Guitarists around the country will be eager to learn that the G3 tour will be here as G3 2012 for both an individual concert tour and as part of the Bluesfest lineup. The G3 idea was created by guitar luminary Joe Satriani [Satch] as a touring trio of talented guitar players that take the instrument to new heights both technically and creatively. Usually accompanied by the incomparable Steve Vai in the second role, the third guitar slot is a musical chair for each tour depending on availability and schedules. In this instance, Steve Lukather [Luke] will be gracing our shores. The man has played on more hit records than would seem humanly possible, was the driving force behind the Grammy winning band Toto and is a respected solo guitar artist now on his tenth solo project. The amount of influence that Satch, Vai and Luke have on the musical landscape is virtually incommensurate but they all granted time to talk to Australian Guitar’s Paul Southwell in preparation for the G3 2012 tour. The complied content gives an overview of the dedication to their art those that attend the shows will be sure to witness. Enjoy.
AG: The G3 2012 tour will be down here for both Bluesfest and your own G3 tour. How are song ideas put together for the jam section of the concert?
Joe Satriani [JS]: We have carried on a tradition of what I started back in 1995. I had to convince people that it was going to work and I didn’t have to worry about competition. So I said, ‘this is the thing for the end and we’re not going to do each other songs or promote your latest release. We are going to pick songs to celebrate guitar in the rock idiom for the last sixty years’. So, we can step out of our gig, let our guard down and just be ourselves. Naturally you gravitate towards stuff by Jimi Hendrix and so on. We pick songs that can be stretched and that allow guitar players to go back and forth. Also, if another artist happens to be in town that night and wants to jam with us, it is easy to plug them into the jam. That seems to have been very beneficial to operate with those rules for the jam.
AG: Have you used the jam section as a platform to rehearse new ideas?
JS: Not really. Sound check is the place for that because there is no audience and no one is worrying about lighting cues or anything else so everyone is sort of relaxed, in general. I’ve seen Steve Vai many times on tour recording during sound checks. For me, the jam is about being able to improvise freely and that is what I really like for that period.
Steve Vai [SV]: The jam sections are one of the highlights of the show. They are usually fun, rock’n’roll uplifting kinds of songs that have crazy guitar playing and great parts. For the solo sections, we each take a solo and then we kind of trade. I’ve been on a lot of these G3 tours and there have always been guitar players that have different ways of communicating. Some are really good listeners and some kind of have a particular style that is unique. Everybody does their best to raise the bar and make it entertaining. They compel you to do the best you can.
AG: What are your thoughts on the upcoming G3 tour and the jam sections?
Steve Lukather [SL]: Well, we’ve been friends for decades and I love these guys. I’m a wild card pick, I realise there’s a hundred guys that could be doing this before me. I’ll also bring a different flavour to it. I have played with Steve and Joe, separately and also together. Steve and I worked together and produced the record that Larry Carlton and I did and won a Grammy for about ten years ago. I was kind of nervous about doing this asking, ‘really, do you think I’m the right guy for this?’ because I sing and play and I don’t see this as a cutting [heads] competition and it would be one that I would surely lose. But, I do my thing and I’m confident about what I do and I’m lot more clear headed than I used to be. There were some pitiful, drunken jams up on You Tube that were just brutal. I mean, you can’t have a bad night without reliving it a thousand times now! But, I’m sober and have been back in the woodshed focusing on my guitar playing, on the right notes, passion and heart. For G3, we’re all doing forty five minutes each and then jam for a while at the end. Last time in Australia I was with Toto but I’m not doing any of that music. There’s no point in that plus I get to show a different side to a different audience.
AG: Do you think you’ll get any song ideas out of the jam sessions themselves?
SL: One never knows when you’re dealing with improvisation which is something I’ve spent most of my life doing, even for studio sessions for all of those years. A lot of the time I was given a blank piece of paper with some chord symbols on it and I had to come up with some of these hooky parts that everybody sings along to with these records that I’ve been doing for thirty five years that were hits. It was on the spot, boom, now; no rehearsals, no demos, no time to learn anything, just show up and go, ‘okay, there’s an E chord, what are you going to play?’. The end result is a matter of personal taste.
AG: Have you thought about putting the heavier song ‘Crushing Day’ back into the set?
JS: Not really, I mean we did that a couple of years ago. Every time I put that into the set I simply don’t enjoy it as much as a few people in the audience might (laughs). It is one of those songs that appeals to a very few but a very rabid fan base. I don’t what it is; the arpeggios or the way the song’s solos are worked out. I loved that piece of music so much when I was recording it but when I was finished I thought; ‘now it is time to move on’.
AG: If you’d call yourself more of a composer than just a guitarist, would the people you’ve played with over the years in G3 have a similar mentality?
SV: I don’t know that I necessarily consider myself more of a composer. I started composing music before I started playing the guitar and I love playing the guitar. My favourite thing about playing the guitar is coming up with something that is different, interesting and innovative. Composition is just vast and a liberation. They both offer different challenges and rewards. Most guitarists that I know are compositional in a different way to what I am.
AG: How do you feel about that studio session playing era now, thirty odd years later?
