CHICKENFOOT MAY BE ONE HELLUVA SILLY NAME FOR A BAND, But Joe
Satriani and Sammy Hagar Are Dead Serious About Their Flock's Riffin'
& Rockin' Debut Album
“WHAT’S THAT? ARE THOSE YOUR NOTES , JOE?”
Sammy Hagar has just bounded into the conference
room of his San Rafael, California, studio complex,
and if it weren’t for the fact my high school days
have long faded into history, I’d feel like I was just
caught playing Dungeons & Dragons in the weight
room by the captain of the football team.
“Oh, man,” laughs Hagar, “That’s why I’m not playing
guitar in this band. When Joe does his parts, it’s like
Guitar Center with guitars all over the place. And he documents
every little thing. He writes notes on the air in
the room, man! I just shoot from the hip. I can’t help it.”
It seems like an episode of the Odd Couple, but the
Satriani and Hagar partnership in Chickenfoot is based
on a love of blues and ’70s riff rock, mystical musical
telepathy, and the desire to bash out tunes live in the studio,
rather than get all clinical with click tracks and DAW
editing. To some, Chickenfoot may seem closer to a
“Sammy thing,” as most of the tracks
on the band’s self-titled debut album
[Redline Entertainment] stick pretty
close to the singer’s lusty bluster,
bravado, and party-time exuberance. But
Satriani, who can be extremely scrupulous
in the studio—even to the point of
spending hours or days playing a specific guitar line to
get just the right tone, phrasing, and emotion—is, kind
of surprisingly, almost matching Hagar note-for-note in
enthusiasm, energy, and rock-and-roll spirit.
“I really love being in a band,” Satriani says. “This is
something I’ve wanted to do for a long time.”
Chickenfoot’s beginnings can be traced to a jam during
one of Hagar’s solo shows at the Palms in Las Vegas
last year, when the Red Rocker assembled Red Hot Chili
Peppers drummer Chad Smith, former Van Halen mate
and bassist Michael Anthony, and Satriani to join the
festivities. The connection that occurred at
that gig continued—even though Satriani
was committed to his own solo tour for a
few months—and, after the jazzed guitarist
started writing songs for “a band,” the quartet
ended up at Hagar’s studio to work on
the material that would define its sound.
Sessions continued at Hagar’s joint, George
Lucas’ Skywalker Sound, and Satriani’s
home studio, and Chickenfoot includes tracks
from all three locations—most everything
directed by the legendary producer Andy
Johns (who famously engineered classic Led
Zeppelin and Rolling Stones albums). When
Johns became ill near the end of the sessions,
the album was mixed by Mike Fraser
at The Warehouse in Vancouver, British
Columbia.
And while Satriani was unable or unwilling
to jettison his penchant for comprehensive note
taking, there’s absolutely nothing butt-puckered
about Chickenfoot. This is a big, thumping,
joyous, propulsive, driving, bombastic celebration
of riffs, rhythm, and groove forged by
four brilliant musicians who still know how
to get crazy and rock with abandon.
Let me get a People magazine question out of the
way. With your fabulous guitar technique, Sammy’s
voice, and Michael’s distinctive high background
vocals, was there any concern that fans would go,
“Oh, this is just Van Halen without Eddie and Alex”?
Satriani: People have heard two to three
decades of music from all of us, so I knew
there was no way we could get away from
Montrose, Hagar, Van Halen, the Red Hot
Chili Peppers, and Satriani.
Hagar: But I’ve learned that one guy can
change the chemistry of a band so freaking
much, because when I joined Van Halen, it
changed. Now, the chemistry in this band is
something different, and, for that reason,
we’re not going to sound like Van Halen. If
we just allow everybody to be themselves,
it’s going to be Chickenfoot.
Joe, you haven’t been in a vocal band since the
’80s with your trio, the Squares.
Satriani: Yes, but most of the music I listen
to is music like this—music with vocals.
