Showing posts with label Joe Satriani. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Joe Satriani. Show all posts

Joe Satriani: Class is in Session

An interview with one of the greatest guitar players ever

By Peter Lindblad

Some of the greatest rock guitarists of this generation have been taught by Joe Satriani, and with 1987’s Surfing with the Alien, he defied the conventional wisdom that said an instrumental album could never be a commercial and critical hit. Satriani, who has won multiple Grammys for his work, has certainly taken the road less travelled to fame and fortune as a musician. 

Lesser known projects, like his revolving-door touring trio G3, have satisfied his thirst for musical adventure and exploration, while his 1988 stint as lead guitarist on Mick Jagger’s first solo tour provided a showcase for his technically flawless and emotionally transcendent guitar playing. Many feel that Satriani is the greatest guitar player ever, and even though some may argue that Eddie Van Halen has established himself as the pre-eminent shredder of his generation, a strong case can be made that Satriani has passed him by.
Nowadays, Satriani is plying his trade with the supergroup Chickenfoot, which includes veteran singer Sammy Hagar, ex-Van Halen bassist Michael Anthony and Red Hot Chili Peppers’ drummer Chad Smith. Not only is Satriani sparking the group’s dynamic musicianship with his mind-blowing fretwork, but also, Satriani is lending a hand with the writing. Chickenfoot III, the band’s second LP, has been out for a while now, and the band has been on the road with Kenny Aronoff serving as a replacement for Smith. In this interview, Satriani shares his experiences with Chickenfoot and his memories of playing with Jagger and how he was completely dumbfounded by the success of Surfing with the Alien.

Just from initial impressions, Chickenfoot III seems like a heavier album, maybe ‘70s inspired. Was that something you were going for?

Joe Satriani: I think we recognized that that’s what was happening as we were doing it. We never really plan things out. We record ourselves sort of bouncing off each other. That’s kind of like the way we operate, and every time somebody picks up on something like that, you just laugh and smile and say, “Oh, ’72 … you know.” (laughs) That’s just the way we are. That’s part of why stuck together, because we thought it was exciting but curious that we didn’t do like “Satch Boogie,” “Give It Away Now,” and a whole series of Van Halen songs put together. We just sort of … we make this other thing, and so we’ve respected it by not sort of analyzing it. We just let it happen.

From the beginning of Chickenfoot, it being a supergroup, everybody was wondering how the different styles would mesh. Was that a concern when you began?

JS: I’m sure that those guys … you know, Sammy, Mike and Chad were probably thinking about that for a while, because as the last guy to join the unit, I hadn’t spent any time with them, when they, for six months, were jamming down at the Cabo club, and they had a number of guitar players join them onstage. I don’t know at what point it got into their minds that they wanted to make a record, but at some point, they called me and they must have thought, “Boy, that guy’s weird, but maybe it’ll work.” (laughs) So, I’m just happy that they did call me because it turns out I just had a lot of music in my background that was perfect for this band. It’s so natural for me because it was like I was 14 years old again in my high school band. This is exactly the kind of music I dreamt about playing. It didn’t take any extra effort, it was just … I was just so excited I just wanted to make sure we had enough time to devote to the project with our crazy schedules.

I was going to ask you if Chickenfoot allowed you to come full circle in your career, because you started out really loving that music of the ’70s?

JS: It’s funny how that is. I mean, a lot of the music that I’m allowed to write, let’s say, or I’m inspired to write when I’m thinking about Sammy, me, Mike and Chad, I wouldn’t normally be able to pull it off in a solo situation. It would just be so difficult because that style of music is built around a singer being really expressive and charismatic. I mean, Sammy Hagar is just … he’s got an amazing voice. The sound quality of it is huge. He can literally dominate any mix that you bring his voice up in. Wow, it’s just a force of nature. And of course, that style of music really wants the singer to be slightly unusual, slightly dangerous, somewhere on the edge between making a point and just blurting out rock and roll-isms. I don’t know what that is about rock music, but sometimes you like it when they’re being vague, you know, and just sort of being who they are. It adds a certain quality to the music, and so, those are the kinds of things you can’t really do instrumentally. It sounds kind of corny. So I’ve always approached instrumental music that it’s got to be fully, 100 percent, totally inspired by something that means something to me, something that I’ve lived through, somebody that I know, and that’s my guide to making it totally truthful and from the heart. But it’s different when I’m writing, at least for Chickenfoot, I’m really thinking about trying to bring out those things that I’ve picked up on while touring with the band, which I think is why this record sounds just better than the first one we did, because it’s obvious we know each other a lot more. We’ve been able to bring more of our personalities out on this record.

