March 2, 2026 • 22 mins
Legendary guitar icons Joe Satriani and Steve Vai bring their SATCHVAI band to the US for the first time with “Surfing with the Hydra." Joe and Steve join to talk about the tour and new song "Dancing." Plus, we discuss how Joe recommended Bumblefoot for Guns N' Roses, Steve's first time seeing GN'R, and more!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ah you say hi, Steve, I Hi Joe Satriani may.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Yeah, that's close enough for me.
Speaker 3 (00:15):
Joe Satriani and Steve Y, thank you both. I get
to spend two hours with you guys this morning, but
only twenty minutes or fifteen minutes with us. It's so
full disclosure. This is episode five hundred and fifty four
of Appetite for Distortion.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
Very lucky, very lucky.
Speaker 3 (00:32):
I've been an iHeart for like fifteen years and be
able to kind of do this in kind of hybrid
or make a hydra. That was gonna be my my
segue of the hybrid tour. Not as good as a
segue as it was in my brain Between you, I thought.
Speaker 4 (00:46):
Well, you'll have many other chances, you know.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
I usually sometimes when I do these tours, these radio
tour slash interviews, I'm like in the middle or towards
the end of it, so I kind of get to
hear all the practice interviews and trap myself.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
So now we're all kind of wake it up in
a bit the interview.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
So while while we're here today, while we're talking, and
while you're here, because after me we're going to go
to Atlanta. We're going to go to Denver. We're going
to go to a lot of different places. The hydro
tour for ste Bay for a satch. Excuse me, see
it's early for sach h. How excited are you guys
to get back on the road. I mean, you kind
of guess that's your home away from home, and I'm
(01:25):
sure it's so safe to say.
Speaker 4 (01:26):
Well, it certainly has been these last four years we've
been you know, touring cycles come and usually you do,
you know, the protocol is you make a record, you
go on tour, you go into writing, you make another record,
you go on tour. But Joe and I have been
like balancing various projects, touring projects, so there's like if
(01:51):
we just haven't let up, it's great.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
Yeah, yeah, it's funny.
Speaker 5 (01:57):
I'm sitting here at this this art table and I
have to show you this because it makes no sense
to most people. But it says wet, you know, and
it reminds me that, you know, this is something that
I put on paintings in progress, so I remind myself
(02:17):
that the pain is wet, don't touch it, you know,
leave it alone. So there's there's you know, like thirty
of these things floating around it's just having to be
staring at me.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
But it reminds me of.
Speaker 5 (02:27):
Of how busy the last you know, four or five
years have been and how diverse they've been.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
With what Steve and I have been doing. We've really been.
Speaker 5 (02:39):
Fortunate to spread out and spread our creative wings and
get involved in stuff that has driven our.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
Schedule absolutely crazy.
Speaker 5 (02:50):
And the fact that we were able to do a
surfing with a hydrotur you know, twice in a way,
and we're going to do another one and we're just
about to finish an album is just crazy. But remarkably,
it's been so much fun, even though we're going nuts
trying to figure out how, where and when we're going
(03:11):
to get everything done, you know, including you know, the
painting and our other outside music projects, you know, but
it's it's been fun.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
You guys have just been NonStop since the beginning.
Speaker 3 (03:23):
Yet Surfing with the hydra Us tour kicks off and
it's no fools joke April first in Seattle, Washington, and
I know.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
That's it was there.
Speaker 3 (03:34):
Well, we'll see and you can stream the new song Dancing,
not just to listen, but to watch, And it's just
crazy to think because I've been following you guys my
entire career. You're both Long Island guys like myself. I mean,
you're an inspiration. I'm from I'm from Baldwin. Who's from
(03:54):
which one is from? Joe, you're from Bay Shore?
Speaker 5 (03:59):
Or technically I'm from Westbury, Westbury, that's right, Yeah, technically. Yeah,
it was a little piece of Westbury that was part
of the car Place School district. So that's why I
wound up going to car Place High School got and
hanging out with Steve and all the rest of those degenerates.
Speaker 4 (04:16):
Yeah, there was quite a few.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
I love that, just Long Island friends. So how long
have you been friends?
Speaker 3 (04:23):
And then we're doing this still in twenty twenty six,
So what year of friendship is this for Steve and Joe?
Speaker 4 (04:29):
Oh, it was nineteen seventy two two, yeah, yeah, when
I started with Joe, so many two I think it was.
And I was a couple of grades younger, so the
you know, the social circle I hung out with was
just like the younger brothers of Joe and his friends basically,
(04:56):
So at first it was you know, teacher student relationship,
and we just stayed in touch through the years and
just were always in the beginning. We'd always kind of
keep in touch, send each other music that we're working
on occasionally, and there was always these opportunities that would
(05:18):
come up where we'd be able to get together and
do something together, whether it was a G three tour
or I remember we did the Alice Cooper track together,
and you know, things like that would start happening, and
it's a really great It's remarkable that two people that
(05:38):
were born a mile apart, you know, played guitar and
basically we joined at the hips through their entire career
in a particular way.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
I love that.
