Joe Satriani Quotes

Jimi Hendrix is one of the main influences on why I wanted to play guitar. He really shook me. I think it was his whole style - the look and what he did with the guitar.

I think guitar-wise, Eric Clapton was a big influence on me. I got to spend time around him. He's kind of strange, mysterious, serious and he always has played such hot guitar.

Hendrix was a perfect guitarist. And that's all I wanted to do as a kid. Play a guitar properly and jump around.

I have a Stratocaster, which is part of my long, doomed ambition to become Jimi Hendrix.

As a young man growing up in that era, I was very influenced by Hendrix and took to a wah wah, and I learned how to really use one effectively as Hendrix did.

What draws people to the instrument is the love for guitar players that play a certain way. I mean, even though it wasn't intentional, it was hard to avoid copying Eddie Van Halen. He was basically the *bleep* back then.

I wouldn't be windmilling a Fender Telecaster if it weren't for Pete Townshend.

I was listening to Jimi Hendrix; I just admire his artistry and creativity as an artist.

I consider the guitar a tool for the most part. I do pick up the acoustic now and then, I certainly don't have any routine. Usually the only time I practice is when the band gets together. Hendrix has always been one of my favorite players, but I was a sucker for Nugent in the late 1970's.

I'm a huge fan of Joe Walsh and a big James Gang fan. A lot of what I know about playing the guitar I learned from listening to him.

I have held Jimi Hendrix's Woodstock guitar and imagined what it would be like to play it, but that's the extent of it.

I probably spent more time as a kid playing air guitar to Jimmy Page than any other guitar player.

I worked with George Harrison - who was the reason I started playing guitar.

If it wasn't for guys like Gary Moore, I wouldn't exist. He not only proved that the blues could rock but it could draw a crowd as well. All of which made a huge impression on me.

These days I don't look to other people with the objective of trying to steal their licks, although I've got no objections to stealing them if that seems like a good idea. I'm sure that I'm still influenced by Mark Knopfler and Eddie Van Halen as well......I can't play like Eddie Van Halen. I wish I could. I sat down to try some of those ideas and can't do it. I don't know if I could ever get any of that stuff together. Sometimes I think I should work at the guitar more.

A lot of kids bought guitars and started playing rock'n'roll because of us.

I invented rock & roll. Jimi Hendrix was my guitar player. James Brown was my vocalist.

James Brown is the reason I play guitar.

I suppose when I started playing guitar, it was the means to an end. I never thought of myself as a fully fledged guitar instrumentalist. And my early excursions on the electric guitar were curtailed when Eric Clapton came on the scene, and I decided I was never going to be in the same arena as a Clapton or a Peter Green.

Mention Hubert Sumlin, as well, because Hubert's a great man, and again, you know, I don't play the guitar very good, but when I'm playing this kind of music, I always have him in my mind. I wish I could play like Hubert.

When I was 14 years old, I had the opportunity to meet Buddy Holly. I asked him how he got that big, powerful sound out of his guitar amp. He said, 'I blew a speaker and decided not to get it fixed.'

I loved Hendrix. I mean, really, really loved him. As if he were one of the great classical composers. And he was. That's how I saw him.

I've always been the first to admit that Jimi was a very big influence on my early stuff.

I ended up gettin' a little Gibson amp and a bass, because of Gene Simmons of Kiss. Myself and three other kids would pretend to be Kiss - I liked Gene the best.

I pick up my guitar and play. Something might come, and then the pen comes out. Then an edit, until something comes out that you're actually satisfied with.