And a heavier record, too.

JS: I think so. I think everybody had a couple of things they were trying to get out of each other. As you said, it’s sort of … it culminated in just a stronger sound. I know Sam kept wanting me to just let loose, and I wanted him to sing in a lower register. I thought it would be more powerful and more intimate at the same time. I definitely wanted to write grooves where Mike, Chad and myself would sound like one big Mack truck coming right at you at a hundred miles per hour because you can write songs where you tell the drummer and bass player to play something repetitive, and you can do crazy stuff on top of it. That would be almost like a solo record type of thing, when you’re trying to give that feeling that the guitars are free and doing all sorts of stuff. You need somebody in the band to be more disciplined. But I wasn’t interested in that with these guys. I wanted to be part of the band, and I wanted Sam to be the thing floating on top. So that means I had to write, specifically, things where we naturally would sync into a backbeat together and sound like one unit. I think that contributes greatly to the heaviness, so we can do those songs like “Big Foot” – that’s a perfect example.

Yeah, that’s one of my favorites. You alluded to approaching Sammy about trying something new. What was that conversation like? Was it a tough conversation to have? Or was it easy to say, “Maybe we should try something different with your voice?”

JS: Oh, I think he was totally into it because I related to him this experience I had a few months before we started really … or I started really writing for this record, and we were hanging out and I’d just come from another local studio, and I said, “Sam, they were working on a song that you sang on. It was Sammy and Neil Schon and Michael Walden, and other local musicians doing a Sly Stone song for a local film. And I was totally blown away listening to Sam’s vocal performance. He just sounded like a stone-cold R&B singer. And the register was lower and his vibrato was beautiful, his voice was the usual, a thousand feet wide. And so I was saying, “Sam, that was like the greatest vocal I’ve ever heard. Why aren’t we doing that?” So, he was definitely excited about it, because he remembered that session. And he had a good time doing it, and he started telling me about all the soul music that he loves and how he’d love to do it. So I kind of took that back with me, and during my writing period for the band last August, 12 months ago, I just focused on that a couple of times to make sure that I could sort of count on that. You know, that I could sort of inspire him in that direction, so that we could get some of those beautiful vocal stylings out of him. Still, I’d love to hear all of it. I mean, he added kind of spoken word, but he’s on the other side of it as well, where he’s screaming like the best of them on this record, too. So I just think he gives, on this record, more of himself than on the first record, which is really cool.

Like you mentioned he was asking something different of you, too. Are there points on the album where you can hear you taking his advice to heart about just trying to lose it in the moment?

JS: Yeah, yeah, absolutely – I took everybody’s suggestions. I’ve got to say, it’s a good thing when we get together. Everybody listens to everybody. Everybody tries everybody’s ideas out. Because we figure, you know, I guess basically, the other guy might be right, so let’s just do it. Why not, you know? So sometimes that means any one of us changing our part just to see if it makes the other guy feel more comfortable with his part or a suggestion of a song. You just never know. A perfect example … well, you mentioned before about letting loose. When we finally got in the studio to do “Three and a Half Letters,” by then a lot of things had happened. I mean, the record was pretty much done and we had just this one last piece of music that Sam and I had written. And our good friend, co-manager and Sam’s personal manager, John Carter, had gotten ill and passed away during the making of the record. And we were back in the studio after he had just passed doing sessions, and so all of that, together with Sam’s earlier request of letting go, was definitely something that I was feeling at that moment. And that I think allowed everybody to let go, and everybody did on that particular one. It was just a very emotionally charged afternoon in the studio. There was another moment where we were working on a song that I brought in that turned into “Different Devil.” And I’d written this acoustic piece thinking it would be a funny, little, odd acoustic song, but everybody else wanted to turn it into a more commercially viable piece of music and I was totally bumming out about that idea. But eventually Chad came back the next day, he had borrowed my acoustic guitar and while he was back at the hotel room, he came up with another chord sequence to inject into the song that Sammy felt he could sing a chorus over. And so we re-did the song that afternoon, with this new piece of music in it, and I started to … slowly I had to pull myself out of, you know, my negative view of something that I had written and realize what they were hearing and I’m glad I did because it turned into one of my favorite pieces. But it was a bit of a cathartic experience – sort of leaving the spot that you were certain about and jumping over into another spot where everyone else was certain about. But I think that’s about trust. I mean, that’s what it’s all about when you get a good band together, there’s an element of trust there. So we will follow one another if the other one suggests it.

I suppose that stems from everybody’s previous successes. Maybe you’re more willing to listen to the other guys because you know they’ve experienced a lot of success on their own?

