Joe Satriani on Oscar’s Guitar Shop
Perhaps you’ve heard his name before. He’s one of the most prominent names in rock guitar and has personally done wonders to bring attention to the instrumental guitar genre what with a career that spans over four decades that has been filled with more and more experimentation on pushing the ever-expanding guitar technology to limits that most minds don’t even think possible. Joe Satriani has built a career not only on the shoulders of inspiring melodies and lively tones, but also on his ability to fathom more and more musical atmospheres from the same twelve tones the rest of us have been using. Simply put the man is unprecedented.
The interview hits such topics from the recording of his latest album Unstoppable Momentum, to his works with Chickenfoot, to his tone tweaking, gear tastes, and signature gear, and touring as a solo musician and with G3.
The Interview
Interview highlights include Satriani’s response to his organic tone from his elaborate pedal board:
“I was getting all the gain from the heads and trying to create more of a wall of sound, and when the solo thing just kinda, y’know, popped out of nowhere I realized I can’t do all these unusual sounds I’ve created in the studio with just let’s say a Marshall with a master volume or something like that. I wound up trying to find out the simplest, smallest, most reliable thing I could find and I found those original Boss DS-1s. I struggled with which Marshalls I could use that were truly clean and I eventually landed on using the 6100s, which were very complicated amps for their time, but they did have an incredibly clean clean channel.”
The guitar-centric LA Talk Radio show Oscar’s Guitar Shop airs every Friday at 2:00 PM PST. If you’re like me and you have a day job that disregards your need for a social life you can download the show the next day for free here on iTunes. Current and archived episodes are available for download as well if you go to the podcast section on iTunes and subscribe to Oscar’s Guitar Shop.
Oscar’s Guitar Shop is also available at Stitcher.com for Apple, iPhone, iPad, Android, and Kindle devices.
Oscar’s Guitar Shop Sweepstakes
In case you’d missed the honorable mention from the last episode of Oscar’s Guitar Shop, Oscar is holding a bit of a sweepstakes that will be ending shortly. Entering into the sweepstakes comes from donations to the show and should your donation reach $30 or more then you’ve got yourself an entry. The reward that is on the line will grant one fortunate winner a one-year subscription to Music Connection Magazine as well as an Analog Man Super Modded Boss DS-1.
If you’re on the fence about whether or not to enter into the sweepstakes then you probably ought make a decision soon. The sweepstakes runs up until August 9th. That gives you a week as of this writing. For more info on the sweepstakes, other guests on Oscar’s Guitar Shop, and the radio show in general you can check out Oscar’s Facebook page to see what’s what in the radiant universe that is the guitar.
For more info on Joe Satriani and his comings and goings you can always check out Satriani.com.