SL: I started out playing as a teenager in the studios and now all of a sudden some thirty plus years have gone by. It is daunting but I don’t really sit around and think about it. But, you know, it’s like three thousand plus records over the years of every different style from pop to rock to heavier stuff to more fusion stuff to r’n’b to country and jazz. I don’t know, man, I just kind of woke up one day and my life flashed before me. They tell me I had a great time.
Steve Vai has a disciplined work ethic that few guitar players would be able to match. He is truly a remarkable player but also willing to impart his learning and skills with those who wish to listen and learn. In light of his recent instructional clinics that offer a contrast to his live performances, we asked him how teaching sits with him of late.
AG: Would you say you’re learning from other players in doing G3?
SV: Oh, sure, if you have the eyes for it, you can learn form anybody. I can listen to anything, if it is something that is compelling. For a recent gig, I had to learn a couple of Led Zeppelin songs that I never really played. I have learned a lot just from going back. The arrangements are simple but they are ingenious. You’d be surprised how unique a player Jimmy Page was with his fingerings and his touch. He didn’t play barre chords and his arrangements for the guitar parts are just so brilliant.
AG: That links to your recent [Thump Music sponsored] clinics stating to kids to slow down and find their voice and to cultivate it. How do you get that message across?
SV: I’ve noticed that young players have various goals. A lot cannot identify their goal, they don’t know what they want, they just want to be able to play. So one of the things I try to get them to do is to at least focus on some kind of a goal, make a picture of it and crystallise it because if you have something that you are working for, your path will be solid. I talk about that and some of the things that I think they should be aware of in order to identify within themselves a unique voice. I believe it is there for everybody.
AG: When you were learning guitar from Joe Satriani, was he cultivating that idea in yourself?
SV: Well, when I was learning from Joe we were young. I mean, I started when I was twelve and he was fifteen or sixteen. He always was kind of like a mentor and he always played great. Because he was unique on the instrument and he could really play, he inspired me to have my own voice. If I sounded like anybody when I was growing up it was probably more like him because I could see somebody actually playing right in front of me. But, the cool thing was that he also had a great overview as a teacher on how to find student’s interests and potential and then cultivate it.
AG: Would you say that Frank Zappa was similar in that way?
SV: Ah, in certain respects. Frank was brilliant at identifying the potential of a particular musician in realms that they weren’t even aware of and that is why I think Frank’s musicians have such a great reputation. If you’ve played with Frank you’ve considered to be a great musician but in reality you do need to be a great musician but you also need to have something unique and amazing that you can do. A lot of times people don’t even know that they can do these things until they are with Frank. For me, for instance, one of the things that I did with Frank that was maybe unique to the other guitar players before me was that Frank would write all of these crazy melodies that were never meant to be played on the guitar and then he would give them to me. So because of your respect for him, you’re compelled to want to do things above and beyond your capability. One of Frank’s brilliance’s was that he never got you to try to do things that you weren’t capable of doing. He found your strengths and he exaggerated them. So when he would give me this really difficult music to play, because of my respect and love for him, I was like, ‘okay, I am going to take this to another level’ and for me it was easy because the practical approach was that you start really, really slow and do it perfect and have the patience to slowly get faster until it was at the right tempo and that’s all it was, I always thought that anybody can do this, you just have to put the time in.
Steve Lukather reflects on session work and changing trends in the music industry.
AG: Given your history of sessions, how do you feel about the music industry of late when it’s just auto tuned vocals and songwriting has seemingly gone out the door?
SL: Oh, man, it’s like making love to a rubber doll. They used to say that Steely Dan and Toto was all this slick, soulless music but well, everybody sat in a room and played that stuff until it was right. Human beings all playing at one time. Now it is like any moron that learns an E chord can just trip and fall. They can take an out of tune guitar and dial the notes that are out of tune. It has gotten to the point where it is so homogenised and fake that it just like, what’s the point of even learning how to play? Ironically guitar is evolving with weird tunings, trying different things and creating some new ideas. I’m saying that pop music, that machine, cookie cutter crap with the same guitar sounds and drum sounds has everything so auto tuned perfectly. The vocals are unrealistically in tune. I’ve worked with Aretha Franklin and that woman sings in tune but if you auto tuned her, it would sound awful. There are a lot of plusses to the use of technology but if you use it as an excuse because you don’t have the ability and you just buff it out so hard so that can’t even see anything that is physically there, then it is bullsh*t.
AG: It must be annoying when you hear people call Steely Dan a bit daggy but they don’t get just what amazing musicians they were and still are. The same applies with Toto.
SL: Hey man, we patterned ourselves off of wanting to be like them, they just wrote better lyrics. But if that’s bad music then I’m a bad musician because if you gave me a choice between The Ramones and Steely Dan I’m going to pick the f**king Steely Dan records. Nothing against The Ramones, I like some of their stuff but as a ‘musician’ musician, harmonically speaking, there is no question where I would live. But that’s just me and other people would feel exactly the opposite. They hate Steely Dan, they hate Toto and they hate anything like that. They would rather live in a punk club getting spit on all day. That’s fine, that’s what makes the world go around, we all like different sh*t.