Speaker 3 (05:52):
And to use another bad segue that my brain does
hip and dance dancing. So how do you uh, you know,
as someone who's not a musician, all this is because
dancing it's like who takes the lead? Right, So when
you have two dominant forces like Via and Satriani, how
(06:13):
do you decide who takes the lead? I guess that's
the question when you're coming up with this song or
whether it's this.
Speaker 4 (06:20):
Song always taking the lead, and.
Speaker 3 (06:25):
That's kind of what the sound is, right, you got
to battling against each other in a way.
Speaker 5 (06:31):
Well, you know, it's funny as as far as the
new single goes Dancing started with just the craziest message
from Steve about the song that he'd been wanting to
do for I don't know, almost a decade. And when
I first heard it, I thought, well, this is like
(06:53):
one of Steve's craziest ideas. But I'm not surprised because
most of his ideas are absolutely crazy, and I figure, like,
I have no idea what I would ever do on
a track like that, and I think that's exactly what
I said.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
That was my reply.
Speaker 5 (07:07):
But I said, I trust you, so just start start
it and I'll see if I can join in and
be just as crazy. And that's how that got started,
and you know, it ended gloriously. The track just boy,
that's got a lot of guitars.
Speaker 4 (07:23):
On it, a lot of guitars.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
How many guitars do you?
Speaker 4 (07:27):
Oh, geez, I don't know. I think those all those
background guitars are about eighteen. Yeah, that's what I am.
But you know that the songs speak for themselves. They
tell us who should be doing what in a weird
kind of a way. You know, if it's a song
that Joe wrote, and he would obviously take the melody
(07:49):
and mostly A lot of the times we would examine
the melodies and we decide, well, do we want to
double this, do we want to do a harmony, do
we want to tray on it? Or is it just
one guy taking the melody? And it's the song kind
of tells you, you know, and then we just move
(08:11):
ahead with it and it works. You know that there's
no real fighting for position or anything like that. Yeah,
and it's it's great because we each have kind of
a little a little bit of different dynamic and sensibilities
on the instrument and our melodic ear, so it creates
(08:32):
a nice little fusion.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
It certainly does.
Speaker 3 (08:36):
And how was making the video and enjoy your Your
son Zz directed it.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (08:43):
Yeah, it's so much fun to work with easy because
he's really driven and super like hyped and organized when
you show up on set, Yeah, and you just surrender
like he tells you stand here, do this, and he
manages the whole scene.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
It's just great to watch.
Speaker 5 (09:06):
And the video got it start, you know, with Steven
Zeezy talking about the song, because Steve had spent quite
a lot of time sort of brainstorming just doing the
song in general, and Zeezi really loved the idea of,
you know, getting as many people to perform in this,
(09:28):
and he knew that Steve and I didn't want to dance.
That was the joke, is that there's no dancing from
Joe and Steve. And so that was good and we
could just have fun with it. But when he got
together with Brendan Small that, I mean, the two of them.
Speaker 2 (09:45):
Just really.
Speaker 5 (09:48):
Dreamt up this fantastic video with some real acting and Steve.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
And I got to just sort of be in the
room while the real acting went on.
Speaker 5 (09:57):
Yeah, but it really brought the song to life as
it relates to us, because you know, it was a
pop song from the early eighties and I don't even
know what the lyrics are. To tell you the truth
that I've never looked at the translation.
Speaker 4 (10:14):
From the Spanish.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
So they're in Spanish.
Speaker 4 (10:17):
Okay, I think it's Spanish. I get it.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
Gee.
Speaker 5 (10:22):
I just for some reason, I thought it was Italian
and I just assumed, well, we're just going to sort
of imagine the song is about what Steve and I
wanted to be about, you know, And so it became
this incredibly American sort of based song. And I thought
(10:42):
that really made sense because the way that Steve and
I play.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
You know, we're these two kids.
Speaker 5 (10:49):
From Long Island, as you've said, and we were born
in a particular time in the last century, so lucky
to be born when guitar playing was just going through
this incredible renaissance. And we've put that all into this track.
I mean, as Steve told you eighteen and I think
those are just the background tracks, you know.
Speaker 4 (11:11):
What I mean, it's the background guitars.
Speaker 5 (11:13):
Yeah, Steve replaced all the horn parts with guitar parts.
So I think I managed two tracks maybe or one
very powerful somehow figure out where am I going to
be in this track? But yeah, but it was so
much fun, and the video is fun. It's it's just
got some fantastic talent. All these dancers from all over
(11:34):
the the sort of social dancing styles currently in favor
and mixed with comedy, and each of the performers just
gave all they had and they knew it was going
to be a humorous video, but they couldn't help but
be awesome. I mean, their physicality technique, it was just
(11:57):
really great.
