it. Just get into the song and do your thing. That’s all you have to do.” And he didn’t want me to replace anything unless he thought I was really feeling it.
When you play “Sympathy for the Devil,” I can’t get Keith Richards’ great solo out of my head. But you play around it. I think I discovered back in 1988 that when you quote the most important moments, you trigger something in the audience and they become very receptive to the way you play it.
Have you ever met Eddie Van Halen?
I only met him once. Unfortunately I never got to know him. He entered the studio around 11 a.m. I’ve been working on it [1992’s] The Extremist album with [producer] Andy Johns, who was working with Van Halen at the time. And unfortunately we were working on a song that didn’t work. I ended up keeping it a secret. But Eddie came in with a cigarette, a beer and the whole thing.
I was just deep into this title and then suddenly one of my heroes comes in. We just sat there and listened to that song for five minutes. He made some cool comments and then Andy came into the room and called him out and they left and got in trouble. And I never saw Andy the rest of the day. That was the only time I met Eddie.
When you formed Chickenfoot in 2008 with Chad Smith on drums, you never played a single Van Halen song on your tour. Why was that?
When we first met at Sam’s studio we started messing around and just playing covers. That’s how the band came about. And I forget what happened, but at some point everyone looked at each other and said, “You know what? No Chili Peppers, no Van Halen, no Surfing With the Alien. We should just do what we did the other night in Vegas,” which was play Zeppelin and Traffic and the weirdest cover songs. This was an opportunity where we were able to go beyond our main performances and connect based on our shared influences. That was it. We made it a rule.
You’ve already talked about Alex Van Halen reaching out to you about possibly doing a tour with him and David Lee Roth. Did it achieve anything other than a few conversations on the phone?
Nearly. When they first called me, I said, “Why me? I don’t play Eddie at all.” But I think I said yes before the rest of my brain told me it was a bad idea. I thought, “They probably asked all the other eligible candidates, and they had the common sense to say, ‘There’s no way I’m going to do that.'”
I was just so excited about the idea of paying homage to Eddie and the band’s legacy and playing with Alex and Dave. I just thought, “Well, sure. If I have time, I can figure out the roles and find out how Eddie played them.”
But to be honest, after about three or four weeks of really digging into the catalog that I had avoided for decades because I didn’t want to rip Eddie off, I thought, “Wow, I really don’t play like Eddie.” .” . This will take months.” I knew I could do it, but I also knew I needed time to completely change the direction of my technique.
I also had a record to finish and a tour to do. And so I called them and said, “Hey guys, thanks, but I’m not your type.” And then they talked me out of quitting. I think this happened twice. And I thought, “Okay, they had all sorts of good reasons why I had to do it because I was the guy.” So I thought, “Okay, but…”
Little things popped up, like playing in Central Park at one point, but for some reason they failed. I just started thinking, “Well, that’s really never going to happen.” And I was so busy finishing The Elephants of Mars and getting the tour going.
When I saw Wolfgang playing his father’s stuff with the guys from the Foo Fighters, not only did I get a big lump in my throat, but I also thought, “Oh, that’s how it’s supposed to go.” That’s the best thing I have ever seen. Why do you even think you would invite someone else, especially someone like me, to pay tribute like that?” So I just thought it was over. And I could exhale and say, “I can just be Joe again.”
As a fan, are you hoping that Alex will get out there and do something at some point?
Yes. He’s such an incredible drummer. It’s really sad to think that he won’t come out again and give us another decade of absolutely great music, but that’s his decision. It’s very hard to get over losing a family member with whom you made so much beautiful music. So I don’t know if that will ever happen. I hope it is. He is undoubtedly invited to share in what Sammy has put together.
How did Sammy approach you about this tour?
He called me and said he had a great idea to go out and cover all the fabric. He wanted to do the solo work of Hagar, Montrose, Chickenfoot and Van Halen, perhaps focusing on 1995 [Balance] Trip. This tour was largely of his era, but it also went back to the David Lee Roth era. He said he wanted me to do a few of my songs and it would be Jason and Mike and him.
It was a wonderful invitation. I have great memories of playing with Mike and Sammy and it would be just great to play with them on stage again. And I’ve known Jason since 1990 or something like that. We meet again and again and always say: “We’re going to do something.” And then suddenly it happened.
