Joe Satriani, Def Leppard guitarist Phil Collen talk new music, G3 tour

“When we were kids, wouldn’t we have loved to have seen Jimmy Page, Ace Frehley, Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck with Jimi Hendrix just playing with each other, not worrying about who was the most popular at the moment or who sold more records?"

That's the pitch with which Joe Satriani ultimately talked Steve Vai and Eric Johnson into joining him on the inaugural G3 Tour, a guitar hero's summit, back in 1996.

It took about a year, the guitarist recalls, to convince them.

The struggle to make it happen

"They had been professional musicians for a long time and the business had trained them well that you never stand next to somebody who might play better than you," Satriani explains.

And then, of course, there were the managers, who had no particular interest in their artist being made to share the spotlight.

"I just had to personally talk to them," Satriani recalls, "and say, 'Imagine if the people in the audience have already made up their minds who their favorite is, so you’re not gonna change that. It doesn’t matter what you wear or how fast you play or whatever.

"They come to the concert knowing, "Steve’s my favorite guy. I don’t care what Joe plays."' I said, 'Let’s forget about that. That is no longer part of our job, to try to win over fans. The fans are actually there mainly because they’re so excited that we dropped our guard and decided to play with each other freely, not holding anything back.'”

Satriani prevailed.

"And once we did the first show, here in Northern California, I could see that they were blown away," he says. "Because they still didn’t believe me 100 percent. But once they did the show, they realized, they saw in the audience, the faces of people who loved them specifically.

"They also saw that those same people love them for standing next to me, who maybe they didn’t even know how to pronounce my last name. Or somebody famous like Steve Vai. They were just so happy that we did it and they were a part of it."

Keep coming back for more

That first tour was successful enough that 22 years later, Satriani is still doing G3 every chance he gets, including this year's tour, which brings him back to town with G3 veteran John Petrucci of Dream Theater and, in his first appearance on the tour, Phil Collen of Def Leppard.

"I think we succeeded because of the fact that the guitar players on stage were cut from the same cloth as the people in the audience, whether they were musicians or not." Satriani explains. "We loved guitar and so G3 became a mutual celebration of the electric guitar."

Satriani came up with the concept of the tour because he missed the camaraderie of jamming with fellow guitarist while touring.

"Towards the middle or end of 1995, although I was playing around the world and we had great success and sold millions of records, I found that I was always somewhere else when I wanted to play with one of my friends," he says. "I’d be in London and I’d call Steve Vai and he’d be in Australia. Or whatever. I was always on the wrong coast at the wrong time. Or wrong hemisphere.

When can I hang out with the guitar players I know?

"I remember walking into my management’s office and saying, 'When do I get to hang out with the other guitar players I know and play? It just seems like I’m getting more isolated the more successful I am. What can we do to create a controlled collaboration?'"

Making records with his friends would be too complicated and too costly with too much show-business to clear.

"So I started thinking, 'What if you formalize guitar players getting together to jam, like what we did in high school when it was so easy.''

Once he and his management had landed on the concept of a micro-festival of sorts, they settled on the magic number – three guitarists – "because of venue curfews, believe it or not," Satriani recalls. "They say, 'We can let people in at 7 and everybody has to be gone by 11.' That’s your curfew. So you think, 'Well, wouldn’t it be great to have 13 guitar players.' Then, you think, 'How do I squeeze them between 7:30 and 10:45?' And you realize that’s impossible. You wouldn’t be able to invite people and say, 'Could you come and play one and a half songs?'

Down to a formula

This format allows each guitarist to play anywhere between 45 minutes and an hour, with an all-star jam on another three songs at the end.

'It turned out to be a really magical formula," Satriani says. "Because it really did give enough time to each of the G3 guys to promote their latest record or to go through the fan favorites from their catalog. And they always came for the jam feeling like they played enough for the evening. They weren’t just hanging out backstage for hours and hours, not playing enough."

Guitar icon Joe Satriani takes new approach with 'What Happens Next'

The key to the all-star jam, Satriani discovered, was keeping it simple and structured.

"One of the things that took a little bit of convincing was that people come in with ideas about what the songs should be that we jam on," Satriani says. "And very often, you’ll get a player who really loves a particular song but I would have to point out that it’s too complex a song. If the song isn’t friendly enough to allow for improvisation, or if the song is so complicated that it requires anybody who’s gonna play it to sit down and rehearse, it becomes less of a celebration. It becomes less pliable. And performance is all about being pliable."