Speaker 3 (11:58):
I smiled certainly while watching it up were singing Brendan
Small from Metal Eclipse. You know that thought I was like, whoa, Okay,
all right, I'm just seeing where this is going because
it's it's not just like a short little skit. It's
like if you watch the video, it's like almost like
a little thriller. It's like half the video. It's like
it's like a movie and very very funny. But I
(12:19):
wanted to use the segue to working with your son,
and off air, our friend Melissa said, you both had
when when when you guys get to work with your grandchildren?
Speaker 1 (12:29):
I guess ques.
Speaker 4 (12:30):
Actually we're already working with them every day. They're very
working for them, working for them.
Speaker 3 (12:36):
Yes, because my son, I don't know if you heard
him in the background, he'll be three in April and
sometimes he shows up and stuff. So what is that like?
I mean, you you tell me. You know, you start
out as a kid and again Long Island playing guitar,
and now you have a grand kid. You know, when's
your first I'm sure you've played for them already or
(12:58):
they are they noticing?
Speaker 1 (12:59):
Use it?
Speaker 3 (13:00):
Have they attended shows? Because we took them to Paul
McCartney last year. I'm going to take them to see
Guns and Roses this summer. I just can't wait. So
I mean to be a grandchild or a child you
see by Jose Atriani.
Speaker 1 (13:12):
I can't imagine the music that's surrounded by.
Speaker 4 (13:16):
Well, they're only one year old, so they don't know
who we really.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
Are yet, all right, And it wasn't sure I knew
they were young.
Speaker 4 (13:22):
I know they were, yeah, but it's you know, the
remarkable thing is just as you go through life and
first you're a you're a child, and you have parents,
and then next thing you know, you're having children, and
next thing you know, your children are having children, and
every one of them is like you're stepping into a
whole different dimension. And this is our first foray into
(13:46):
being grandparents, you know. And and both of our kids,
I think they about three months apart. Joe, Yeah, yeah,
our grandchildren. So this is a you know, the joined
at the hip thing.
Speaker 3 (13:58):
You know, he was just saying hello to me while
you guys were listening saying hello.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
Nice around.
Speaker 3 (14:06):
Harrison Rex named after George Harrison. But you know, you
never know because my wife took him to go see
Dave Matthews I think before round one years old, and
he has the headphones and stuff like that. But to
make this segue, because I still have a job to do.
I got to connect you to other radio stations across
the country. I mean, I'm not the only one who
wants to talk to you, believe it or not. So
(14:26):
the segue, of course, appetite for Distortion, Guns and Roses steamed.
I mean, everybody and their mother has a podcast. I
just figured i'd just be a little different. So I
what I call six degrees of Guns and Roses GNR Bacon,
you know, different connections. So if you don't mind, ask
you about your your GNR connections or gen R experiences.
(14:47):
So this is coming from a listener, Joe, when I
had Ron Bumblefoot a thaw on. You know, you're the
one who recommended him for the job. So I'm just
curious about if you don't mind telling me that that
story and how that How that happened.
Speaker 5 (15:03):
Oh that happened because our current producer, Eric Kogia, and
I had been working together since the very first G
three live album. He was the editor that was charged
with pulling all those live performances together for one live
DVD and CD, and he had been working on Chinese
(15:28):
Democracy I guess eight.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
Years or something like that. That record took forever.
Speaker 5 (15:34):
And so one day he calls up and he says
that Axel is looking for the craziest guitar player ever.
That's you know, it was one of the things that
he was demanding. And I think they already had Buckethead.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
And I was thinking, like, you know, who is pretty crazy?
You know, who would I recommend? Who's the craziest and
the best?
Speaker 5 (15:55):
You know, who was really at the top. And I
knew there was only one guy. It had to be
Ron thal Bumblefoot. And I had met Ron in the
funniest way because I was doing an interview in Paris
and the interviewer was sort of trying to get me
(16:16):
to make off comments about other guitar players, and so
he prefaced playing some of Ron's music by talking about
blues and blues feeling and do I notice blues feeling
in these guitar players? And he had played a clip
of Ron doing something absolutely abstract, completely freaky, you know,
(16:38):
which comes normally for Ron, and I said, well, you.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
Know, I don't think there's any blues feeling in.
Speaker 5 (16:46):
There, and so that's what he printed was me sort
of dissing Ron, and so Ron got a hold of
me somehow and said, hey, like, how come you said that,
you know? And so I explained the story to him,
and I said, why don't you come out to a gig.
I'm playing somewhere in Jersey at the time. And I said,
(17:07):
we'll just do it on stage. We'll just show everybody
where guitar playing's at today, you know, and we'll laugh
about the whole blues feeling thing. And we became really
great friends, and I became a super admirer of his
musicianship all around.