JS: You’re absolutely right. Yeah, I mean those guys have sold some records based on really good, commercially minded songs, and so, yeah, I’m going to listen (laughs) if Chad, or Mike, or Sammy says, “Hey, we can trim this, and the song would really pop.” I go, “Yeah, you probably know a lot more about that than I do.” (laughs) Get this, this is funny. I just got a text from Chad. That is funny. He’s in Rio, and he’s just saying that he is loving the podcasts. We’ve been putting out these podcasts on every song every day leading up to the release of the album.

That’s a new marketing tool for you. Are you enjoying doing that?

JS: Yeah, I think when I finally see them … of course, I can’t stand looking at myself, and I’m always explaining they’re using the wrong camera angle (laughs). I’m not necessarily ready for primetime, probably will never be, but yeah, after a while, I realized this is a very cool thing, and I wish that all the other artists that I like would do it, because I’d be eating it up, you know.

What kinds of artists do you like these days? You’ve worked with so many and taught so many.

JS: I think the last couple of things I’ve been getting into are not necessarily that new. I mean, I’m thinking about … whew, here’s a weird one. Animals As Leaders. Have you ever heard of them? Tosin Abasi, the guitar player, is just completely … it’s the craziest way of playing guitar that I’ve ever heard in my life. He’s really great. Believe it or not, I have been listening to a lot of Black Keys. I’ve always been into listening to the stuff that Jack White does. I like when guitar players go all the way, whether they’re forging brand new territory or they’re doing revival, throwback stuff, I do really love it. And I find it just stimulating to the heart I guess. I’m always picking up; if somebody finds me a new bootleg of an old James Gang thing, I’ll listen to that (laughs). I’m always looking for more stuff. You know, probably the next thing I’ll get is that new Hendrix compilation of live stuff. That just came out. I still just listen to Hendrix all the time.

Do you still teach?

JS: No, I recently had to put a lot of this into words because I gave a commencement speech at Musicians Institute down in L.A., and I had to remind myself the last time I taught an official lesson was actually Kirk Hammett, and it was back in January of ’88. And he was the last student I gave a lesson to. He was just about to start recording … And Justice for All, and I was just about to go out on my very first tour as a solo artist for the Surfing … record. That’s how long ago it was. Our lives have changed so dramatically since then, but yeah, it’s been a while.

Do you miss it at all?

JS: No. Teaching is very hard. It’s very hard to sit in a small room, and I was teaching privately, so that meant I was teaching over 40 hours a week. I had 60-plus students, all individual lessons, an hour and half hour. That’s intense. That was my day job. What I was really doing was playing in a rock band at night, and so … yeah, that was pretty tough.

In that way, your career and that of Randy Rhoades had parallels. I know he taught as well.

JS: I don’t know too many players out there who teach. I mean, it’s a good gig to have, because the guitar is in your hand all day long. You have the opportunity to continually think about technique, and it is nice to hang out with other guitar players, rather than … I don’t know, if you worked at the post office or something, driving yourself crazy. The danger is you’ve got the guitar in your hand too many hours a day. You have to be careful of over playing and repetitive stress, and probably mentally, you don’t want to get bitter about music by having to teach kids and professionals. Even though I had students like Charlie Hunter, Larry LaLonde and Kirk Hammett and Alex Skolnick, I also had people who were grammar school teachers, lawyers, doctors, race car drivers, cable car operators, and I had kids who used to bring in action figures and put them on the amp and then pick up the guitar (laughs). I had a diverse group of young and old, men and women, and when you’re a teacher, you have a job to do, which is to get them to play the music they want to play. It’s not about turning them into rock stars, unless they specifically asked you to. Unless they were your average 18-year-old kid who comes in and says, “Make me the greatest guitar player in the world. I’ll do whatever you say, you know.” But it’s not for the faint of heart as far as musicians go. For some people, it would rub them the wrong way with their creative mind, you know. They would rather be out painting or something where they could have their solitude.

What do you like best about working with Sammy?

