chickenfoot

On the release of rock supergroup Chickenfoot''s sophomore effort, guitarist Joe Satriani and bassist Mike Anthony confess that making it look easy is precisely the point.

Joe Satriani dips the trem on his signature Ibanez JS2400 as Mike Anthony keeps the 4-string thunder rolling at NYC’s Beacon Theatre in 2009. Photo by Paul Bachman
Listen to a track from Chickenfoot III:
Although the collective members of Chickenfoot have plenty of talent and technique to spare, the one thing that’s not on anyone’s side is time. When the band got together in February 2011 to record its curiously titled sophomore release, Chickenfoot III, there simply wasn’t a minute to waste. Vocalist Sammy Hagar’s New York Times, No. 1 bestselling book, Red: My Uncensored Life In Rock, was weeks away from its release, guitarist Joe Satriani was barely decompressing from his Black Swans and Wormhole Wizards tour in addition to the Experience Hendrix tour, and drummer Chad Smith was just about ready to go back to his duties with the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

“We’d meet up in the morning,” says Satriani, ”and someone would say, ‘I really like that song, let’s do that one.’ And we’d spend a few hours learning it and arranging it, and then record it and that would be it. We’d move on to the next song.”

This mad dash proved to be a good thing and gave the album its fresh sound. “There’s a lot of spontaneity on this album because there wasn’t a lot of time to rehearse the songs,” says Anthony. “We would rehearse it 20, 30 times and then we recorded it.” The time constraints extend beyond the recording session. Because of Smith’s commitments, drummer Kenny Aronoff will be filling in for him on the band’s upcoming tour. But this won’t be a permanent lineup switch. Anthony says, “We didn’t want this to be a revolving-door band.”

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