Joe Satriani struggles with being “extroverted” on stage: “I don’t think I ever feel like myself”
Despite performing countless shows over the years – not to mention his enviable skills as a guitar virtuoso, Joe Satriani has revealed he doesn’t consider himself a natural-born performer.
In an interview with D’Addario, Satch explains the disconnect he feels between his onstage persona and who he is in his personal life.
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“I don’t think I ever feel like myself on stage,” he explains [via Ultimate Guitar]. “I think that’s the problem. You walk out on stage and you go, ‘Oh, they’re gonna know it’s just me.’
“I think the history of performing live has been a recurring subject nightmare for me, because I’m not really a kind of a people person.
“I don’t seek out to be in a crowd and be in front of an audience, but I love music and I want to share it. So there’s the typical artist conflict right there.”
Satriani explains that this internal conflict between being naturally introverted and the requirement to be extroverted onstage is why he adopted the alter ego Shockwave Supernova, a name taken from his 2015 album of the same name.
“My son made a documentary about it, and we decided that Shockwave Supernova was the character that I invented to become that person who could be extroverted on stage.”
But having been in the business of performing for decades, the guitarist has learned a few things along the way. Playing with Mick Jagger during his 1988 solo tour helped Satriani discover some important ways to open up creatively as a performer. In a 2007 interview with Guitar Player, he recalled a time the two jammed together during a rehearsal.
“I’ll never forget how I would just be noodling around on the guitar in the rehearsal room, and he’d come right up next to me and just start singing,” Satch recalls. “That made me relax, and say to myself, ‘Man, I shouldn’t be so guarded about my creativity. Mick Jagger isn’t guarded. So why am I?’
“When he hit the stage, you learned the meaning of ‘projection’ real quick. The joke was that you could stand next to him, light yourself on fire, and the audience would still be watching Mick. He has that power.”
Satch is also well aware that it’s not uncommon for professional touring musicians to have stage nerves. In another interview with Inc. in 2020, he explained: “I met Joan Baez at a benefit show. She’s incredible. She sings and plays guitar and never screws up. Later I learned she threw up right before she went onstage.”
He also found out that “Red Rocker” Sammy Hagar wore sunglasses onstage to get rid of the feeling of nervousness during performances. Satriani said to Hagar that he seemed born to front a band, but the ex-Montrose and Van Halen singer replied: “No, we’re all the same. Do you know how embarrassing it is to grab a microphone and sing in front of people?”
Based on these experiences, Satriani has come to realise that: “You don’t have to be extroverted. You just have to find a way to do what you want or need to do.”
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Source: www.guitar-bass.net
