Joe Satriani Talks About How G3 Shows Get Competitive

G3 tour founder and headliner Joe Satriani says one of the reasons he and his collaborators have so much fun on the tour is because of how much they push one another every night.

The U.S. leg of the tour features Dream Theater's John Petrucci and Def Leppard's Phil Collen also on the bill. 

Satch acknowledges that each night's closing jams featuring all three guitarists do get competitive, but he says that spirit manifests in a positive way.

"Well, the thing with G3 is that everybody gets to do their thing with their band in front of the audience before the jam starts," Satriani tells Q104.3's "Out of the Box" with Jonathan Clarke. "So we kind of exorcise all those gunslinger demons. And then by the time we get onstage, everyone's so relaxed and we're ready to do something new that we didn't do last night or the night before."

The environment on the tour is extremely positive, Petrucci adds, describing it as a "traveling community of musicians who just are having such a great time, sharing stories, musical experiences."

The traveling circus environment of the whole thing seems to bring the best out of everyone.

"We go out there, I think, with the express desire to see how we can push each other to some new place," Satriani says. "We're looking at each other, we're elbow to elbow and after the show we talk about it for a half hour."

Satch says everyone looks forward to the conversations after the shows, where they can trade techniques or tricks they heard one of the other players use during the show. 

"I think the main thing is I get inspiration off of these two," Collen said, indicating Satriani and Petrucci. "It's like crazy every night we're actually creating music on the fly."

Check out the full "Out of the Box" interview below.  


Photo: Getty Images


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