Speaker 2 (17:22):
He's just like a total freak.
Speaker 5 (17:26):
His musicianship is amazing and if you play guitar, you
know that most of what he does only he can do.
So anyway, Ron came to my mind and I said, Eric,
you have to get this guy, Ron Thall, you know,
into Axel's band and tell Axel that there's no one
(17:46):
else who can stand next to Buckethead and look even
stranger and played just as good, you know, because there
are two premier guitar players. But my conversation was with
Ron was pretty funny because it was the last thing
he expected was me to call him and say, how
would you like to audition for Guns N' Roses, Because
you know.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
He had accepted.
Speaker 5 (18:08):
I think the fact that he was just the oddest
guitar player and that, you know, the most accepted rock
band at the moment, you know, the most the standard,
the new standard for straight ahead rock, was ever going
to be calling him for an audition, But he did
it anyway, and I think as a as an experiment
in life, you know, just to see how much fun
(18:30):
it would be. And he got the gig because he
was himself and I think actual could see right away
as a genius. And so that lasted a long time,
didn't that. How many years did he play with Guns
and Roses?
Speaker 3 (18:44):
A few?
Speaker 1 (18:44):
I don't have the number up without my head.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
I mean it was something like ten or something like that.
Speaker 3 (18:48):
Yeah, he was. I saw him a concert back in
six like his first tour. He was actually my first
interview ever in my professional career. So no, I appreciate
you you sharing that story and to kind of be
out weird buckethead, is it?
Speaker 1 (19:05):
What about you, Steve?
Speaker 3 (19:06):
I'm sure you were Were you ever asked to be
in Guns and Roses? I say that facetiously, Well what
were your I guess what's your biggest?
Speaker 1 (19:13):
Uh?
Speaker 3 (19:14):
And I'm not I'm not going to be like that
other host try to shit you up at the question.
I only want positive stories. So any what's your best
positive cons Well, well, it's.
Speaker 4 (19:23):
Very easy to hear blues playing in Slash's playing so well.
For me, it was I was in Dave Roth at
the time. I was playing with David Lee Roth and uh,
you know. The living in Hollywood, the Sunset Strip was
a breeding ground for all new talent and young talent.
And it was interesting because when I first moved out there,
(19:45):
I lived right on I was twenty and nineteen eighty
and I lived right on the corner of Sunset Boulevard
and Hollywood Boulevard basically, and there was the notorious clubs,
The Whiskey, the the Rainbow, and the True Badour right
around the corner from my house and my wife at
(20:08):
the time, my girlfriend worked at these clubs as a waitress,
you know, and she had always had great taste in music,
and she'd come home and she'd say, yeah, I saw
a band tonight, I think, you know Rat you know?
Or there's this band they're called Poison, I think. So
she was calling all these bands as they were coming out,
and Guns N' Roses was just one of the ones
(20:30):
that came through, and it was just obvious there was
this momentum. And it was interesting because they came at
a time right when the music scene was kind of changing,
and they were able to not only slip in there,
but reshape it, you know, because the music was so strong.
But I kind of knew Slash a little bit because
(20:51):
we had a mutual friend and a publicist. But I
just thought the music was very organically rock and roll
for the nineties and you know, the period that it
was coming out. And yeah, it was interesting. It's always
interesting to watch the meteoric rise of a band, and
(21:14):
they were that, and it was they shot right up.
Speaker 3 (21:20):
Well, I appreciate that story. And you worked with Doug Goldstein, right,
oh yeah, you know Doug. Yeah, short story before we
get you. I have to do my job and get
you onto the next stations. But I was working on
his autobiography with him and it just didn't work out.
And he told me, though, really, if you don't mind
me sharing, I can cut it out. If you want
(21:41):
a really kind story about you and you taking care
of his brother when his brother was sick, that you
allowed him when his brother was dying, you allowed him
to stay at one of your studios. And so I
don't know if that rings a bell. Yeah, okay, And
so it's just something that I always think about, Mike,
and it just speaks.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
Volumes to who you are.
Speaker 3 (22:02):
And this whole conversation between Steve and Joe right now,
thank you so much. I really appreciate it. You know,
three Long Island guys just talking right now. I don't
know why I got a CALLI in there. Yeah, So
thank you for my time. So, yeah, we have a
lot more to go to. We got to go to Denver, Atlanta.
We're gonna go back to New York City, Chicago, Toronto, Dallas,
(22:25):
back to Denver, Atlantic City, Baltimore.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
So let me get going. I'm gonna shut up. I know,
I know.
Speaker 3 (22:32):
So hopefully I got you guys awake, I got you.
This was the test run, right, Thanks guys. I appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (22:38):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (22:38):
So that does it for this episode of Appetite for Distortion.
When we see the next one.
Speaker 3 (22:42):
In the words of AXL. Rose, concerning Chinese democracy, I
don't know if suit as the word, but you'll see it.
