Mark: We’ll get on to the album in a second, but we have a question first about your book, “Strange, Beautiful Music” which we understand is out now?
Joe: Yeah it just came out this month. The crazy thing is, the book is getting great reviews, I’m very happy about that because I was very nervous about doing the book anyway, I always thought I would have to be a lot older to put out a book! But, it’s turned out to be a good creative kick in the pants, to get things going. One of the funniest things was we had to pick somebody to do the audio book, and it was one of those things that I had never thought of, and there are professionals at reading books! So, we went through the process of auditioning people from around the world who read books to see how they would lend their voices, and of course, I’m the worse person to judge, because I know everybody in the book personally, and this guy can’t possibly sound like him. So the whole process could’ve been a short comedic film, getting someone to imitate all the voices in the book, and yet he doesn’t really know what these people sound like, and he’s not attempting to sound like them, he’s just getting in to the story and getting a feeling, and in the end, I thought well, this is amazing because it gives a new life to the story, as there’s a pro coming in and adding a new layer of emotion to it. So, you can buy the audio book or the hard cover book, the thing about the hard cover book, is that it has some of the most embarrassing Joe Satriani photos you have ever seen in your life, and it’s worth the price just to see those!!
Mark: I will definitely take a look! This year’s album, “Unstoppable Momentum”, I think is my favourite album, and it’s getting some great reviews, it must’ve felt special, making it?
Joe: It did, I was very excited when I was putting the music together. I always think it’s distasteful for an artist to talk about their own music, but what was different about it for me was that I felt enthused to try something very different. I had a collection of songs that was going to force me to play in a very different way; all those things excite me on a daily level as a musician. When I’m out there playing my whole catalogue every night when I’m on stage, even with Chickenfoot, we’re out there, we have two albums and we play all those songs, so it’s no wonder when we get home we think, what’s next? What will I do tomorrow that’s different? That sort of feeling about the material I’ve written, and getting a whole new band, very close to going in to the studio was a risk, then coming up with a different sound for the album that was different from the others, and I think also the tour was an extension of that enthusiasm. What I do when I’m preparing for a tour, is run through the show, once every day for about three weeks, I put on my guitar and I just play along with every song, and every time the title track comes on “Unstoppable Momentum”, I feel so uplifted, I’m not quite sure why!! I can keep working on that song forever, it’s not easy for me to play that song, but I enjoy it so much, it’s got some sort of physical component to it that just puts a smile on my face. When I figure it out, I’ll let you know!!
Mark: I think it’s the emotion of the song, I think it’s one of those pieces of music that resonates with the soul! Reading through some of the interviews you’ve already done for the album, you’ve spoken about the technical stuff, and we’ll leave that for the guitar magazines, but talking about the album itself, there’s quite a bit of humour in there, how important is that to you, in your music?
Joe: Well, I think it is just a reflection of my personality. I like comedians, I like to laugh and face the horror of the world with a joke, gallows humour is sometimes what helps you through the hard times, we all face crazy stuff, and thank god we’ve got comedians to help us face some of these things, and laugh at ourselves. So, sometimes that spills over in to music, and it’s ok if it sounds a bit funny, certainly working on a song like “Three Sheets to the Wind”, I was trying to create a soundscape to a movie, about a guy going out on the town and he gets so tipsy, he somehow escapes some of the most harrowing events of the evening! I think we’ve all known people like that, and maybe we’ve been that person from time to time, where you just don’t know how you actually survived the night and got home! When I started writing that song, it’s not what my intent was, but as I started to move the arrangement towards the horns, I started to see that kind of movie in my head, and I thought I like this, the humorous side of it. When the song had a more serious tone, I actually had the feeling that it was too serious, too “guitar like”, and having the keyboards, brilliant playing by Mike, and of course the way Vinnie plays drums in that song, is just unbelievable, and it’s like a composition unto itself. Beautiful grooves, and the support, I brought in the horn arrangement, that was already done and recorded, so they played around with that stuff just brilliantly, so yeah, humour’s a good idea!!
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