I’ve actually spent more of my life playing
this kind of music, although for the last two
decades, people think that all I do is play
instrumental stuff. In Chickenfoot, I have to
say that it’s liberating—and kind of a relief—
to not have to carry the ball from the top of
the song all the way to the end. Because
Sammy is singing, my solos can take on an
entirely different role. They can be the thing
that explodes in the middle, rather than the
thing that carries the melody from intro to
outro.
Did you have an overall concept for the Chickenfoot
guitar sound?
Satriani: It all starts with the rhythm
guitar. Chickenfoot is a trio with a singer, so
I was reminded of being in my basement at
14 years old with my band thinking, “This
is my little Led Zeppelin, or my little Black
Sabbath.” That was an era where the rhythm
guitar really defined the song. It played the
riff and created the energy with the band
while the singer was out front delivering the
message.
Hagar: For a singer, it’s definitely all about
the rhythm guitar. There’s no question about
that. When you’ve got a guy playing a badass
rhythm riff right in the pocket, it’s that great
feel that makes you sing so much better. And
even if a guy plays an amazing solo, he still
has to be soloing over something. Now, some
guitarslingers don’t play good rhythm. They
don’t know how to chunk a riff. They don’t
have that pocket. But one of the first things
I noticed about Joe when we started doing
the Chickenfoot stuff was that he plays amazing
rhythm guitar. That’s a special thing.
Satriani: I really wanted to be able to rock
out like Ron Wood or Keith Richards, and
then the solo would just come when you
needed a guitar solo. I believe that rhythm
guitar is the essence of rock music—not the
solo. Whether it’s Hendrix playing “Little
Wing,” or Townshend or Page, it’s the
rhythm-guitar riff that creates the vibe of
the band and the identity of the song. Somehow,
that got flipped around, and it became
about the guitar player almost being selfpromotional.
But, for me, playing the guitar
parts to “Runnin’ Out” or “Sexy Little Thing”
with these guys is so exciting, because I feel
I’m really part of the song. It’s not like just
hitting a chord, and then playing your favorite
lick as fast as you can, or as loud as you can,
or something like that. It’s an entirely different
aesthetic. On a technical level, focusing
on rhythm guitar meant I could finally step
back from having super-high gain all the
time. I wouldn’t need all that sustain and
saturation for soaring melodies and screaming
solos like I do when I’m onstage for three
hours every night doing instrumental music.
I had been kicking around this idea of a
50-watt amp with Peavey, and now the time
had come when I really needed to get it prototyped
and move forward with it. To play
heavy riffs and still leave space for Chad’s
sound and Mike’s sound, I needed a different
system, and that’s where the Peavey JSX
50 came in.
So is it the 50-watt package that delivers a
significant part of what you were looking for?
Satriani: It’s not so much the wattage. It’s
the fact I wanted to make an old-school ’70sstyle
amp. Generally, those amps don’t go
to 11—they kind of go to seven-and-a-half.
But the thing they did have was a very present
and in-your-face sound that allowed you
to have space in-between notes. It wasn’t
wall-to-wall sustain all the time. It was a different
kind of a buzzsaw. It was more like a
chain saw, I guess. It’s hard to put into words.
But I knew the sound I was looking for—
enhanced fidelity, dynamics, and punch that
still leaves room for everybody else and all
the overdubs.
As there are a fair amount of musical influences
running through both of you, was it difficult
choosing a songwriting direction for Chickenfoot?
Did any of your influences bubble up more than
others?
Satriani: I’ve mentioned the fact that the
rhythm guitar was so important, and that it
would be part of the fabric of the rhythm
section and each composition—the whole
Jimmy Page approach. This concept was very
important to the songwriting, as well,
because Chickenfoot is not like a super group
where each member just does what they’re
famous for. All of us wanted to play into the
stories of the songs, and we thought about
bands that used to do that a lot. Zeppelin
was one of them, and so was Humble Pie.
Even when they tackled difficult songs, the
vibe was always somehow down-to-earth,
in-your-face, and bare bones. So that’s what
I was going for, and when stuff clicked, the
experience was overwhelming. The good
songs would explode in a matter of minutes,
and we’d say, “Let’s record this right now
before we forget what we’re doing.”