JS: Well, Sammy is Sammy, and that’s the best part about Sammy Hagar, just his basic personality. He’s one of the coolest guys you’ll ever meet. He’s got a golden heart, and you know, the music business is absolutely insane. If there’s something bad inside somebody, the music business brings it out. That’s the bad thing about it. So, there are just a lot of those guys you want to avoid. I’ve been through some crazy stuff with Sam, and he’s been the same golden-hearted guy, and that’s a great thing. And that’s why good things happen around him. It’s a testament to his nature. But beside all that, he’s a great singer, he’s prolific, he only does stuff that he truly believes in, which is really great – which can be really funny sometimes, because you can’t believe some of the stuff he believes in. You go, “What?” But he’s not calculating in any way. He just goes straight from the heart. And he gives it all he’s got. I’ve toured with the guy, and he just wants to make everybody feel great in the audience. It’s a very important thing. You’d think that would be … that every performer would feel that way, but they don’t. And you do sometimes find performers who are selfish or who could care less, and that’s really sad and you don’t want to work with them. But Sammy cares really hard. He reminds me of the year I spent working with Mick Jagger back in ’88. I was blown away with how much Mick cared about the audience and the show, and everybody that he worked with – you know, kind and generous, but still unpredictable and totally rock and roll. He was the first guy who told me those elements can actually be together in one human being. And Sam is very prolific. He’s great. He’s got a million ideas, and so to know him is to receive calls all during the day and night, with him being 100 percent enthusiastic about something. You never know what it’s going to be. He’s never like 50 percent into something. He’s always 100 percent or zero percent, which makes him an exciting friend.

What do you think is the future of Chickenfoot?

JS: Oh, I’m pretty confident that the core group – Sammy, Mike, Chad and myself – will make another couple of records. I truly believe that. I think that every time we finish a record, I think we all got the feeling like, “Wow, this is almost like a step to some new beginning.” And then, of course, reality steps in and then, it’s like, “Oh, that’s right. Chad’s in the Chili Peppers. Sam’s got a million things going on. I’ve got a solo career. And Mike’s on a permanent vacation, which he takes very seriously.” But, we kind of put that out of our minds, and we just move ahead one step at a time – that’s what I think. I really do think there’s so much more music to share between the four of us, we will make more records.

The music industry has changed so much since Surfing With the Alien and your other instrumental albums. Could you ever foresee an instrumental album being as popular as that one was?

JS: No, oh man. When we were finishing that record, me and my co-producer John Cuniberti, we were convinced that it was the last record that people would let us make, that we were going to get run out of town, so to speak, you know. It would be like, “Thank you very much. Now go away.” No, we did whatever we wanted, we remastered … you know, we just pushed and pushed and finally handed it over, and it was like, okay. And I literally handed the record in and went back to teaching guitar, and John went back to his studio work. We had no idea. When somebody told us that it landed on the Billboard charts, I remember, and they called up and said, “It’s 186.” And I said, “186 on what?” I just couldn’t believe it. I said, “Billboard? It’s on Billboard?” And I remember, it was a moment where I was in Australia touring with Mick, and it was sitting at 29 on the Billboard charts. It sat there for six weeks, and I remember it was higher than Mick’s solo record. And we were out to dinner, and I remember Mick coming over to me and saying, “Hey, Joe, that is like the coolest thing I’ve ever seen in my life,” and congratulating me and … you know, Mick always said, “Anything you need from this organization to promote the record, you got it. You need a room. You need a camera crew … whatever.” And he gave me a solo spot on the tour every night. I’d have 10 to 15 minutes to play whatever I wanted. He was very generous that way and excited about it, but it illustrated to me at that moment, this is like, I could never have imagined this. This is freaky, to have that success and have Mick Jagger say, “Congratulations, Joe. Anything I can do to help, you know.” It was just really cool.

What other things do you have on the horizon?

JS: Wow. Right now I’m juggling interviews. It’s all about Chickenfoot right now. I’m waiting to get some tracks from Jon Lord actually, because I’m going to be adding guitar to a record that Jon Lord is doing. So I’m excited about that. And the 3-D film of my last tour, the Wormhole tour, is coming out [soon].


  

CD Review: Chickenfoot "Chickenfoot III"

CD Review: Chickenfoot "Chickenfoot III" 
eOne Music
All Access Review: B+


Now we know why Sammy Hagar can't drive 55. It's because he's got some hot little number waiting somewhere to give him the time of his life, and Hagar is hours away from a steamy rendezvous. With Led Zeppelin's Houses of the Holy blasting from the stereo, Hagar's going to drive all night at dangerous speeds to get there, state troopers be damned.

That's the gist of "Big Foot," the first single off the head-scratchingly titled III, the second LP from Chickenfoot, a much-ballyhooed supergroup of Hagar, guitar god Joe Satriani, ex-Van Halen bassist Michael Anthony and Red Hot Chili Peppers' drummer Chad Smith. Another in the long line of car songs that have made Hagar the lead-footed hero of scofflaw drivers everywhere, it may be the best of the bunch. Rooted in Satriani's thick, meaty guitar grooves, "Big Foot" stomps and beats its chest like a testosterone-crazed Tarzan eyeing up a naked Jane.

