Joe Satriani: the teacher who put a credit card on the line | Ultimate Guitarist Reunion

Why fans still care

JOE SATRIANI made an instrumental guitar album in 1987 and sold more than a million copies of it in the United States. Surfing with the Alien reached number 29 on the Billboard 200, which is not where records with no singer usually end up.

He’d paid for the album before it, Not of This Earth, on a credit card.

And before any of that he was a guitar teacher. Two of his students are in this painting too: Steve Vai, Who’s Who number 30 and Kirk Hammett, Who’s Who number 10.

Early life and teaching

Satriani was born in Westbury, New York, on 15 July 1956, and he started playing at 14. He has said the news of Jimi Hendrix’s, Who’s Who number 6 death in September 1970 is what made up his mind to be a guitarist.

He was soon teaching on Long Island. One of his first students was a kid from the area named Steve Vai, Who’s Who number 30. By Satriani’s account, Vai, Who’s Who number 30 turned up with “a guitar with no strings in one hand” and a packet of strings in the other.

In 1979 he moved to San Francisco and started a pop band, the Squares. Across the bay in Berkeley he kept teaching, and one pupil was already playing lead in the Bay Area thrash band Exodus. That was Kirk Hammett, Who’s Who number 10. Hammett, Who’s Who number 10 remembers the first lesson starting with a warning: “Learn your lesson. Don’t waste your time, don’t waste my time.”

Career chapters

1. 1979Formed the Squares in San Francisco
2. 1984Self-titled EP on his own Rubina label
3. 1986Not of This Earth, paid for on a credit card
4. 1987Surfing with the Alien
5. 1988Lead guitarist on Mick Jagger’s, Who’s Who number 19 in · The Ultimate Reunion (story coming soon) first solo tour
6. 1996First G3 tour
7. 2009Chickenfoot’s debut album
8. 2025Encore, Thank You, Goodnight, a song for Eddie Van Halen, Who’s Who number 34
9. 2026SATCHVAI tour of North America; SATCHVAI announce The Sea of Emotion, due 6 November

Rubina and a credit card 1984 to 1986

His first record was a five-song EP in 1984. He put it out on his own label and named the label Rubina, after his wife.

Not of This Earth followed in 1986 on Relativity. His official biography says he recorded it on a credit card.

Surfing with the Alien 1987

The next album changed things. Surfing with the Alien reached number 29 on the Billboard 200 and sold over a million copies in the US, and the RIAA has it at Platinum. The title track, Always with Me, Always with You and Satch Boogie all came from it.

Jagger’s guitarist and a Deep Purple stand-in 1988 to 1994

In 1988 Mick Jagger, Who’s Who number 19 in · The Ultimate Reunion (story coming soon) toured without the Rolling Stones for the first time, and Satriani was his lead guitarist.

Flying in a Blue Dream came out in 1989 and The Extremist in 1992, with Summer Song on it. In 1993 and 1994 he also filled in for Ritchie Blackmore, Who’s Who number 14 on a Deep Purple tour. He was a touring stand-in, not a member of the band.

G3 1996 onwards

In 1996 he started G3, a touring bill built around three guitarists. His official biography says the first run was 24 North American dates and drew about 90,000 people. Later line-ups included Robert Fripp, John Petrucci and Paul Gilbert.

Chickenfoot 2009 to 2011

Chickenfoot put him in a rock band with Sammy Hagar, Michael Anthony and Chad Smith. Their debut album went into the Billboard 200 at number 6 in June 2009 and went gold. Chickenfoot III debuted at number 9 in October 2011.

SATCHVAI 2025 to 2026

On 25 April 2025 he released Encore, Thank You, Goodnight, a tribute to Eddie Van Halen, Who’s Who number 34, made with Michael Anthony and Kenny Aronoff.

Then he went back to where the teaching started. With Steve Vai, Who’s Who number 30, he formed the SATCHVAI Band. They released the single Dancing on 2 March 2026 and played about 40 North American shows in April and May, with Animals As Leaders in support. On 2 September they released Mayhem and announced their first studio album together, The Sea of Emotion, due on earMUSIC on 6 November 2026. Until then, Mayhem is the one to hear.

Craft, sound and style

Satriani writes rock songs with the guitar doing the singing. Fourteen of his 15 Grammy nominations came in Best Rock Instrumental Performance, for records including the album Surfing with the Alien, The Crush of Love, Summer Song and live versions of Always with Me, Always with You. He hasn’t won one yet.

