JOE SATRIANI
Biography and discography of Joe Satriani, the American guitarist who debuted in 1986, with a page for each of his nineteen records from Surfing With the Alien to The Sea Of Emotion in 2026, including running orders, CD details and liner notes, on METAL BOOST.
Biography
JOE SATRIANI
Biography
Joe Satriani, born on 15 July 1956 in Westbury, New York, is an American rock guitarist, composer and producer. The solo career he began in the mid-1980s made commercial sense of an album with no singing on it, which very few players have managed; he has sold more than ten million records and has been nominated for fifteen Grammy Awards. He is as well known for having taught: among his former students are Steve Vai, Kirk Hammett of Metallica and Alex Skolnick of Testament.
The day he picked up a guitar: Long Island, 1956 to 1978
Satriani was born into an Italian-American family; his paternal grandparents came from Piacenza and Bobbio, his maternal grandparents from Bari. He has told the story of why he started playing many times. He was fourteen, and the news he heard was that Jimi Hendrix had died - his official biography dates the day to 18 September 1970. He was at American football practice at the time, and he told his coach on the spot that he was quitting to become a guitarist.
He graduated from Carle Place High School, and in 1974 studied music with the jazz guitarist Billy Bauer and the reclusive jazz pianist Lennie Tristano. Tristano was technically demanding and his influence stayed in Satriani's playing. It was in this period that he began teaching, and his most notable pupil at the time was another Long Island native who went to the same Carle Place High School: Steve Vai. That was 1973, when Vai was thirteen and Satriani seventeen. While he taught, he was himself studying music at Five Towns College.
In 1978 he moved to Berkeley, California, to make a living in music, and soon resumed teaching there. His students included Kirk Hammett of Metallica, David Bryson of Counting Crows, Kevin Cadogan of Third Eye Blind, Larry LaLonde of Primus and Possessed, Alex Skolnick of Testament, Rick Hunolt, formerly of Exodus, Phil Kettner of Laaz Rockit and Charlie Hunter.
From a self-funded debut to Surfing With The Alien, 1979 to 1989
At the end of the 1970s Satriani formed a San Francisco band called Squares with his brother-in-law Neil Sheehan. He was later invited to join the Greg Kihn Band, who were on the downside of their career - and that invitation rescued him. He had run up credit-card debt recording his first album, Not of This Earth, in 1986, and the money from the Kihn band paid it off. The same year he sang backing vocals on the debut album by Crowded House.
The turn came with the second album, Surfing with the Alien, in 1987. It produced radio hits and charted higher than any all-instrumental release had in years, reaching number 29 on the Billboard 200. That success led Mick Jagger to recruit him as lead guitarist for his first solo tour in 1988. In 1987 Satriani also produced The Eyes of Horror, an EP by the death metal band Possessed.
Flying in a Blue Dream, in 1989, carries eighteen tracks, more than any other album of his; it is the first on which he sings, and the first on which he plays harmonica and a banjo-style guitar. His father died while it was being recorded, and the record is often said to carry that.
The Extremist, Deep Purple and G3, 1992 to 2000
The Extremist, in 1992, reached number 22 on the Billboard 200 and was certified Gold, his biggest commercial success. Summer Song spread quickly after Sony used it in advertising for the Discman and the Walkman.
Late in 1993 he joined Deep Purple. Ritchie Blackmore had left after the final European date, and the band's Japanese tour was two weeks away. The concerts went well and the band asked Satriani to stay permanently, but he had just signed a multi-album solo deal with Sony and declined; Steve Morse took the seat.
In 1996 he founded G3, a touring format in which three guitar-led acts each play their own set and then jam together at the end. The first line-up was Satriani, Steve Vai and Eric Johnson. G3 has continued periodically ever since, with Satriani its only permanent member; the guitarists who have played it include Yngwie Malmsteen, John Petrucci, Kenny Wayne Shepherd, Robert Fripp, Andy Timmons, Uli Jon Roth, Michael Schenker, Adrian Legg, Paul Gilbert, Steve Morse and Steve Lukather.
Crystal Planet in 1998 was his first album for Epic, and Engines of Creation in 2000 took a long step into electronic music.
Chickenfoot and the years after, 2002 to 2022
Strange Beautiful Music followed in 2002 and Is There Love in Space? in 2004; in May 2005 he toured India for the first time, playing Delhi, Kolkata and Mumbai. Super Colossal came in 2006, and that year he became an official supporter of Little Kids Rock, a non-profit that provides free instruments and instruction to children in under-served American public schools; like Vai, he sits on its board as an honorary member.