A manly expression of heated desire and need for speed, "Big Foot" paces a strong set of heavy, skull-thumping rockers and occasional surprises — see the Nashville-flavored country stylings of "Different Devil" and the spoken-word, "all hell's breaking loose" fury of "Three and a Half Letters," which bemoans the dilapidated state of the U.S. economy. Pushed to the fore are the signature vocal harmonies of Hagar and Anthony — more muted in Van Halen — while bedrock riffs and crunching rhythms churn underneath such infectious brawlers as "Up Next" and "Lighten Up."

Tender is the soft tear-jerker "Come Closer" and Hager dips down into the lower registers in the smoky R&B-tinged winner "Dubai Blues," but make no mistake, Chickenfoot is throwing big, chunky right hooks of '70s-inspired hard rock on III. Your move, Van Halen ... and David Lee Roth.

-Peter Lindblad


Official Website:
Chickenfoot

Chickenfoot: Putting their ‘Big Foot’ on the Gas

Super group returns with a new album full of rock and roll bravado, and a November tour.
By Peter Lindblad



That commanding voice of his, a primal scream surging with adrenaline and horsepower, has taken Sammy Hagar far in life. It got him into Van Halen, when brothers Eddie and Alex needed someone to fill David Lee Roth’s spandex. Its full-throated roar sent “I Can’t Drive 55” crashing through police barricades and barreling up the charts before settling in as a pop culture touchstone. What more could anybody ask of Hagar’s ravaged vocal chords, so beaten up by the hundreds and hundreds of shows he’s played over the years?

Joe Satriani, his Chickenfoot soul mate, thought Hagar was capable of doing so much more with it. “I related to him this experience I had a few months before we started really … or I started really writing for this record, and we were hanging out and I’d just come from another local studio, and I said, ‘Sam, they were working on a song that you sang on,’” relates Satriani. “It was Sammy and Neil Schon and Michael Walden, and other local musicians doing a Sly Stone song for a local film. And I was totally blown away listening to Sam’s vocal performance. He just sounded like a stone-cold R&B singer. And the register was lower and his vibrato was beautiful – his voice was the usual, a thousand feet wide.”

Emboldened by what he’d heard, and knowing that Hagar has a soft spot for soul and R&B classics, Satriani approached Hagar with a proposition for Chickenfoot’s recently released sophomore record, the whimsically titled III. “So I was saying, ‘Sam, that was like the greatest vocal I’ve ever heard. Why aren’t we doing that?’” asked Satriani. “So, he was definitely excited about it, because he remembered that session. And he had a good time doing it, and he started telling me about all the soul music that he loves and how he’d love to do it.”

                But, Hagar figured that this stylistic shift was a two-way street and that Satriani was going to have to go outside of his comfort zone to help Hagar adapt to the idea. “This [record] we thought, ‘Well, what do you think, Joe? What would you like to see from me on this record?’ He said, ‘I would like to hear you sing in a way no one’s ever heard you sing before,’” remembers Hagar. “And I went, ‘Hey …’ And he goes, ‘What do you want from me?’ And I said, ‘I want you to write me a piece of music that makes me sing that way (laughs).’”

                Satriani did just that on the tender, smoky track “Come Closer.” But, first, Hagar had work to do, and he was nervous about it. “Joe said, ‘I wrote these songs … write some lyrics.’ He said, ‘What do you want to sing about?’ So I wrote ‘Come Closer,’” said Hagar. “And I gave it to Joe. I’ve never handed lyrics over to a musician and said, ‘Here, write music to these lyrics.” I wait for the musician to give me some music and I write lyrics and melody to that, and that’s been the way I’ve always done it. That’s the way we did it on Chickenfoot. So anyway, Joe comes back. He loved the lyrics. He came back with a little piano part, and it was just magic, I thought. So we transferred it to guitar and we did a demo of it, just him and I. And God, it was just f**king great. I’m just going, ‘Yeah, I’ve never really sung this R&B before.’ I’ve sung the blues, but I never quite sang like this. And the meaning, the lyrical meaning, is very personal and sensitive, and it’s not typical of Sammy Hagar – you know, yelling and screaming. I mean, I’ve written ‘Eagles Fly,’ and some nice songs, ‘Dreams,’ but nothing quite so personal about a relationship.” And that emotional connection made Hagar a little apprehensive about singing it live.

