Joe Satriani Quotes

I assume most guitar players are like me. They're playing, having fun; then they get a magazine in the mail that says "Shred Is Dead" and they say, "What the Hell?" They throw it away and keep on playing.

Mozart was a freaky kind of shredder.

The Squares [his former band] never really fit in. We weren't rock enough. We weren't alternative enough. We weren't new wave enough and we weren't punk enough. Maybe we just weren't the right people for the band.

I think it's quite painfully obvious when someone's practicing through an amp, as opposed to someone who's really laying down some stuff that just happens to be fast.

18th September, 1970; Jimi Hendrix dies. I'm still on the football team when I get the news. So I take my helmet off and confront the coach to tell him I'm quitting the team. In a moment of brilliance he gives me one look and says "OK".

I can embarrass myself very easily on guitar. It's funny because people say to me I can play anything; I'm God on the guitar. But I could make a big list of everything I can't play... I'm grateful that people don't notice that.

When you hear an instrumental song someone is singing over, you know right away it's wrong.

I've always spent a lot of time on my records with what I think were unique rhythmic approaches … but no one ever writes about your rhythm playing

My first [guitar] lessons lasted two weeks and it was "Jingle Bells." It didn't make any sense at all. I wanted to know how to play like Hendrix...

I write the songs first and in most cases teach myself the technique second.

Song ideas have come to me in the middle of interviews, in the shower, or while I'm writing another song.

My inspirations don't come from outer space, they just come to me. I have no idea why they come when they do.

I'm ready to take the heat.

It really sucks when music is so perfect you just don't need to hear it anymore.

If someone can relate my guitar solo to an exercise in a book … that's no fun at all.