In May 2008 Satriani revealed that he was joining Chickenfoot, with Sammy Hagar and Michael Anthony, both formerly of Van Halen, and Chad Smith of the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Their debut album came out on 5 June 2009 and Chickenfoot III on 27 September 2011; Satriani has a co-writing credit on every song of the debut.
Unstoppable Momentum in 2013, Shockwave Supernova in 2015, What Happens Next in 2018 and Shapeshifting in 2020 followed, and with The Elephants of Mars in 2022 he moved to earMUSIC - his first album away from Epic and its parent Sony since the self-titled record of 1995. In 2014 a box set of remastered studio albums, The Complete Studio Recordings, appeared alongside his memoir Strange Beautiful Music.
SatchVai: a collaboration fifty years in coming, 2024 onward
Early in 2024 Satriani, Steve Vai and Eric Johnson took the original G3 line-up out on a limited Reunion tour. Satriani and Vai then carried on as a double bill under the name SATCHVAI, and on 29 March 2024 they released The Sea of Emotion, Pt. 1, the first thing the two had written and recorded together in more than fifty years of friendship. They toured Europe in 2025 as Surfing with the Hydra, with Animals as Leaders joining the 2026 North American leg, and their first studio album together, The Sea Of Emotion, has a release date of 6 November 2026.
Box sets include Original Album Classics (2008), Sony's five-CD box of five albums.
Playing and sound
Satriani is a technically accomplished player by any measure. He handles legato, two-handed and arpeggio tapping, volume swells, harmonics and extreme whammy bar effects, and in fast passages favours a legato built on hammer-ons and pull-offs that keeps the line smooth; he is equally at home with rapid alternate picking and sweep picking. His influences are Jimi Hendrix, the English rock guitarists Brian May, Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, Ritchie Blackmore and Jeff Beck, and the jazz fusion player Allan Holdsworth.
He plays Ibanez JS Series guitars through a Marshall JVM410HJS, both designed for him as signature products. His titles lean on science fiction: Surfing with the Alien, Back to Shalla-Bal and The Power Cosmic 2000 refer to the Silver Surfer, Ice 9 to the weapon in Kurt Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle, and Borg Sex to the Borg of Star Trek.
In Japan
His connection with Japan runs deep. Deep Purple's Japanese tour of December 1993 happened because he stood in, and part of those recordings has since been released. Under his own name he returned in February 2017 for the Surfing to Shockwave Japan Tour 2017, his first headline visit in fifteen years, playing Namba Hatch on the 7th and Nakano Sunplaza Hall on the 8th with Mike Keneally on guitar and keyboards, Bryan Beller on bass and Marco Minnemann on drums. In September 2024 he was the guitarist of Sammy Hagar's Best of All Worlds 2024 Tour in Nagoya (20 September), Osaka (22 September) and Tokyo (23 September). The LIVE section of this site lists the two 2017 concerts, the dates billed under his own name.
Discography (as registered on this site)
- Not of This Earth (1986)
- Surfing with the Alien (1987)
- Flying in a Blue Dream (1989)
- The Extremist (1992)
- Time Machine (1993)
- Joe Satriani (1995)
- Crystal Planet (1998)
- Engines of Creation (2000)
- Strange Beautiful Music (2002)
- Is There Love in Space? (2004)
- Super Colossal (2006)
- Professor Satchafunkilus and the Musterion of Rock (2008)
- Original Album Classics (2008, box set)
- Black Swans and Wormhole Wizards (2010)
- Unstoppable Momentum (2013)
- Shockwave Supernova (2015)
- What Happens Next (2018)
- Shapeshifting (2020)
- The Elephants of Mars (2022)
- The Sea Of Emotion (2026, as SatchVai)
Live albums (Live in San Francisco, Satriani Live!, Satchurated: Live in Montreal, Time Machine, Vol. 2 and others), other compilations (The Electric Joe Satriani: An Anthology, The Complete Studio Recordings and others), the EPs (the self-titled one of 1984, Dreaming #11 in 1988, The Satch EP in 1993 and Additional Creations, given away free in some shops in 2000), the 2019 Squares retrospective and the G3 live albums are not registered here. Chickenfoot is registered as a separate artist.