“I was afraid of that song,” admits Hagar. “As much as I wrote it, you know, those lyrics came to Joe. When he came back and the sensitivity and emotion of the music, and the openness of it, I’d walk up to the mic and go, ‘Rrrnt.’ I was f**king froze up. It took me a long time to get the courage to do a real vocal, because I was sick … when I did the demo. I had a really bad sore throat and I couldn’t sing at all, but I sang it anyway. It was kind of cool. I was kind of hoarse, and I had no range. But, it had a magic about it. It was like Teddy Pendergrass or something. You know, how his voice always sounded so raspy, and I didn’t. So then I got scared of it. I said, ‘F**k, I don’t know if I can outdo that.’”

Eventually, Hagar got over his fear, and now he croons it with confidence. Still, the trouble that Hagar experienced with “Come Closer” was emblematic of the difficulties he had penning lyrics for Chickenfoot III, a diverse, multi-faceted recording that has its moments of righteous rage (“Three and a Half Letters”), uplifting, emotional swells of pop-metal (“Different Devil”), writhing metallic-funk grooves (“Up Next”) and propulsive, accelerated rockers (“Big Foot” and “Last Temptation”) that swerve and careen like a runaway semi. 

“I really felt some pressure of the success of Chickenfoot I, because no one cared if it was going to be successful,” said Hagar. “No one thought it would be that successful.  I mean, I thought it was going to be successful, but I didn’t think it would go gold in every freaking country. And it was on the charts for a year. I haven’t had an album on the charts for a year my whole life. I have had some No. 1s, but … so that caused some pressure. It took a little bit of the casual, ‘we don’t care’ attitude out of it for me. And I thought, ‘I do care.’ And I really gotta out-do that last record. The first Chickenfoot record was pretty damn solid.”

Wringing his hands and obsessing over every detail took some of the fun out of recording Chickenfoot III for Hagar. Don’t think for a second, though, that Hagar isn’t having a blast with Satriani, his former Van Halen mate Michael Anthony, and Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith. For his part, Anthony found the making of Chickenfoot III thoroughly enjoyable.

“The reason why we even formed the band in the first place was because we didn’t want to have any kind of pressure,” said Anthony. “You know, everybody’s done their stuff in the past, in their respective bands and what they’ve done, so we wanted to do this purely to have fun and make music. In the beginning, even when we first went in the studio back in 2008, we had no intention of even doing an album back then. It was just so much fun getting together and jamming, we just wanted to see musically where it could take us or if anything could even come of it. And then all of a sudden, we’re working on an album, all of a sudden there’s a tour, and obviously, a second album. But we don’t want to have to feel that kind of pressure, because we just want to do it purely for the enjoyment of making music. But we are very proud of what we did. I think we have really evolved as a band, it’s more in-depth now. I think we’re finding our own niche and our own sound, and songwriting and everything else.”

While Anthony and everybody else were living the high life, Hagar was hunkered down trying to put down words that would match the intensity and drive of the music that was flowing out of the quartet in the studio. “For Sammy, I think it was a little more difficult because there were a lot of ideas coming out really quick, and when we actually got into the studio to start recording, jeez, like the first eight songs that we put down, we were like doing two basic tracks a day,” said Anthony. “I mean, we were on fire. And Sammy is going, ‘Hey, whoa, whoa. Wait a second. I’m still working on an idea for this song.’ And I think it was a little tougher for Sammy this time.”

Adding weight to Hagar’s burden was the sadness he was feeling over the passing of his longtime manager and confidante, John Carter. Closer than most managers and their clients, the Carter-Hagar bond was as strong as steel. Almost preternaturally, Carter seemed to know what was best for Hagar, and when there were calls for Hagar to go back in the studio with Chickenfoot while he was writing his book, “Red: My Uncensored Life in Rock,” Carter made sure his client didn’t spread himself thin.

“He was really just the greatest guy, and Carter wanted me to be great, and he insisted … he weeded out my bullshit, and he wasn’t always right, but most of the time, if he wasn’t right, he at least got my attention,” said Hagar. “I’ve got to tell you, he beat me up going into this record. ‘If you ain’t ready, we ain’t making a record. I don’t care,’ he goes. ‘I don’t care if it takes five years. I want you to be the best you’ve ever been.’ And I’m going, ‘F**k. Wow. That’s a big challenge.’ But he did. He postponed this record. We were supposed to do it last year. Chad had a little break. But I said, ‘Carter, I’m writing my book right now.’ And he goes, ‘No. Then forget it. I’m not going to allow you to do anything mediocre.’ He goes, ‘Until you are ready and inspired, then you’re not going in that f**king studio.’ I mean, what manager would tell you that? So, I don’t know. I love the guy. He really pushed me on this record.”