Surfing with the Alien

He made the album at Hyde Street Studios in San Francisco on a $13,000 budget, with producer John Cuniberti. Jeff Campitelli played drums and “Bongo” Bob Smith programmed drum machines, partly because Satriani admired Kraftwerk and partly to save money. On Satch Boogie a shotgun mic covered the amp and an SM57 sat against the grille for the solos. On Always with Me, Always with You, Cuniberti asked for a dry, direct take and added the effects later. Satriani thinks Cuniberti chose the running order too.

The Kramer and the Black Boogie Strat

The main guitar to 1987 was a white Kramer Pacer with two humbuckers, put together from parts at Guitar Center. He bought it for its early Floyd Rose with no fine tuners. He puts the year at ”’84 or ’82”, and Guitar World says 1983. It’s on his first EP, Not of This Earth and Surfing with the Alien. When he didn’t need the bar he used a hardtail he built himself, the “Black Boogie Strat”, with a Boogie Bodies body and an ESP neck. His tech Gary Brawer made him two or three pickguards already wired with pickups, so he could swap them mid session. He called it “the poor man’s guitar arsenal”, and says the guitar is “on every record doing something”.

Ibanez, Marshall and Vox

In the summer of 1987 he visited Ibanez in Pennsylvania to talk about a signature model, and the JS1 came out in 1988, a basswood guitar with DiMarzio pickups and a locking tremolo. The JS1000 has run the longest, and the orange JS2410 was the one he played with Chickenfoot. For Surfing the amp was an early 70s Marshall 100 watt head into a 4x12, and much of Echo went through a Roland JC-120. The lead sound was a Cry Baby wah into a Chandler Tube Driver into the Marshall, with an Eventide harmoniser for the detuned side. For years after that he played a Peavey JSX head, then went back to Marshall in 2010 with his own JVM410HJS. Vox made his Satchurator, Ice 9 and Time Machine pedals and the Big Bad Wah.

Legato, tapping and the pitch axis

MusicRadar calls his legato “inimitable”. On Midnight and Satch Boogie he set out to tap in ways Van Halen hadn’t, and called Van Halen the number one guitarist of his generation. His high school teacher, Bill Westcott, showed him the pitch axis idea, which he called “the opening of the heavens” for writing. Two chords he wrote back then became Lords of Karma. Kirk Hammett, Who’s Who number 10 says Satriani taught him exercises, modes, and how to find melodies in chords and chords in melodies.

Stories people still tell

1. No strings attached.

   The young Steve Vai, Who’s Who number 30 turned up for his first lesson with a guitar and a packet of strings, and the strings weren’t on the guitar. That’s Satriani’s version, and he’s told it more than once.

2. On the road with a Rolling Stone.

   In March 1988 Mick Jagger, Who’s Who number 19 in · The Ultimate Reunion (story coming soon) opened his first solo tour with eight shows in Japan, and Satriani was his lead guitarist. Later that year Jagger, Who’s Who number 19 in · The Ultimate Reunion (story coming soon) took the tour to Australia, with shows in New Zealand and Jakarta too, and Satriani was again one of his two guitarists. Gimme Shelter and Satisfaction were in the set alongside Jagger’s, Who’s Who number 19 in · The Ultimate Reunion (story coming soon) solo songs.

3. The call he hung up on.

   When Ritchie Blackmore, Who’s Who number 14 walked out of Deep Purple in November 1993, Satriani’s manager rang to ask if he’d step in. “Nobody can replace Ritchie Blackmore,” Satriani told him, and slammed the phone down. About 30 minutes later he rang back to ask whether anyone had passed on his no yet. Nobody had. He played the band’s Japanese dates that year and its European tour in 1994. Deep Purple asked him to stay, but he still owed albums on his solo contract, so he went back to his own records and Steve Morse took the job.

4. On film.

   The documentary Beyond the Supernova premiered on AXS TV on 6 March 2018. He called making it “extremely cathartic”.

Legacy

He says he’s sold more than 10 million records. Whatever the final count, it’s a lot of instrumental guitar music, and Surfing with the Alien alone sold over a million in the US.

The teaching stuck too. Hammett, Who’s Who number 10 went on to play lead in Metallica, and Vai, Who’s Who number 30 is back on stage with him more than 50 years after that first lesson.