That also makes it easier to bring special guests.

"When we go from city to city, you’re gonna have people who just want to come on stage, show up and play," he says. "And if we have some very complicated song that we’ve all learned that’s more a presentation, not a free-form jam, those people won’t be able to jump on. The first show, who’s backstage immediately but Neal Schon, saying 'Can I play?' Of course we want to have Neal Schon play."

Keep it simple

It never fails, though. Satriani says. New players on the G3 Tour inevitably reach for something way too difficult to suit the task at at hand because they think it's more impressive.

"And I go, 'It’s really not about that,'" Satriani says. "It’s about being able to have a song that’s like an open invitation that it would be easy to have two guys show up and give them some guitars and they wouldn’t have to rehearse because it’s a well-known song and it’s easy to play. It doesn’t mean it’s easy to play well. I’m just saying you don’t have to know all the ins and outs of the arrangement. It’s the song that has a good smile on it, that’s an open invitation, that isn’t all locked up and doesn’t force people to play a certain way."

The three main players do rehearse, he says. "We make sure the parts that need to be rehearsed are rehearsed. There’s still some basic stuff, like what key is it in? Who’s gonna sing it? What tempo? Where do the solos happen? I instituted a couple rules. No matter who is the furthest stage left, that’s the first guy to play. I’ll play the last solo and that’ll help everybody cue the return to the song. That’s a simple set of stage rules that keeps the newcomer in line. So those are simple things."

The tricky part is lining up the other players, which can take about a year.

"These days, there’s such competition for venues that people really do book in advance, like up to two years," Satriani says. "If I was trying to put together something with Tommy Emmanuel or Joe Bonamassa, I’d have to think about 2020. So we go through a process where we come up with a bunch of names that I have to say primarily interest me and then we find out who’s available, who wants to do it, any issues that players have playing with the other players, what the management thinks and then what the promoters think."

It is the music business, Satriani says, which means he's at the mercy of the people taking the financial risk.

"If the promoters don’t collectively like one of the people that I’ve picked, that means that person doesn’t go," he says. "That’s just the way it goes. The promoters take the risk to bring a band to town so it’s not up to me, let’s put it that way. If I said, 'Look, I’ve got this guy. You’ve never heard of him but he’s great,' they’d say, 'Exactly, we’ve never heard of him. We’re not confident that anyone is gonna buy a ticket to that.'” However, if I said, 'Hey, I’ve got Jimmy Page and Eddie Van Halen, are you interested?,' they’d say, 'You don’t have to come. Send those two guys.'"

This is Petrucci's seventh tour of G3 duty, Phil Collen's first

"He’s a tremendous musician," Satriani says. "The consummate professional. His musicianship is at virtuoso level and when he’s on stage, he’s like a little 14-year-old with his first guitar. He’s so excited. And he’s fearless. You put him in any situation and he wants to see if he can do it. It’s really a joy to play with him. It’s easy to tour with him. He’s a great hang. Maybe it’s because we’re both from Long Island and we can relate to each other but it’s always been a lot of fun. And the bonus that I get out of hanging out with him is that I can’t play half the stuff he can play so I’m constantly learning how he approaches his stuff from a technical level and I’m always hoping some of it will rub off."

Although this is Collen's first G3 Tour, he and Satriani worked together this past year at Satriani's G4 Camp in Northern California.

"He surprised everybody with what a huge positive personality he was with the campers and as a performer," Satriani says. "And what equally knocked everybody sideways was what an incredible guitar player he was beyond what we’ve been hearing with Def Leppard. He turned out to be a really soulful player and a crazy shredder. If you open that door and say, “Hey, do you want to shred on this?,” he’s got a smile on his face and off he goes. All you had to do was whisper a couple of chord changes in his ear and he was right there on stage ready to go. So he’s a total pro."

As intrigued as Satriani was by the prospect of inviting Collen to take part in this year's tour, he didn't really think he'd do it.

"He’s in Def Leppard," he says. "Why would he jump off the stadium circuit to do this? But he circled back around and said 'I am available to do this.' I jumped at the chance. I wanted to play with him some more. And I knew the sort of surprised he would get from the audience because of who he is and who he’s been playing with."