The track “Three and a Half Letters” is a perfect example of Hagar’s ambition. Inspired by Carter, with his manager’s words still ringing in his ears, Hagar took on the challenge of writing a song that would evoke the desperation and anxiety of these times, what with the troubled economy and the still-burning ember of war in Afghanistan glowing red hot. With Hagar intent on writing something with meaning for Chickenfoot listeners, he had a request for Satriani, and that was that the technically brilliant guitarist let loose and go wild. In recording “Three and a Half Letters,” everyone let out any pent-up energy they had left.

“When we finally got in the studio to do ‘Three and a Half Letters,’ by then a lot of things had happened,” said Satriani. “I mean, the record was pretty much done and we had just this one last piece of music that Sam and I had written. And our good friend, co-manager and Sam’s personal manager, John Carter, had gotten ill and passed away during the making of the record. And we were back in the studio after he had just passed doing sessions, and so all of that, together with Sam’s earlier request of letting go, was definitely something that I was feeling at that moment. And that I think allowed everybody to let go, and everybody did on that particular one. It was just a very emotionally charged afternoon in the studio.”

A spoken-word piece in which Hagar reads letters that speak of the hardships people are going through presently in America, “Three and a Half Letters” explodes out of the speakers, sending shards of disenchantment and anger flying in all directions. As impactful and surprising as “Three and a Half Letters” is, perhaps the most memorable track off Chickenfoot III is “Big Foot.” The first single – a driving song, of course – from the new LP is a stomping, hook-filled, heaving beast of a song, and for Hagar, it’s the one where all the pieces fit together almost immediately.

“That was the easiest one. That was the most fun,” said Hagar. “Out of all the songs on the album, that was the most fun to record and it came the easiest. Some of the other songs we worked real hard on. But [with] ‘Big Foot’ we went in that day, Joe presented us with that riff, and I had the title ‘Big Foot’ in my head ‘cause actually Joe called it ‘Big Foot’ before I even had lyrics. But what is Big Foot? I don’t know, but that is it. So, I didn’t want to sing about Sasquatch, about the Abominable Snowman or some shit. So what else are you gonna talk about? My big foot? Where is it going to be? Is it going to be up your ass? Or is it going to be on the gas, you know. So the guys thought, well, let’s go with the gas on this. Here’s a Sammy cartoon. I’ve made a career out of these kinds of songs. And by the time the band had learned the song and recorded it, which took two or three hours, I had the lyrics written and I did the vocal and that song was done. And we all said, ‘This has to be the first song the fans hear from Chickenfoot,’ because this is all-out Chickenfoot. This is the way we work. This is the way we roll. This is the way we did the first album. It was done in no time. And the rest of the CD didn’t come that easy.”

Hopefully, the North American road-test tour Chickenfoot embarks on in November to try out the new stuff onstage will go more smoothly for Hagar and company. However, Smith won’t be joining the rest of Chickenfoot this time around. Touring commitments to the Red Hot Chili Peppers will keep him from going out on the road with Chickenfoot this time around. In his place will be another legendary drummer, Kenny Aronoff. So far, the transition with Aronoff has been seamless, although Anthony was surprised at how Aronoff prepared for his mission.

“Actually when Kenny came in, and he’s got some … well not big shoes, because Kenny, he’s very talented in his own right, but Chad’s so unorthodox the way he plays in this band, and you know, Kenny came in like trying to play it like how Chad did, and we knew as soon as Kenny started getting comfortable with the songs, he’d just kind of make them his own,” said Anthony. “Especially, only having rehearsed a couple of days, all of a sudden it was just really clicking. He was just throwing in a lot of his own fills and making it his tune, which he should, stepping in a live situation. So I think it’s a pretty smooth transition. I think he’s going to do really well. But, you know, when he first came in – he played with us probably about a month ago now – he came up and he goes, ‘Well, yeah, I’ve been listening to these songs …’ and he pulled out … he charted them. He says that’s what does when he plays other people’s stuff, when he comes into … like with John Fogerty, who he’s been playing with recently, that he’ll chart it all out so he knows the song. And I said, ‘Okay, okay, Kenny. You look at those charts, but once you’ve got it down, you throw those charts away. You don’t need them anymore. Do your own thing, man.’ So that was a little strange right at first, but he’s slipped into it really well.”