You had no reservations about agreeing?
No. I mean, again, I’m stupid. I’m just thinking about how fun it would be, just from an audience standpoint. They can hear these great songs, they can see some of the OG members of Van Halen, and Jason and I would do our best to make everyone feel great because we represent all of these eras of music.
I have a feeling the set will be about 75 percent Van Halen. Is that right?
I don’t know. Last time I checked, it’s still November 2023. [Laughs] You’re asking me about a setlist that will actually be ready by mid-July. I think there are some obvious songs though, and Sam has some favorites that he always thought were underrated, “The Seventh Seal” or something like that. But then there are the number one ones Hits, and we will play them.
I just think that putting together a show can’t just be about songs. It has to flow and the band has to be represented somehow in a way that can really carry the audience along. So you can’t play everything. If you’re lucky enough to have a long career, you realize that you need to constantly practice triage with your setlist.
When Sammy toured with The Circle and they performed a Roth-era Van Halen song, Michael sang it. Do you think that will happen again, or could Sammy sing a song like “Jump” like he did during his time with Van Halen?
I don’t really know what the plan will be this far in advance. I mean, I could see Sam and Mike trading night after night about who was going to sing the stuff. My concern is that they’ve been playing this stuff forever, right? I don’t have that. The most I’ve played of this material was for Howard Stern last week. And we played a lot of half songs.
I’ll push them the way you push me for a set list. I’m going to push as quickly as I can because even though I still have all these other tours to do, I still need to review all of these things in my mind. There’s fingering, there’s picking, there’s guitar choice, there’s amp choice. These things are solely my responsibility and I know I have to prepare for them.
Will you try to imitate Eddie’s guitar tone?
It’s very interesting. There’s an interesting time with Ed, which he begins with an old Marshall [amp] head and it continues into the late 1980s and gets more and more complicated with these Marshall heads. And then at some point it works and he goes to a Soldano [amp] and he begins development of the 5150 with Peavey and then progresses further. And then the new era of [EVH] 5153 starts.
For a guitarist, it’s a remarkable series of changes that give you different ways to do things. And one doesn’t work for the other. It’s very difficult to use one of the brand new amplifiers to represent anything from the first album. And it’s difficult to play later songs with the earlier setup. So for the last week my idea is the setup he used on Live Without a Net in 1986. He still used Marshalls, but it was really complicated.
If you’ve ever seen pictures of the system, you’ll see how he used the amplifiers, he didn’t just plug them in and crank them up. They went into power soaks. They came into effects loops and sophisticated effects processors and then into power amplifiers. It was a complicated setup, but at the heart of it was his incredible intuition. He just had a wonderful feel for the guitar. He played with such intensity. I don’t want to generalize and say he made everything sound good, but he did it. [Laughs] When you have one of his guitars and his setup or model, you realize that he simply cannot be replaced.
But as a direct answer to your question, I’ll try to get close to the sound of each of these eras. First and foremost it will be for me. It will help me get ready to play the roles the way he did. And he played them one way on the album, and then he played them live every night. As far as I know, he changed them every night. He just couldn’t be held back. That was the beauty of his enthusiasm for playing guitar and being a musician. He just kept reinventing the voices and chords and how he embellished them and how he soloed over them. When tasked with imitating him, ask yourself, “Well, what moment?”
Do you think you will play “Eruption”?
I don’t believe. I mean, this isn’t a Van Halen tribute tour. If it were, it would be a completely different job for me. But I still have to play Chickenfoot, Montrose, Hagar and Satriani stuff. That’s why I can’t completely get these things out of my head. It would be like, “Would you see Eddie Van Halen doing ‘Surfing With the Alien’ and ‘Rock Candy’ and all that?” It would be different.
For one evening it would be fun to really go out and interpret someone else’s material. But since it’s a tour and we have to be great throughout, I think I might try to put together a medley of solo pieces that can be incorporated into the show somehow.
The tour is a great opportunity to shine a spotlight on Michael Anthony. He is so underrated as both a bassist and a singer.