Speaker 1 (22:54):
Thanks to the lame ask security.
Speaker 4 (22:56):
I'm going home
Ah you say hi, Steve, I Hi Joe Satriani may.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Yeah, that's close enough for me.
Speaker 3 (00:15):
Joe Satriani and Steve Y, thank you both. I get
to spend two hours with you guys this morning, but
only twenty minutes or fifteen minutes with us. It's so
full disclosure. This is episode five hundred and fifty four
of Appetite for Distortion.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
Very lucky, very lucky.
Speaker 3 (00:32):
I've been an iHeart for like fifteen years and be
able to kind of do this in kind of hybrid
or make a hydra. That was gonna be my my
segue of the hybrid tour. Not as good as a
segue as it was in my brain Between you, I thought.
Speaker 4 (00:46):
Well, you'll have many other chances, you know.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
I usually sometimes when I do these tours, these radio
tour slash interviews, I'm like in the middle or towards
the end of it, so I kind of get to
hear all the practice interviews and trap myself.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
So now we're all kind of wake it up in
a bit the interview.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
So while while we're here today, while we're talking, and
while you're here, because after me we're going to go
to Atlanta. We're going to go to Denver. We're going
to go to a lot of different places. The hydro
tour for ste Bay for a satch. Excuse me, see
it's early for sach h. How excited are you guys
to get back on the road. I mean, you kind
of guess that's your home away from home, and I'm
(01:25):
sure it's so safe to say.
Speaker 4 (01:26):
Well, it certainly has been these last four years we've
been you know, touring cycles come and usually you do,
you know, the protocol is you make a record, you
go on tour, you go into writing, you make another record,
you go on tour. But Joe and I have been
like balancing various projects, touring projects, so there's like if
(01:51):
we just haven't let up, it's great.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
Yeah, yeah, it's funny.
Speaker 5 (01:57):
I'm sitting here at this this art table and I
have to show you this because it makes no sense
to most people. But it says wet, you know, and
it reminds me that, you know, this is something that
I put on paintings in progress, so I remind myself
(02:17):
that the pain is wet, don't touch it, you know,
leave it alone. So there's there's you know, like thirty
of these things floating around it's just having to be
staring at me.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
But it reminds me of.
Speaker 5 (02:27):
Of how busy the last you know, four or five
years have been and how diverse they've been.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
With what Steve and I have been doing. We've really been.
Speaker 5 (02:39):
Fortunate to spread out and spread our creative wings and
get involved in stuff that has driven our.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
Schedule absolutely crazy.
Speaker 5 (02:50):
And the fact that we were able to do a
surfing with a hydrotur you know, twice in a way,
and we're going to do another one and we're just
about to finish an album is just crazy. But remarkably,
it's been so much fun, even though we're going nuts
trying to figure out how, where and when we're going
(03:11):
to get everything done, you know, including you know, the
painting and our other outside music projects, you know, but
it's it's been fun.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
You guys have just been NonStop since the beginning.
Speaker 3 (03:23):
Yet Surfing with the hydra Us tour kicks off and
it's no fools joke April first in Seattle, Washington, and
I know.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
That's it was there.
Speaker 3 (03:34):
Well, we'll see and you can stream the new song Dancing,
not just to listen, but to watch, And it's just
crazy to think because I've been following you guys my
entire career. You're both Long Island guys like myself. I mean,
you're an inspiration. I'm from I'm from Baldwin. Who's from
(03:54):
which one is from? Joe, you're from Bay Shore?
Speaker 5 (03:59):
Or technically I'm from Westbury, Westbury, that's right, Yeah, technically. Yeah,
it was a little piece of Westbury that was part
of the car Place School district. So that's why I
wound up going to car Place High School got and
hanging out with Steve and all the rest of those degenerates.
Speaker 4 (04:16):
Yeah, there was quite a few.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
I love that, just Long Island friends. So how long
have you been friends?
Speaker 3 (04:23):
And then we're doing this still in twenty twenty six,
So what year of friendship is this for Steve and Joe?
Speaker 4 (04:29):
Oh, it was nineteen seventy two two, yeah, yeah, when
I started with Joe, so many two I think it was.
And I was a couple of grades younger, so the
you know, the social circle I hung out with was
just like the younger brothers of Joe and his friends basically,
(04:56):
So at first it was you know, teacher student relationship,
and we just stayed in touch through the years and
just were always in the beginning. We'd always kind of
keep in touch, send each other music that we're working
on occasionally, and there was always these opportunities that would
(05:18):
come up where we'd be able to get together and
do something together, whether it was a G three tour
or I remember we did the Alice Cooper track together,
and you know, things like that would start happening, and
it's a really great It's remarkable that two people that
(05:38):
were born a mile apart, you know, played guitar and
basically we joined at the hips through their entire career
in a particular way.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
I love that.