                As did Hagar when he joined Van Halen, a time of incredible creativity for him and Eddie, Alex and Michael Anthony, when they answered the critics who doubted they’d be able to carry out without David Lee Roth. Hagar recalls the band being “on fire” in the studio during the sessions for the first Van Halen with Roth, 1986’s 5150. Eventually, Anthony and Hagar, in particular, were able to develop some amazing, signature harmonies that made Van Halen soar higher than ever. “It was pretty much an instant mesh, but I’ll say one thing, after doing backgrounds to David Lee Roth, because his vocal range is a lot lower, all of a sudden, it was like, ‘Whoa,’” said Anthony. “I mean, it really pushed me in the beginning, so I was all of a sudden singing in registers that I hadn’t really sung in before. Not that I couldn’t do it. But I never did it with Van Halen, and it was cool. And I think it really inspired me and the fact that I could sing those parts, I was really digging it. We really kind of took it to another level vocally with the backgrounds we were doing.”

                Hagar and Anthony are bringing that same intricate vocal knitting to Chickenfoot, putting more emphasis than ever before on their unique harmonies and bringing them to the forefront in a way Van Halen never did.

“Singing with him, he’s the only guy that I know that could just go above – I don’t care if I’m at the peak of my range; he can get up above me, just squeeze his nuts and get on up there – and right on key, he can mimic my phrasing,” said Hagar. “He’s just … he’s so fast. That’s the thing that people don’t understand about Mike. He learns faster than anyone I’ve ever met in my life. Joe Satriani, Eddie Van Halen … guys come up with riffs, and come on. I can’t f**king play them. I’m sitting here with an acoustic guitar around the house still trying to learn these riffs on this record, and I ain’t got ‘em down yet. Like Joe goes to Mike, [scats a line] and Mike goes [scats the same line] second times he’s done it. Okay, go. I mean, he does that with my lyrics and my phrasing … you know, I’ll go, ‘No, Mike. I’m going [sings a line].’ And he’s just right with me. You know, third take. And I just want to do anything but work. Having a guy like him, to be able to learn Joe’s parts and my parts and get out of the studio to get down to the beach as quick as we can, is like a f**king dream come true. I think that pretty much sums Mike up, right? (laughs)”

With Chickenfoot III out and the band ready to hit the road, the guys are content with how this Chickenfoot project has taken off. Though it wasn’t meant to set the world on fire, in a way, it has, breathing new life into the careers of Hagar, Anthony and Satriani. The music of Chickenfoot is straight out of the ‘70s, influenced by such legends as Cream, Led Zeppelin and The Who – bands that inspired all of the members to become musicians in the first place. And the rest of the world is responding.

“I’ve met tons of people going on the Internet, fans, younger people, that don’t even necessarily know where we come from,” said Anthony. “But they hear of this band Chickenfoot and they like the music, and that’s great. It’s like, wow. It’s not like we’re not just bringing the fans that we have out; hopefully, we’re gaining some of those new fans.”

When asked what he thought the future of Chickenfoot is, Anthony joked, “We can’t even map out what we’re doing a day in advance (laughs).” Turning only slightly more serious, the affable Anthony remarked, “Well, right now the future is getting this album out and going on tour. Unfortunately, Chad can’t be with us. Chad’s still in the band. I know he has a big commitment with his other band now, and he’ll probably be out on the road for quite a while now. And so, what’ll even happen at that point, once we’ve been out on tour, I don’t know. But I mean, right now we just want to get this album out because for me, personally, it’s one of the best albums I’ve ever been involved with in my career. And I really, in my heart … I mean, I listen to this album when I’m at home, and I’m like, man … from the harmonies to the songs and the way everybody’s playing, I just can’t wait to get out on tour and play this. We are going to afford ourselves the time now, or we can, to go out and do a tour and tour as much as we can, or we want. The last time, we go to Europe, we can only play here, here and here. We’ve got to get back to the States, and the whole time, we’re kind of like crossing our fingers that Chad doesn’t have to be called back in to do anything. So we just kind of … we had to look at everyone’s schedules and this time out, I think, everybody’s schedules are going to be on the same track so that we can go out and play.”

To the men of Chickenfoot, getting together to play is what matters most. And as long as everybody is enjoying themselves, Chickenfoot could go on for many years. Or, it could end very quickly.

“I’m pretty confident that the core group – Sammy, Mike, Chad and myself – will make another couple of records,” said Satriani. “I truly believe that. I think that every time we finish a record, I think we all got the feeling like, ‘Wow, this is almost like a step to some new beginning.’ And then, of course, reality steps in and then it’s like, ‘Oh, that’s right. Chad’s in the Chili Peppers. Sam’s got a million things going on. I’ve got a solo career. And Mike’s on a permanent vacation, which he takes very seriously.’ But, we kind of just put that out of our minds, and we just move ahead, one step at a time. That’s what I think. I really do think there’s so much more music to share between the four of us, we will make more records.”