Hagar: There were a couple of songs where
we knew we had it in two seconds. After the
first chord, we were like, “Oh yeah!” There
were also a few songs that I didn’t relate to
for a while, and then they came around. And,
of course, there were songs that didn’t work
for the group at all. I remember there was
one that was like the song Joe wrote for Coldplay
[laughs]. We jammed on it for two hours,
and really tried to make it happen, but it
never went anywhere.
Satriani: It was a song about being on the
beach in the late afternoon. I had this whole
movie going on in my head about it.
Hagar: What?You should have told me. I
could have written lyrics to that [laughs]!
Sammy, it appears that Joe’s song demos were
pretty complete. Did you derive any lyrical content
from his sketches?
Hagar: Joe inspired a couple of lyrics, for
sure, but as a singer, it’s much better to sing
your own lyrics. It’s hard to sing someone
else’s lyrics unless you can really relate to
them. The lyrics usually explain the music
in a kind of cosmic way, so you can’t just
sing anything to anything. You have to sing
with the right emotion. As soon as I heard
Joe’s demos, I’d get inspired. It was that way
when I joined Van Halen. When Eddie and
I first started writing, he would play me
something, and I’d instantly start singing.
That’s what you look for—inspiration.
What’s the main difference between writing
with Joe and working with Eddie Van Halen?
Hagar: It was much harder in Van Halen,
because when Eddie would play me a song,
it was hard to find a place to sing. Joe can
play all over the place, but he realizes you
have to leave room for a melody line. Eddie
didn’t think. He was writing entire pieces
within a single guitar part—complete instrumentals—
and there wasn’t a hole anywhere.
So what I really learned from my ten years
in Van Halen was to find places to sing without
clashing with—or doubling—the guitar
part. I had to go way up high and hold notes,
because down below the music was so busy.
Eddie was on his own trip back then. He
really didn’t give a crap about what anybody
was singing, and, as a result, Van Halen had
a sound where the guitars and the vocals
were clearly separated. With Joe, however,
the vocals and guitars—and the bass and
drums for that matter—can coexist in an
almost organic way.
Was there a particular song that typified the
Chickenfoot style—a benchmark that every other
song was weighed against?
Hagar: We didn’t see it at the time, but
looking back, I think “Avenida Revolution,”
“Get It Up,” and maybe “Future Is the Past”
are the songs that don’t sound like anyone
else. To me, those songs define what Chickenfoot
is, and what it may be in the future.
Who can say? But we also decided we were
kind of bluesy, and we started to fall into
this Led Zeppelin meets the Stones kind of
thing. Now I love “Sexy Little Thing” and
“Oh Yeah.” I loved those songs from the first
riff. They sounded funky—like some Delta
blues guy with a cranked-up electric. But
while they’re so Chickenfoot to me, they’re
also songs that sound like bluesy stuff from
other people. I think we actually pulled back
the reins a bit after we cut “Runnin’ Out”
because we thought we were going to make
a damn blues record if we weren’t careful.
On that note, I felt that Chad’s modern rockfunk
approach of playing on top of the beat, rather
than laying back a bit, certainly kept things from
sounding too bluesy.
Hagar: Yeah, that’s what makes it. Chad
is heavy. We made all these jokes like, “Chad
is in the pocket so deep that he can’t find
any loose change.” But he’s also playing all
this extra stuff, and his energy elevates the
entire band. He’s so exciting and so reckless.
“Soap On a Rope,” for example—that
thing is so close to falling apart at any
moment. But that’s what makes the song
sound young and exciting. We tried using a
click a couple of times and it ruined everything
[laughs].
Satriani: The essential ingredient in the
whole recording concept was that we played
the tracks live without a click. And as we
started to arrange things, not playing everything
on the backbeat all the time became a
signature. We wanted to draw listeners in
to the fact that here was a bunch of guys
playing right on the edge.
