JOE SATRIANI
Over lockdown, while the rest of mankind was dealing with earthly concerns, Joe Satriani was looking towards the stars. “Over the months, this story started to develop in my head,” reflects the virtuoso. “It’s in the future, Mars has been terraformed and Earth’s corporations are raping the planet for raw materials. What they don’t know is that there’s a lifeform there, which is these 30ft elephants. And they’re gonna fight, so Mars can retain its natural beauty…”
As concepts for rock ’n’ roll records go, it’s fair to say The Elephants Of Mars is bolder than the time-honoured cars and girls. Fortunately, for the first time in a pacy career that began with 1986’s Not Of This Earth, Satriani had the breathing space to dream up instrumentals every bit as ambitious. “This album,” he says, “was all about removing barriers from my creative impulses.”
You’ve said you’re not impressed by the instrumental guitar scene right now…
“I was misquoted on that! I’m not impressed with the state of instrumental guitar playing recently. The last couple of albums, I leaned back in time. Especially with [2020]. It was a down-to-earth record, not futuristic or even present-day sounding. I always felt sad that I missed the classic-rock era. I was too young to be a peer of Page, Beck, all those guys. So the [1992] was my homage to classic rock and my
