Sheila Reine: I always figured you could play pretty much any style you wanted. In the Guitar Magazine interview you said you couldn't have made this kind of change before now. I assume touring with Mick Jagger and touring as Richie Blackmore's replacement with Deep Purple helped. Are there any tapes of you playing with Deep Purple?
Joe Satriani: I know we recorded some of those shows. Most definitely the Deep Purple tour was a stronger experience. The Jagger tour was really fabulous and definitely the most outrageous project I'd ever been involved with up to that time. It was a band that had 11 people in it and there was a lot of show biz going on there. The Deep Purple guys still perform like they did in 1968. They go out on a flat stage with no drum riser to speak of and they start the songs. When you get to the middle everyone looks at each other and each member goes off on tangents. Then when you want to get back into the song you give him the horses's eyes an suddenly you're back into the song. I did that every night.
The last tour I did with them was two months of that in Europe and it really got my chops up for playing that that highly communicative way where you didn't have to worry about running an eighth of a mile up a ramp to get a spotlight on you and knell down for a cue. A lot of the Jagger thing was a well done show. Deep Purple was more gut level rock and roll music.
They are really, really great musicians and a fantastic rock and roll band. I don't think anybody out there really knows what a great band they are and how deep their roots are in American rock and roll. I've got to tell you that they're just the nicest guys in music today. I had such a great time with them.
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