Hagar: This is how magic the sh*t was:
Chad played his part to “Avenida Revolution”
to just the guitar part from Joe’s demo
that he recorded at home. No click—just
Joe’s guitar in Chad’s headphones.
Satriani: And that guitar part is crazy. It
was an experiment.
Hagar: Joe had all the music sketched out,
and Chad, Mike, and I built up the track that
way because Joe was touring Europe, and I
wanted something I could use to work out
my vocal part. Well, we could never outdo
that “demo” take, so that’s the track on the
album.
What about Michael? He seems to have gotten
a rap in the bass community for being kind of
an invisible support guy.
Satriani: The first things I noticed about
Mike were how much he could play, and how
open and big his sound was. I thought, “How
come I haven’t heard this from him the past
20 years?” But when you’re in Van Halen,
and Eddie is writing guitar parts that have
the melody, solo, riffs, and rhythm all in one,
it forces the bassist to lay back.
Hagar: Hey, when Eddie plays all these
different parts, he’s going, “Okay, Mike, you
just go boom, boom, boom, boom, boom,
boom.” It’s true. There’s no other place to
play. Also, Alex [Van Halen] is a great drummer,
but he’s real basic and solid. Chad is
complex and all over the place. So when Mike
played with Chad, he was all over the place
with him. Mike showed us how good he can
be, and he’s the fastest learner I’ve ever seen.
You show him something…
Satriani: He nails it.
Hagar: In like three seconds. We call him
our computer chip. We’d ask, “Mike, how’d
that thing go?” He’d know the answer. He’s
just really, really solid. First guy there, last
guy to leave, remembers everything.
How did you relate to Andy Johns as a producer?
I’m curious, because you guys have sold millions of
records and certainly know how to produce an
album. What did Johns bring to the party that the
four of you couldn’t figure out by yourselves?
Hagar: Tons of stuff, but mainly sounds to
start with. None of us know how to get drums
to sound like he can—that’s for sure! Andy
has his little tricks. He’s always turning knobs.
I remember doing a vocal take on something,
and he said, “Sam, will you sing that again?”
I went, “You jerk—that was a good take!”
“Yeah,” he said, “but I don’t have this thing
right.” He was doing certain things with compressors,
limiters, EQs, and stuff to make my
voice real present. I discovered why messing
with all the gear was worth it when I started
singing “Turnin’ Left” and my voice sounded
like sh*t. I said, “Wow, this sounds terrible.
I can’t stand it.” Andy said, “Oops,” and immediately
started turning the machines on. Click.
Click. Click. Click. Suddenly, I sounded like
Frank Sinatra again [laughs].
Satriani: Andy has an awesome sense of
time and an awesome sense of pitch. He could
recognize what the band was really good at,
and what made it special, and he made sure
every take had those elements in it. He
wanted that magic on everything we did, and
he wouldn’t let our “professional” heads try
stuff that was superfluous or unnecessary.
For example, I’d play something and then
ask to do it again, and Andy would scream,
“You don’t know what you’re doing—that
was the greatest thing in the world. I’m going
home!” And he’d grab his keys and drive back
to the hotel. I’d be standing there thinking,
“What just happened? Are we still recording?”
But he’d be right. Two days later, I’d
listen and go, “I get it now. That was the take.”
He could hear soul and life in a performance,
and anything else anyone did would just be
extra stuff. Also, when you’re working with
a real producer like Andy, you can go on and
on describing their qualities. They’re not just
sound guys, or arrangers, or cheerleaders, or
taskmasters, they are all of that, as well as a
person you want to hang out with and have
some fun with.
Hagar: Now, I worked with Andy in Van
Halen, and he didn’t bring all that. I fired
him. I said, “I won’t do vocals with this guy.
He’s too crazy.”
So even though you had a prior bad experience
with him you were willing to work with him on this
record?
Hagar: Even though we had that history,
I knew how good he was. And this is Chickenfoot.
We get along so good that there’s no
weird sh*t. Joe just said, “What do you think
about Andy Johns?” I just said, “F**k yeah!”