Collen has been looking forward to the opportunity to stretch out on this tour in ways his day job won't allow.

The gift of improvisation on stage

"I’ll be able to improvise a bit," he says. "Most of the time, you know, I’m in Def Leppard and it’s very structured; our stuff is all song-oriented. Three-minute pop songs in a lot of cases. You have to have a bridge, a verse, a chorus. So I’m usually restricted, from a guitar point of view. Our songs are meant to be that way. And I’m tied to a microphone because I sing on every song. With this, we can open up a bit and have a more experimentation, although I’ll be singing as well. It’s just a bit more open."

It's not that Collen never has an opportunity to improvise.

"I play guitar all the time," he says. "It’s not just something I do on stage. I’m always recording. I’m always sitting around the house on guitar, just playing. So that part is going to be very similar. But some of the stuff I’ll be doing is stuff people wouldn’t have heard me do before."

Still, Collen can't help but approach the thought of stretching out from the perspective of a guy who's used to playing tightly-scripted pop songs.

"I get really wary if I’m overdoing something," he says. "So I’m very specific about not overstaying the welcome with the jam part. I never want to be that guy that just jams and jams and jams. It’s a little indulgent. I like the idea of being something that actually means something. You can depart from groove and melody for a minute but you’ve gotta pull it back and make sense of stuff. One of my favorite musicians is Stanley Clarke. Although he’s a bass player and beyond most people’s headspace, if you ever go and see him play, if he disappears and you go, 'I’m not understanding this rhythm or these notes he’s playing,' all the sudden he’ll steer it back in with his groove and melody."

Which is something he's always admired about Satriani's approach to guitar instrumentals.

"Joe actually opened the rock thing up and where he’s progressed is amazing," he says.

His all-time favorite player, Collen says, is Jimi Hendrix.

"I don’t think anyone got close to that kind of expression and purity," he says. "He created the instrument for me. I love Jeff Beck. I got to play with him live about a year ago in Japan, which was phenomenal. I got into Stanley Clarke because I love Al Di Meola. But I love just blending it all up. I got into guitar because I saw Ritchie Blackmore. I love what Jimmy Page does. Again, every one has a very different place that they’re coming from and what they’re doing with it."

Going deeper into Delta Deep

As for Collen's set, he's joined by members of his other project, Delta Deep.

"Debbie Blackwell-Cook’s gonna be coming out on some of the shows," he says. "And Forrest Robinson, the drummer, he’s obviously playing the whole tour. Craig Martini, who I played the G4 thing with, he’s playing bass because Robert DeLeo can’t make the tour. He’s got STP things to do. So we are going to be doing Delta Deep stuff. But there’s also instrumental stuff. There’s a few Def Leppard songs. We actually debuted one at G4, 'Disintegrate,' which was on 'Euphoria.' We never really get a chance to play it so it was kind of cool that we could actually get round to that."

There's a Delta Deep live album hitting the streets within days of Collen rocking Mesa on the G3 Tour.

"And we’ve already started a second studio album, which actually I was working on two days ago," he says. "And that again is very different. It’s taken the blues format and pushed it even further with soul, funk and different kinds of R&B and incorporating other styles as well, which I’m loving. It’s nothing that was planned. It just kind of turned out that way."

A perfect fit

As to how the three guitarists mesh, Collen feels its a perfectly natural fit on many levels.

"We’re all very different guitar players but we’ve got some things that are very much the same," Collen says. "The fact that everyone’s an artist, not just a musician. I think that makes a difference. And the fact that we’re all on this eternal quest for better sound, more experience, better playing, just a learning curve. So I think we’re gonna have a blast. Even some of the arrangements of some of the songs we’re gonna be jamming on will be just a nice thing, a different approach."

New Satriani album

This year's tour is partly in support of Satriani's 16th solo album, "What Happens Next," which features Glenn Hughes of Deep Purple on bass and Red Hot Chili Peppers' drummer Chad Smith, who previously worked with Satriani in Chickenfoot.

"I invited Chad first," Satriani recalls. "I sent him a text and said, 'Crazy idea. You, me, Glenn Hughes. Rock and soul. No odd time signatures. Just the three of us. Can you give me seven days?' He said 'Yes' right away."