Speaker 3 (05:52):
And to use another bad segue that my brain does
hip and dance dancing. So how do you uh, you know,
as someone who's not a musician, all this is because
dancing it's like who takes the lead? Right, So when
you have two dominant forces like Via and Satriani, how
(06:13):
do you decide who takes the lead? I guess that's
the question when you're coming up with this song or
whether it's this.
Speaker 4 (06:20):
Song always taking the lead, and.
Speaker 3 (06:25):
That's kind of what the sound is, right, you got
to battling against each other in a way.
Speaker 5 (06:31):
Well, you know, it's funny as as far as the
new single goes Dancing started with just the craziest message
from Steve about the song that he'd been wanting to
do for I don't know, almost a decade. And when
I first heard it, I thought, well, this is like
(06:53):
one of Steve's craziest ideas. But I'm not surprised because
most of his ideas are absolutely crazy, and I figure, like,
I have no idea what I would ever do on
a track like that, and I think that's exactly what
I said.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
That was my reply.
Speaker 5 (07:07):
But I said, I trust you, so just start start
it and I'll see if I can join in and
be just as crazy. And that's how that got started,
and you know, it ended gloriously. The track just boy,
that's got a lot of guitars.
Speaker 4 (07:23):
On it, a lot of guitars.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
How many guitars do you?
Speaker 4 (07:27):
Oh, geez, I don't know. I think those all those
background guitars are about eighteen. Yeah, that's what I am.
But you know that the songs speak for themselves. They
tell us who should be doing what in a weird
kind of a way. You know, if it's a song
that Joe wrote, and he would obviously take the melody
(07:49):
and mostly A lot of the times we would examine
the melodies and we decide, well, do we want to
double this, do we want to do a harmony, do
we want to tray on it? Or is it just
one guy taking the melody? And it's the song kind
of tells you, you know, and then we just move
(08:11):
ahead with it and it works. You know that there's
no real fighting for position or anything like that. Yeah,
and it's it's great because we each have kind of
a little a little bit of different dynamic and sensibilities
on the instrument and our melodic ear, so it creates
(08:32):
a nice little fusion.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
It certainly does.
Speaker 3 (08:36):
And how was making the video and enjoy your Your
son Zz directed it.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (08:43):
Yeah, it's so much fun to work with easy because
he's really driven and super like hyped and organized when
you show up on set, Yeah, and you just surrender
like he tells you stand here, do this, and he
manages the whole scene.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
It's just great to watch.
Speaker 5 (09:06):
And the video got it start, you know, with Steven
Zeezy talking about the song, because Steve had spent quite
a lot of time sort of brainstorming just doing the
song in general, and Zeezi really loved the idea of,
you know, getting as many people to perform in this,
(09:28):
and he knew that Steve and I didn't want to dance.
That was the joke, is that there's no dancing from
Joe and Steve. And so that was good and we
could just have fun with it. But when he got
together with Brendan Small that, I mean, the two of them.
Speaker 2 (09:45):
Just really.
Speaker 5 (09:48):
Dreamt up this fantastic video with some real acting and Steve.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
And I got to just sort of be in the
room while the real acting went on.
Speaker 5 (09:57):
Yeah, but it really brought the song to life as
it relates to us, because you know, it was a
pop song from the early eighties and I don't even
know what the lyrics are. To tell you the truth
that I've never looked at the translation.
Speaker 4 (10:14):
From the Spanish.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
So they're in Spanish.
Speaker 4 (10:17):
Okay, I think it's Spanish. I get it.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
Gee.
Speaker 5 (10:22):
I just for some reason, I thought it was Italian
and I just assumed, well, we're just going to sort
of imagine the song is about what Steve and I
wanted to be about, you know, And so it became
this incredibly American sort of based song. And I thought
(10:42):
that really made sense because the way that Steve and
I play.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
You know, we're these two kids.
Speaker 5 (10:49):
From Long Island, as you've said, and we were born
in a particular time in the last century, so lucky
to be born when guitar playing was just going through
this incredible renaissance. And we've put that all into this track.
I mean, as Steve told you eighteen and I think
those are just the background tracks, you know.
Speaker 4 (11:11):
What I mean, it's the background guitars.
Speaker 5 (11:13):
Yeah, Steve replaced all the horn parts with guitar parts.
So I think I managed two tracks maybe or one
very powerful somehow figure out where am I going to
be in this track? But yeah, but it was so
much fun, and the video is fun. It's it's just
got some fantastic talent. All these dancers from all over
(11:34):
the the sort of social dancing styles currently in favor
and mixed with comedy, and each of the performers just
gave all they had and they knew it was going
to be a humorous video, but they couldn't help but
be awesome. I mean, their physicality technique, it was just
(11:57):
really great.
