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After
Joe Satriani released "Is There Love in Space" in 2004, he embarked on an
ambitious 15-month tour. He appeared on morning television shows, played
Moscow and Beijing, Bombay and Bangalore, visited 28 countries over four
continents spanning 150,000 miles. Such were the demands of travel that
the guitarist caught pneumonia at one point and had to cancel a few shows.
"It was a traumatic
achievement," says Satriani, who performs Friday at the Palace Theatre in
Greensburg. "I have to put those two words together."
After the mega-tour,
Satriani had planned to release a live studio album. But, the global jaunt
changed him in some inexorable way; he had become a different person, a
different musician. A vacation to northern Italy with his family added
fuel to his desire to create an album that was "introspective and
song-oriented, a new level or recording for me," he says.
That approach
yielded "Super Colossal," Satriani's new release. And while it remains a
platform for one of the best guitarists on the planet, it also breaks new
ground. The songs -- and they are songs -- have more emotional heft and
substance. Satriani strips away "improvisation, unusual sounds" and relies
on melody and rhythm to put across his ideas. |
"I wanted people to be able to listen to the record over and over again and have
it be a discovery of how they can relate to the music," he says, "rather than an
explosion of 'look at me, look at what I can do.' I didn't want that at all. I
went in an entirely different direction."
Thus "Super Colossal" features the tarty, blues-based "Just Like Lightnin'," the
cinematic "The Meaning of Love," and "A Cool New Way," a slowly building
meditation that might be the album's best song.
But Satriani doesn't shun his ax wizardry. One song in particular, "Crowd
Chant," demands to shove aside Gary Glitter's "Rock and Roll, Part II" as the
song of choice at hockey arenas throughout North America.
It wouldn't be the first time a Satriani song has been used for that purpose; he
was at a San Jose Sharks hockey game a few years ago when his "Devil's Slide"
was played when the team entered the rink.
"It was so cool," Satriani says. "I'm a musician and these guys are hockey
players and they need a specific kind of music. When I was writing 'Crowd
Chant,' I wasn't thinking about hockey in particular, but it crossed my mind
that it could become a very useful song for football or hockey or any other
sport."
"Crowd Chant" is more than balanced on "Super Colossal" by some of the most
introspective songs of Satriani's career. Specifically "Ten Words" was inspired
by the events of Sept. 11.
Satriani says that while some artists decided to immediately react to that
catastrophic moment in history, he felt it was better to let time pass. "Ten
Words" fulfills what he sees as a necessary function of art.
"I expect a comedian to make me laugh about something horrible to ease the
pain," he says. "I expect an artist to shock me into realizing, perhaps, that
something's happening and I'm being complacent about it. The same thing with a
musician; sometimes you just want to dive deep into pain to recognize it because
you realize it needs to be recognized, the human experience that we share.
Whether it's the birth of a baby or the death of a loved one, it happens over
and over again and we need to face it and we should experience it together."
