Joe Satriani was born in 1956. He grew up in Long Island, New York, and is known as a great clinical and technical player... but hold on... Joe can make the technical stuff sound better than almost anyone. Not only is it fancy fretwork, it's downright musically solid.
Joe is credited with directly teaching guitar to at least two other widely revered rock guitar monsters, Kirk Hammett and Steve Vai.
A road warrior both in the US and abroad in his youth, Joe returned to the US to form the Squares, but due to lack of sales, this project failed in 1984. Turning rejection into opportunity, Satriani began to concentrate on his experimental guitar playing. The result of this was the release of his first album, Joe Satriani.
Joining the Greg Kihn band, Satriani released his next album, Not Of This Earth, a little less polished than his next album, Surfing With The Alien. Despite offering no vocals, these records were a major sellers and still are today for budding guitarists everywhere.
In 1988 Joe joined forces with Stuart Hamm (bass) and Jonathan Mover (drums), and also did a stint with Mick Jagger in the late 80's.
Joe's not afraid to try anything in the studio, as we know from his banjo and harmonica, not to mention a few vocals on Flying In A Blue Dream. In 1993, Satriani released Time Machine, a double CD with new and previously unreleased tracks as far back as 1984, and some live material from his 1993 Extremist world tour.
Satriani also did some pinch-hitting for Deep Purple in 1994 when Ritchie Blackmore walked away from the band, while maintaining his own solo career generating more albums. This stint lasted until Steve Morse took over the full-time lead guitar role in Deep Purple.
Joe has also gone on to form the band G3, with himself, Steve Vai and Eric Johnson for the first round, and now playing with Steve Vai and Yngwie Malmsteen. Not since Paco DeLucia, John McLaughlin and Al DiMiola has there been so much fire on stage at once.