Speaker 3 (11:58):
I smiled certainly while watching it up were singing Brendan
Small from Metal Eclipse. You know that thought I was like, whoa, Okay,
all right, I'm just seeing where this is going because
it's it's not just like a short little skit. It's
like if you watch the video, it's like almost like
a little thriller. It's like half the video. It's like
it's like a movie and very very funny. But I
(12:19):
wanted to use the segue to working with your son,
and off air, our friend Melissa said, you both had
when when when you guys get to work with your grandchildren?
Speaker 1 (12:29):
I guess ques.
Speaker 4 (12:30):
Actually we're already working with them every day. They're very
working for them, working for them.
Speaker 3 (12:36):
Yes, because my son, I don't know if you heard
him in the background, he'll be three in April and
sometimes he shows up and stuff. So what is that like?
I mean, you you tell me. You know, you start
out as a kid and again Long Island playing guitar,
and now you have a grand kid. You know, when's
your first I'm sure you've played for them already or
(12:58):
they are they noticing?
Speaker 1 (12:59):
Use it?
Speaker 3 (13:00):
Have they attended shows? Because we took them to Paul
McCartney last year. I'm going to take them to see
Guns and Roses this summer. I just can't wait. So
I mean to be a grandchild or a child you
see by Jose Atriani.
Speaker 1 (13:12):
I can't imagine the music that's surrounded by.
Speaker 4 (13:16):
Well, they're only one year old, so they don't know
who we really.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
Are yet, all right, And it wasn't sure I knew
they were young.
Speaker 4 (13:22):
I know they were, yeah, but it's you know, the
remarkable thing is just as you go through life and
first you're a you're a child, and you have parents,
and then next thing you know, you're having children, and
next thing you know, your children are having children, and
every one of them is like you're stepping into a
whole different dimension. And this is our first foray into
(13:46):
being grandparents, you know. And and both of our kids,
I think they about three months apart. Joe, Yeah, yeah,
our grandchildren. So this is a you know, the joined
at the hip thing.
Speaker 3 (13:58):
You know, he was just saying hello to me while
you guys were listening saying hello.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
Nice around.
Speaker 3 (14:06):
Harrison Rex named after George Harrison. But you know, you
never know because my wife took him to go see
Dave Matthews I think before round one years old, and
he has the headphones and stuff like that. But to
make this segue, because I still have a job to do.
I got to connect you to other radio stations across
the country. I mean, I'm not the only one who
wants to talk to you, believe it or not. So
(14:26):
the segue, of course, appetite for Distortion, Guns and Roses steamed.
I mean, everybody and their mother has a podcast. I
just figured i'd just be a little different. So I
what I call six degrees of Guns and Roses GNR Bacon,
you know, different connections. So if you don't mind, ask
you about your your GNR connections or gen R experiences.
(14:47):
So this is coming from a listener, Joe, when I
had Ron Bumblefoot a thaw on. You know, you're the
one who recommended him for the job. So I'm just
curious about if you don't mind telling me that that
story and how that How that happened.
Speaker 5 (15:03):
Oh that happened because our current producer, Eric Kogia, and
I had been working together since the very first G
three live album. He was the editor that was charged
with pulling all those live performances together for one live
DVD and CD, and he had been working on Chinese
(15:28):
Democracy I guess eight.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
Years or something like that. That record took forever.
Speaker 5 (15:34):
And so one day he calls up and he says
that Axel is looking for the craziest guitar player ever.
That's you know, it was one of the things that
he was demanding. And I think they already had Buckethead.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
And I was thinking, like, you know, who is pretty crazy?
You know, who would I recommend? Who's the craziest and
the best?
Speaker 5 (15:55):
You know, who was really at the top. And I
knew there was only one guy. It had to be
Ron thal Bumblefoot. And I had met Ron in the
funniest way because I was doing an interview in Paris
and the interviewer was sort of trying to get me
(16:16):
to make off comments about other guitar players, and so
he prefaced playing some of Ron's music by talking about
blues and blues feeling and do I notice blues feeling
in these guitar players? And he had played a clip
of Ron doing something absolutely abstract, completely freaky, you know,
(16:38):
which comes normally for Ron, and I said, well, you.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
Know, I don't think there's any blues feeling in.
Speaker 5 (16:46):
There, and so that's what he printed was me sort
of dissing Ron, and so Ron got a hold of
me somehow and said, hey, like, how come you said that,
you know? And so I explained the story to him,
and I said, why don't you come out to a gig.
I'm playing somewhere in Jersey at the time. And I said,
(17:07):
we'll just do it on stage. We'll just show everybody
where guitar playing's at today, you know, and we'll laugh
about the whole blues feeling thing. And we became really
great friends, and I became a super admirer of his
musicianship all around.
Speaker 2 (17:22):
He's just like a total freak.
Speaker 5 (17:26):
His musicianship is amazing and if you play guitar, you
know that most of what he does only he can do.
