“Give me a brand-new guitar, and after 2 gigs it looks like someone put it in the dryer”: The hilarious reason Joe Satriani doesn’t bother with vintage guitars
There’s a general belief in the guitar community that vintage guitars tend to be better. But not all guitarists are convinced. In fact, one prominent guitarist who doesn’t pay much attention to older, relic’d guitars is Joe Satriani, but it’s not for the reason you might think…
While cost tends to be the main barrier to entry for guitarists looking to add a vintage guitar to their collection, for Satch, the reason is more one of practicality – in that his instruments take such a beating on tour that it wouldn’t take long for a brand-new guitar to be bashed to the extent that it looks like it’s seen years of heavy road use.
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“I don’t own any relic guitars,” he tells Guitar World in its latest print issue. “I don’t think I’ve ever purchased, like, a Tom Murphy $14,000 Les Paul or something like that. I tend to like doing all the distressing myself, which I seem to have a great talent for. Give me a brand-new guitar, and after two gigs it looks like someone put it in the dryer! I have literally gotten new guitars and scratched them as they come out of the case…”
The feature sees Satch and former student-turned-collaborator and fellow virtuoso Steve Vai discuss all things guitar ahead of the launch of their upcoming collaborative debut full-length, The Sea of Emotion.
Elsewhere, they discuss how they’re not particularly moved by the thought of a guitar being previously owned by someone famous or notable.
“I remember, I was doing a gig with Experience Hendrix in New York,” says Vai. “We had reached out to Paul Allen to see if he would send the Woodstock Strat. And he did. I remember feeling it and thinking, ‘This is hard to play.’ It put up a fight. Would I want to own it? Not really. I don’t have a romantic attachment to antique guitars or stars’ guitars…”
Satriani concurs: “I’m like you. I’m not really a guitar collector. You and I, we have our favourite-shaped neck and fret height. We’ll play two guitars for the entire tour. So I understand how when you pick up Hendrix’s guitar, you might go, ‘Wow, it’s hard to play.’ Because you’re not instantly Hendrix. A guitar would need some special connection for me to be able to get over its foreign feel.”
Joe Satriani and Steve Vai’s first collaborative full-length album together, The Sea of Emotion, arrives 6 November via earMUSIC.
The post “Give me a brand-new guitar, and after 2 gigs it looks like someone put it in the dryer”: The hilarious reason Joe Satriani doesn’t bother with vintage guitars appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
Source: www.guitar-bass.net