That’s trust. We almost killed Andy, though.
He went into the hospital near the end of
the project.
From stress?
Hagar: Bad lifestyle. All those Led Zeppelin
records.
Satriani: Ulcers.
Hagar: Yeah, he was bleeding and he
wouldn’t tell us. He kept hinting that this
would be his last record, and Chad would
scream at him, “Nobody dies on a Chickenfoot
record!” But he was really ill. We didn’t
realize he was in such bad shape. And yet,
he was really giving it his all—which makes
this album even more special to me.
I’m assuming Andy wasn’t hands-on during the
mixes, then?
Satriani: No, not at all. We would have
had to wait months for him to get better.
Hagar: But Joe brought in Mike Fraser to
mix, and he mixed the sh*t out of this
record. Every time Mike finished a mix I’d
call him up and go, “What an amazing mix.
You did a great job.” But he was always
throwing the ball back to Andy by saying,
“Hey, the stuff was recorded good.” He gave
Andy a lot of love.
There seems to be a “performance” theme to
the record, from you guys cutting tracks live to
Andy tweaking knobs while Sammy is singing.
Satriani: That’s actually a good point.
Maybe that’s another thing you can add to
Andy’s contribution. Andy was always performing,
but he was using the studio as an
instrument, and he ultimately became part
of what we were doing. Mike is the same
way when he’s mixing—he reacts to the
performance, making sure the performer’s
thing actually makes it into the mix. If you
watch him mix, you’ll see that he constantly
rides the faders. He knows mixing isn’t
just about setting basic levels and slapping
on a limiter.
Chickenfoot is being called a supergroup, and
supergroups tend to be little more than calculated
“projects” these days—especially when some
of the players are still in other bands. But the
vibe around here is more like—well, as you said
earlier, it feels like a bunch of 14-year-olds in
their first band.
Satriani: Listen, this is a band. Like Sam
says—it is not a project. After the jam in Las
Vegas, I felt a mystical connection to Sammy,
Chad, and Mike, and those jams became so
much more than just a great jam. It was
something unique, and there was real
chemistry there. I thought, “Wow, this is
something important.” The chemistry was
there again when we came up here to
Sammy’s place and started putting songs
together. Everyone was so enthusiastic about
making the other guys’ ideas complete.
There’s nothing calculated about that kind
of interaction. That’s four guys loving playing
together.
LIVE OR MEMOREX?
Want to hear the rhythm parts Joe cut
live with the band in the studio? It’s
easy—they were mixed solely on the left
channel. Any guitars you hear in the right
channel are overdubs. There’s one caveat:
If a solo was done live as the song was
going down, it may still be in the left
channel, but these performances were
sometimes moved to the center, and a
rhythm overdub would take its space to
avoid having a “hole” in the mighty Chickenfoot
rhythm onslaught. —MM
JOE’S CHICKENFOOT TONE RECIPES
“MYGUITAR TECH, MIKE MANNING, AND I KEEP
big notes on everything—amps, guitars, mic placement,
cabinets, pedals, and all sorts of stuff,” says
Satriani. “The notes were kind of abstract during
Surfing with the Alien in 1987, because there
were two guitars and not much else. But they
started getting pretty complex around Crystal
Planet [1998].”
Thanks to Satch’s meticulous note taking, GP
can offer you song-by-song tone recipes for
Chickenfoot, so eat hearty! And, as you’ll see, Satriani
isn’t someone who develops signature gear for
everyone but himself. His Ibanez, Vox, and Peavey
tools are all over Chickenfoot. This is also the album
that fired up the creation of his Peavey JSX 50 amp,
as he wanted to honor and evolve the sound of
classic ’60s and ’70s 50-watters to power the
rhythm-riff concept he designed for his musical
partnership with Sammy, Michael, and Chad.