Mike is an incredible musician. He has one of those talents where a lot of his musicality is in his brain. He can remember everything. He never forgets a part of a song. And I think because he played the trumpet for a long time, he conceptualizes notes in his head. It’s not just a guy looking at the fretboard and memorizing the pattern. The music is completely inside him.
I always text him. I say, “I just saw this video clip from a few decades ago and I’m thinking, ‘Mike, how did you sing, play bass like that, bend over and let David Lee Roth do a double flip?’ over your back and then keep playing?’” But that’s Mike Anthony. I mean, he’s great. He was also great in the studio with Chickenfoot.
And Sammy still sounds great, especially considering he’s 76. He sounds decades younger.
Sam has the two most important things. His voice is as big as the Empire State Building. It’s a massive sounding, beautiful thing. And he can communicate with people. It’s not often that you get these two elements combined in one person, incredible vocal qualities and the ability to reach every single person in the audience.
As unlikely as it may sound, are you hoping Roth will stop by at some point to sing a song or two?
I hope Dave comes. And I definitely hope Alex wants to visit us. I think it will be a really great tour. We just need to somehow find a way to actually rehearse the songs so we can figure out how they flow, and I know we’ll get there. I saw in the schedule that there are weeks of rehearsals, so that’s good.
These guys will have to get used to me. I mean, they played with it [The Circle guitarist] Vic Johnson, who is great and has all these things figured out. He had to play all decades of this music over and over again.
What was the experience like playing with Howard Stern? I’m sure that was stressful.
It was. When Sam called I was literally covered in paint trying to finish some canvases and guitars for Wentworth Gallery. And I said, “Guys, I haven’t played guitar in a few weeks and I won’t be able to practice until a week before. Maybe I’ll listen to some songs, so tell me what songs they are.”
Sam kept saying, “Oh, don’t worry. We’ll just play 30 seconds of this song and 30 seconds of this song and Howard will ask you about your artwork and all this other stuff.” Of course none of that happened because by the time we got there it was already all these other new songs. And I kept saying, “Guys, I don’t know these songs, so I’m going to stare at you.” If you’ve seen the clips, I’m not staring. I look sideways, looking for a clue.
I didn’t have much time, but it was a labor of love for me. I was just like, “I don’t care if I messed this up.” I’m just going to do it because Eddie’s playing was great and people should know that. And if I could wake people up about Eddie again, that would be great.”
If the tour goes well, could you take it to Europe, Australia or other markets?
I think this is a great idea. I have been traveling around the world for several decades. And one thing I know is that when you’re lucky enough to play music that has really had a big impact on society around the world and really impacted culture, it’s a special experience.
I learned that when I went out with Jagger and you played a Rolling Stones song that everyone knows. A few generations of people know the song. And the catalog under Sammy Hagar, which includes Van Halen and Sammy stuff as well as Chickenfoot and Montrose, is really huge. And many hits have this quality. It was the soundtrack to people’s lives. So I think it should be something that should be spread around the world.
It must be flattering that both Alex Van Halen and Sammy Hagar independently decided that you were the only man for the job.
I can’t explain that. It’s funny because I have friends like Phil X or Nuno Bettencourt who I think really make Eddie great. And out there in the YouTube space there are people like Jean-Michel Sutcliffe who just blow me away with how close they are.
As the people at Howard Stern saw, it’s going to be really hard for me. I’ll need some practice, but it’s always been difficult. I’ve had some unique experiences, most notably through the G3 concert series, where I stand side by side with some of the best guitarists out there and we hang out backstage and practice and warm up together. So there are no secrets between us as to who can do what and who can’t.
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One of my first students early on was Steve Vai, and when I taught this 12-year-old child, I knew immediately that he would develop physical skills far beyond my abilities. So I learned very early on that not everyone can play everything.
Steve went through a little of what you’re about to go through when he was in the David Lee Roth Band.
I just talked to him about it yesterday. And he said there was no way he would be able to play the solos note for note. He said: “We are just completely different players. We don’t feel that way. And solos should be an honest expression of what you feel. So you’re doing the parts of the song, but in these other moments where Eddie was just letting things flow, it’s like he’s telegraphing you a license and saying, ‘Now it’s your turn to just express yourself.’ “