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Joe Satriani Speaks About Guitar Idol!
Joe Satriani recently talked about Guitar Idol in an recent interview with Owen Edwards, to be fully published at All Out Guitar soon.
“Guitar Idol is just great news! I mean, I know that the whole idea of music as a competition is kinda absurd, but once you get over that hump, you realise that guitar competitions are just a great thing for the instrument!
It means that there are still loads of new people that really love to play, and every time I hear that about the guitar it makes me really happy.
I tell you, one thing that’s really great about the guitar is that it has a way of transferring a feeling of a generation into music: it seems to do that more so than almost any other instrument.
I think the guitar is right on a par with drums: I mean drums are real important, because every generation has a specific rhythm to it, you know? Just like if you look at the swing age, be-bop, rock’n’roll, hip hop - or straight ahead rock - you can look back and say: “Wow, a whole generation wanted to shuffle” or “They just wanted to pound out straight 8th’s”.
It’s always exciting when you see someone who’s 17 - or even 14 years old! – and they can play almost as good as you. But that’s the way it should be - you know what I mean? It should be the natural order of things that the younger generation learn how to play because they start with the best players of a previous generation – people like Steve Vai or John Petrucci – as their base point: that’s frightening in itself!
So I’m always expecting that the younger generation is standing right behind me to shred me to death! It’s necessary that that happens for music and guitar playing to move forward, and I’m so happy that the organisers are allowing these new players to get on stage – because it only works if we know about them!
Also because I run G3, I’m looking for new players all the time, and it’s very hard - believe it or not! – to have some sort of outside filter go through the thousands of possible newcomers to offer up somebody that’s been through all these different stages of competition, and all of a sudden it comes to my attention and I go “Wow, look at this, this young player who comes from somewhere in the world –I don’t know it could be Chile, or Japan or London or whatever – and they’re 18 or something and just like amazing.
That great for me because I can approach that person and say “Hey, lets do something – let’s take you somewhere, lets help you climb to the top” So that’s great - I’m really looking forward to it!”
I’ve also heard that Pete Townsend is maybe playing with Roger Daltrey after us – so with the Guitar Idol winner before us this should be an extremely exciting day!”