“AVENIDA REVOLUTION”
“This is the track where I recorded the main guitar
(left channel and solo) at home using my chrome
Ibanez JS touring guitar—which we called the Eb
Chrome. In the beginning of the Chickenfoot days,
we weren’t sure which songs were going to be in
Eb, and which songs would be in standard pitch, so
we made a distinction by putting a little piece of
tape on the guitar that says ‘Eb Chrome.’ The signal
chain was theEb Chrome into the Vox Satchurator,
the Peavey JSX 120’s clean channel, a Marshall
SE100 Speaker Emulator, and right into Pro Tools.
Once we decided this was going to be the main guitar
part, and I wasn’t going to re-do it, we added a
‘ghost guitar’ part with the Ibanez Super ColossalJS
guitar—the one that has the image from the album
cover on it. It’s a very unusual-sounding guitar that
has this extra low-end thing, and I plugged it into a
Wizard head and a Peavey 4x12 cabinet. We wanted
to keep the trio sound as much as possible, so this
part never steps out. Basically, I use the Super
Colossal JS to play smaller versions of the big
chords performed on the main rhythm-guitar part.”
“SOAP ON A ROPE”
“I can’t remember if I used the Ibanez JS Black Dog
or Chrome on this one. I think the signal chain was
the guitar into the Vox Satchurator and the JSX 120.
The ascending pre-solo riff is definitely beefed up
with a 6-string Danelectro bass into a Dunlop Fuzz
Face and a Leslie rotary speaker, and I used a rackmounted,
stereo MXR Flanger for the solo. It seems
I played a second rhythm part on a white Ibanez ART.”
“SEXY LITTLE THING”
“‘Sexy Little Thing’ is one of the two songs where I
use my original Ibanez JS-6 guitar with .011s on it,
tuned down a whole step and capoed at the second
fret—kind of unusual. I was just fooling around
with stuff at home, and the JS-6 had .011s on it
from the last couple of records where I used it for
slide or some big chords. I started to really like the
way the .011s felt, so I wrote this piece of music
on it, and when I paired it with the JSX 50, it had
just the right tone. This is the main guitar for ‘Sexy,’
and it also does the solo. I’m trying not to bend too
far, because I’m playing with a capo and it’s a live
track, so I didn’t want to put it out of tune. There’s
another wah/slide guitar track done with the white
Ibanez ARTthrough a ’59 Fender Twin. The banjo is
my Deering, which I’ve had since 1990.”
“OH YEAH”
“This was my chrome touring guitar or the Black Dog
into the Vox Satchurator and a Peavey JSX 120—
basically, my live rig. We sometimes used the direct
output on the amp. I wasn’t really sure what was
happening with the signal chain, because this song
was recorded at Sammy’s studio, and we were making
demos, remember? Not album cuts. A ’55 goldtop
Les Paul makes an appearance on the power chords,
and I used an Ibanez JS 24-fret prototype for the
middle section because I play a high G. That was the
first time I had ever done it, and I was waiting for
the string to break. Ibanez should have the 24-fret
guitar finished by January 2010. I also used the Black
Dog guitar, an MXR Flanger, a Leslie, and a Rickenbacker
12-string through a direct box. We laid down
a lot of guitars to make that middle section work.”
“RUNNIN’ OUT”
“‘Runnin’ Out” is pretty much the same setup as
‘Sexy Little Thing’—the JS-6 with the .011s, and the
capo on the second fret—but I added a Fulltone
Deja Vibe pedal. We had done about four or five
takes, and I started to think about Humble Pie’s ‘30
Days in the Hole,’ and I just whipped out the Deja
Vibe for the next take, and that was the one. I
plugged into the JSX 50, and panned it left. Then, I
doubled the part with a Wurlitzer electric piano
plugged into the Peavey JSX Mini Colossal amp and
a Leslie, which was panned right. The solo guitar
was a 1959 Gibson ES-335 into the Vox Satriani
Big Bad Wah and the JSX 50. In fact, I used the
rhythm setup for the solo. I almost wish it had one
more notch of gain, but I thought it sounded grittier
to have the overdrive a bit dry like that.”