So anyway, Ron came to my mind and I said, Eric,
you have to get this guy, Ron Thall, you know,
into Axel's band and tell Axel that there's no one
(17:46):
else who can stand next to Buckethead and look even
stranger and played just as good, you know, because there
are two premier guitar players. But my conversation was with
Ron was pretty funny because it was the last thing
he expected was me to call him and say, how
would you like to audition for Guns N' Roses, Because
you know.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
He had accepted.
Speaker 5 (18:08):
I think the fact that he was just the oddest
guitar player and that, you know, the most accepted rock
band at the moment, you know, the most the standard,
the new standard for straight ahead rock, was ever going
to be calling him for an audition, But he did
it anyway, and I think as a as an experiment
in life, you know, just to see how much fun
(18:30):
it would be. And he got the gig because he
was himself and I think actual could see right away
as a genius. And so that lasted a long time,
didn't that. How many years did he play with Guns
and Roses?
Speaker 3 (18:44):
A few?
Speaker 1 (18:44):
I don't have the number up without my head.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
I mean it was something like ten or something like that.
Speaker 3 (18:48):
Yeah, he was. I saw him a concert back in
six like his first tour. He was actually my first
interview ever in my professional career. So no, I appreciate
you you sharing that story and to kind of be
out weird buckethead, is it?
Speaker 1 (19:05):
What about you, Steve?
Speaker 3 (19:06):
I'm sure you were Were you ever asked to be
in Guns and Roses? I say that facetiously, Well what
were your I guess what's your biggest?
Speaker 1 (19:13):
Uh?
Speaker 3 (19:14):
And I'm not I'm not going to be like that
other host try to shit you up at the question.
I only want positive stories. So any what's your best
positive cons Well, well, it's.
Speaker 4 (19:23):
Very easy to hear blues playing in Slash's playing so well.
For me, it was I was in Dave Roth at
the time. I was playing with David Lee Roth and uh,
you know. The living in Hollywood, the Sunset Strip was
a breeding ground for all new talent and young talent.
And it was interesting because when I first moved out there,
(19:45):
I lived right on I was twenty and nineteen eighty
and I lived right on the corner of Sunset Boulevard
and Hollywood Boulevard basically, and there was the notorious clubs,
The Whiskey, the the Rainbow, and the True Badour right
around the corner from my house and my wife at
(20:08):
the time, my girlfriend worked at these clubs as a waitress,
you know, and she had always had great taste in music,
and she'd come home and she'd say, yeah, I saw
a band tonight, I think, you know Rat you know?
Or there's this band they're called Poison, I think. So
she was calling all these bands as they were coming out,
and Guns N' Roses was just one of the ones
(20:30):
that came through, and it was just obvious there was
this momentum. And it was interesting because they came at
a time right when the music scene was kind of changing,
and they were able to not only slip in there,
but reshape it, you know, because the music was so strong.
But I kind of knew Slash a little bit because
(20:51):
we had a mutual friend and a publicist. But I
just thought the music was very organically rock and roll
for the nineties and you know, the period that it
was coming out. And yeah, it was interesting. It's always
interesting to watch the meteoric rise of a band, and
(21:14):
they were that, and it was they shot right up.
Speaker 3 (21:20):
Well, I appreciate that story. And you worked with Doug Goldstein, right,
oh yeah, you know Doug. Yeah, short story before we
get you. I have to do my job and get
you onto the next stations. But I was working on
his autobiography with him and it just didn't work out.
And he told me, though, really, if you don't mind
me sharing, I can cut it out. If you want
(21:41):
a really kind story about you and you taking care
of his brother when his brother was sick, that you
allowed him when his brother was dying, you allowed him
to stay at one of your studios. And so I
don't know if that rings a bell. Yeah, okay, And
so it's just something that I always think about, Mike,
and it just speaks.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
Volumes to who you are.
Speaker 3 (22:02):
And this whole conversation between Steve and Joe right now,
thank you so much. I really appreciate it. You know,
three Long Island guys just talking right now. I don't
know why I got a CALLI in there. Yeah, So
thank you for my time. So, yeah, we have a
lot more to go to. We got to go to Denver, Atlanta.
We're gonna go back to New York City, Chicago, Toronto, Dallas,
(22:25):
back to Denver, Atlantic City, Baltimore.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
So let me get going. I'm gonna shut up. I know,
I know.
Speaker 3 (22:32):
So hopefully I got you guys awake, I got you.
This was the test run, right, Thanks guys. I appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (22:38):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (22:38):
So that does it for this episode of Appetite for Distortion.
When we see the next one.
Speaker 3 (22:42):
In the words of AXL. Rose, concerning Chinese democracy, I
don't know if suit as the word, but you'll see it.
Speaker 1 (22:54):
Thanks to the lame ask security.
Speaker 4 (22:56):
I'm going home
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