When he reached out to Hughes, the response was "You mean you don’t want me to sing?"

The bassist had never done an instrumental record. "So it was a completely new thing to him not to open his mouth," Satriani recalls. "He’s got one of the greatest voices on the planet. I’m sure it was a kind of torture for him not to be able to sing but I just had a vision."

He had his fingers cross, he says, "that Glenn and Chad were the guys to do it. And they really brought it all. It was just a fantastic experience."

Satriani has described "What Happens Next," his first release since "Shockwave Supernova," as an internal artistic rebirth.

MORE: Guitar icon Joe Satriani takes new approach with 'What Happens Next'

Leaving 'Shockwave Supernova' behind

"It returns to themes that would have been started back when I was a young kid," he says, "growing up on the music that my older siblings grew up listening to. From late ‘50s stuff all the way through 1970 was really their music that I sort of absorbed vicariously by being in the room, watching them party. Then as each of them grew up, went to college and left the house, they would leave these records behind."

That's how he discovered Chuck Berry, the Beatles, the Stones, the Who and Jimi Hendrix.

"They were sort of hand-me-downs," he says. "I was the generation that wore motorcycle boots and listened to Black Sabbath and played Zeppelin at the high school dance. That was my generation. But I had this deep set of roots that was based on soul music, James Brown, Motown and mixing it up with everything that Hendrix and Clapton and Page and then all the blues players as well. To add to that, my parents were jazz-age enthusiasts. So I grew up listening to Miles Davis all the time, and Johnny Hodges and Coltrane. Because it was always being played in the house right next to the Beatles and Sly Stone."

Acknowledging those roots was part of what he calls "that whole cathartic process of recognizing the 'Shockwave Supernova' alter ego and wanting to get rid of it or at least confront it and understand it," he says. "What I was trying to do was sort of circle back to 'What is the real me? What is me without the affectations or the tics that have accumulated because I’ve had to be a public performer and that’s not really my nature? I had to sort of cut through a lot of that psychological stuff and confront or accept or embrace what I really, really liked. And then I thought “I should make a record about that.”

And once he'd come to that conclusion, Satriani recalls, "It was easy. The music just flowed and the choice of musicians seemed obvious to me."

What happens next for Def Leppard

Collen says the members of Def Leppard have been working on material for their next album.

"We’ve got three songs," Collen says. "Rick Savage has got this amazing ballad. Joe’s got this incredible concept for a song with some lyrics. I haven’t heard the latest demo. I’ve got one finished song that everyone’s fallen in love with, just a rock singalong, an exciting rock song. So we’ve got stuff on the go. It’s just a matter of when we’re gonna get time to do it."

They may do some recording on the road.

As Collen says, "I just produced a Tesla album, which will be out next year. We did that while we were on tour, which was fascinating. We’d go backstage and be like, 'OK, we’ve got 25 minutes before soundcheck and I’ve got a guitar part we’ve got to do.' And the guitars sound phenomenal. Every day, we’d go in a trailer or a hallway and record stuff. So I think I’m certainly gonna be doing stuff on the next Def Leppard tour, which is a real long one. It’s gonna be like a year and a half, starting in May."

They haven't talked about the overall direction of the album. But they used to do that all the time.

"We’d give ourselves a briefing," Collen says. "In 1990-something, we’d say “If we take a little bit of the band Garbage and add it to the Backstreet Boys,' or whatever was happening at that point in time. We would actually have a structure and guidelines. We don’t do that anymore. The last album, we didn’t even know if we were gonna do an album. We actually had one song and within probably about a week, we realized we had 12 songs and they were so radically different. They wouldn’t have made it on an earlier Def Leppard album all together. We’d say, 'Well, that’s out of context with that one.'”

Collen loved how the last album felt and he's hoping they can carry that approach into the sessions for the next one.

"If someone is sitting there playing piano and that sounds right," he says, "if the song's cool and everything, then it will work next to some aggressive rock song. I’m excited by that prospect."

Reach the reporter at ed.masley@arizonarepublic.com or 602-444-4495. Twitter.com/EdMasley.

Joe Satriani's G3 Tour

When: 7 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 18.

Where: Mesa Arts Center, 1 E. Main St.

Admission: $42-$153.

Details: 480-644-6500, mesaartscenter.com.

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