“GET IT UP”
“This would have been my chrome touring guitar,
the Vox Satchurator and an Electro-Harmonix Mini-
POG for the extra low end stuff. It’s my live rig again,
so the main amp was the Peavey JSX 120. I also put
down some Fender and Rickenbacker electric 12-
string tracks through a direct box and an old ’64
Vox AC30. The solo was done on the Ibanez JS 24-
fret prototype plugged into a Way Huge Pork Loin
and a MXR Phase 90 for the solo section.”
“DOWN THE DRAIN”
“This was written on the spot as we were recording
it. I used the Ibanez Super Colossal JS-1000. It
was tuned to Eb, and it was strung with either .010s
or .011s—just like all the stuff recorded at Skywalker
Sound. The tracks I did at home may have
had .009s on some of the guitars, because I was
still touring. But I felt that, considering the way
Mike and Chad sounded, I needed to go up a gauge
or so to put out more sound. Also, every once-ina-
while you’ll hear what sounds like a guitar through
a Leslie—that’s a Korg G4 Rotary Speaker Simulator.
Whenever Andy and I felt a song needed ‘stuff,’
we’d very carefully drop in Rickenbacker or Fender
electric 12-strings, piano, B3, or, in this case, eighthnote
guitar lines here and there.”
“MY KINDA GIRL”
“This is the Ibanez JS-1000 Snake in dropped-D
tuning into the JSX 50—that’s what you hear on the
left side. On the right side, I doubled the part with
a ’58 Fender Esquire that was set up with Tele pickups.
Chris Kelly [Peavey A&R manager] got that for
me when I was recording The Extremist[1992], and
it has been on every album since. For the solo, I
used the JS 24-fret prototype. There is also some
Rickenbacker 12-string on the choruses. Andy
was really into tracking six 12-string parts direct,
mixing them to mono, and then bringing them in
ever-so-slightly when the big chords came in. We
did a lot of that kind of stuff.”
“LEARNING TO FALL”
“The guitar on the left channel is the ‘live’ tracking
guitar. I used my touring chrome JS into the JSX 50
and a Vox Big Bad Wah. I did a little doubling of the
rhythm track that gets mixed in now and then. There’s
also grand piano, B3, synths, acoustics, mandolins,
etc.—all mixed mono on the right channel, and just
barely breaking the surface in the track, but providing
a beautiful sonic counterpoint to the raw
rhythm guitar. The solo was done on the JS 24-fret
prototype through a 4-channel prototype amp that
is in development. Those amps were really Frankenstein
looking, and all the switching had to be done
manually. I used them for the super-high-gain stuff.”
“TURNIN’ LEFT”
This is the Ibanez JS Super Colossal guitar into
the 4-channel prototype amp.”
“FUTURE IS THE PAST”
“‘Future Is the Past’ was the Ibanez JS Snake drop-
Dguitar into the JSX 50. There are also some direct
Rickenbacker 12-strings and a Bruce Sexauer D
Works acoustic. Sexauer is a guitar builder in
Petaluma, California, who makes astounding
acoustic instruments. The wah solo at the end is
probably the JS 24-fret guitar into a Vox Big Bad
Wah and the prototype 4-channel amp.”
“BITTEN BY THE WOLF” (Bonus Track)
“This was weird, because we recorded it without
really thinking about it. Sammy said, ‘Play me the
song,’ and I said, ‘Do you have an acoustic guitar
somewhere?’ He had a Yamaha CPX 400 or 900—
I’m not sure what they’re called—that he used live,
and I tuned it to all Es, except for the B string,
which is a B. I used to call that ‘Stephen Stills tuning.’
I played it for him, and everyone said, ‘Okay
Joe, let’s plug that in.’ So 20 minutes later, I’m sitting
in the booth with the Yamaha miked, routed
to a direct box, and sent to a Fender Vibrolux or
something, and I’m thinking, ‘We’re going to record
this now?’ And we did—that’s the acoustic guitar
sound. The slide stuff in the middle was played on
the white Ibanez ART—which was used for all the
slide parts on the album—going into my tubeless
tube driver prototype from Vox and the JSX 50.”