It’s a truth universally acknowledged that playing through, say, Eddie Van Halen’s rig doesn’t magically turn your playing style into Van Halen’s, as Billy Corgan once learned.
Now, as Joe Satriani and Steve Vai prepare to cement their half-century bond with a collaborative album, The Sea of Emotion, they look back on their years touring together with the G3 project – including the time Billy Gibbons and Brian May plugged into Satch’s amp.
“Do you remember when Billy Gibbons came up and played with us on G3?” Vai says in conversation with Satriani for Guitar World.
“We’re doing a jam lineup. It comes to Joe, and he does his beautiful melodic stuff. It comes to me, and I do my crazy thing. And then Billy, he just hits a few notes…”
“And suddenly we’re in Billy Gibbons World,” Satch continues. “He’d plugged into one of my amps, and you, me, and John Petrucci were just stunned. Like, how is it even possible that he could sound so much like himself?”
The same thing happened when Brian May ran his guitar through their rig. “We’re just looking at each other, going, ‘There it is!’” adds Vai.
As for the differences between the Satch and Vai schools of virtuosity and how these manifest on the record, the two note that, despite using plugins for their new collaborative record, they didn’t compromise their individual playing styles or obscure the nuances of their performances.
“Even with plugins, it’s so obvious to hear the difference in the tones in our fingers,” Vai says.
“Yeah, you can’t help that,” asserts Satch. “That’s always going to happen. We just did a gig in Colorado Springs [on Sammy Hagar’s Best of All Worlds tour]. Vic Johnson just walked out and plugged into Sam’s amp, and it was remarkable how different he sounded. Same stage, nothing changed, y’know?”
SatchVai’s official debut lands on November 6, via earMUSIC.
For more from the dynamic duo, plus an in-depth analysis of the making of Crossroads and an exclusive interview with Alabama Shakes, pick up issue 611 of Guitar World from Magazines Direct.