A note on sources
The facts here rest on the official biography at satriani.com, on the English Wikipedia entries for Satriani and for each album, on MusicBrainz release rows for dates, labels, catalogue numbers and running orders, on Spotify embed payloads for album identity, on YouTube's oEmbed for the uploader of every official video, and - for the 2017 Japanese concerts - on Sony Music's official artist page and on the press release of the promoter, M&I Company. The figure of fifteen Grammy nominations without a win is given by both the official biography and Wikipedia.
Trivia
In 1993 Satriani stepped into Deep Purple as a temporary replacement for Ritchie Blackmore, who had just left. What his official biography records of that spell is the 1993 Japanese tour - which means the first stage he played with the band was a Japanese one.
Satriani's headline visit to Japan came in February 2017 as the Surfing to Shockwave Japan Tour 2017. Sony Music's official artist page announced it as his first headline Japanese concerts in fifteen years: Namba Hatch in Osaka on 7 February and Nakano Sunplaza Hall in Tokyo on the 8th. The band with him was Mike Keneally on guitar and keyboards, Bryan Beller on bass and Marco Minnemann on drums.
The day Satriani decided to play guitar can be named. His official biography says he has been dedicated to guitar artistry since 18 September 1970 - the day Jimi Hendrix died. He was fourteen, and he heard the news at American football practice; he told his coach on the spot that he was quitting to become a guitarist.
Satriani taught guitar for years, and his official biography states plainly that as a teenager he taught Steve Vai. The other students it names are Kirk Hammett of Metallica and Alex Skolnick of Testament. He would later share a stage with Vai in G3, and from 2024 tour with him as SATCHVAI.
After moving to San Francisco, Satriani played in The Squares and then spent a short spell in the Greg Kihn Band. Those are the two pre-solo groups his official biography names.
Surfing With The Alien, released in 1987, was his second studio album, and according to his official biography it reached number 29 on the Billboard 200 and produced radio hits. For a guitar album with no singing on it that is an exceptional placing, and the success led to the invitation from Mick Jagger the following year.
The success of Surfing With The Alien led Mick Jagger to recruit Satriani as lead guitarist for his first solo tour in 1988. His official biography presents the hiring as a consequence of that album.
Satriani holds fifteen Grammy Award nominations; his official biography names Surfing With The Alien and The Extremist among the songs and albums nominated. He has never won.
News
Albums
The first studio album Joe Satriani and Steve Vai have made together, issued as SatchVai on 6 November 2026.
The eighteenth album, out on earMUSIC on 8 April 2022 - his first away from Epic and Sony since 1995.
The seventeenth album, out on 10 April 2020: thirteen tracks built on changing his own style to suit each song.
The sixteenth album, a trio record with Chad Smith and Glenn Hughes, released on 12 January 2018.
The fifteenth album, built around a stage alter ego called Shockwave Supernova. Released 24 July 2015.
The fourteenth album, eleven tracks cut with Vinnie Colaiuta, Chris Chaney and Mike Keneally. Out 7 May 2013.
The thirteenth album, out on 5 October 2010; the Japanese edition adds Heartbeats and Longing.
The twelfth album. Its title joins his own nickname, Satch, to musterion, a Greek word for a hidden thing.
The eleventh album, out on 14 March 2006. Its closing track, Crowd Chant, became a fixture in North American arenas.
The tenth album, out on 13 April 2004, and the first since 1995 on which Satriani sings.
The ninth album. Its title is also the name of his publishing company, and comes from a Jimi Hendrix lyric.
The eighth album, an electronic experiment Satriani himself called completely techno. Out 14 March 2000.
The seventh album and his first for Epic, and the first on which he recorded with a seven-string guitar.
The fifth album is a double: new and unreleased studio tracks on disc one, 1988 and 1992 live recordings on disc two.
The fourth album, his biggest: number 22 in the United States, certified Gold, and home to Summer Song.
The third album: eighteen tracks, the most of any of his records, and the first on which he sings.
The second album, which reached number 29 in the United States - a rare feat for an all-instrumental guitar record.
The debut album, released on 18 December 1986. Its title track uses what Satriani calls pitch axis theory.
BOX
Box sets and multi-disc anniversary and expanded editions, listed separately from the albums.
Not of This Earth, Flying in a Blue Dream, The Extremist, Joe Satriani and Crystal Planet: five JOE SATRIANI albums in Sony's Original Album Classics series.