Guitar teachers always have some good stories to tell. There are those who teach younger kids, a cohort who is liable to say – and do – all kinds of crazy things.
We’ve known teachers having to point a toy ray gun at their student’s head to get them to concentrate on the exercise. And there’s always a problem child whom you wouldn’t trust with a solid piece of wood in their hands.
But consider who Joe Satriani taught. His alumni roll call reads like a who’s who of rock and metal guitar. There’s his old pal Steve Vai. Then there’s the whole Bay Area first-generation thrash scene, players such as Larry Lalonde, then of Possessed and now Primus, Alex Skolnick of Testament, Rick Hunolt of Exodus fame, and of course another former Exodus guitarist Kirk Hammett, who went onto achieved some success with Metallica.
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Speaking to Guitar World in December 1995, Satch said some privileges came from teaching such gifted players, like when Hammett would turn up and and bring him some of the first recordings of what Metallica were up to in the studio.
One particularly memorable session came towards the end of Satriani’s teaching career, when Hammett and Metallica were putting together their most ambitious album yet, And Justice for All. And some of this stuff was really out there.
“Kirk Hammett was my last student in late 1987/early ’88, and he would bring to the lessons some of the progressions Metallica were working on,” recalled Satriani.
“They were the weirdest things. Here was a band who were really forging ahead of other people, but he was asking me, ‘What do you think I should play over this stuff?’”
And Justice For All would be Metallica at their most audacious just as they were rebounding from their lowest ebb, the death of their bassist Cliff Burton, who died in a bus crash in 1986.
Burton was a gifted musician, knew theory inside and out, and was a driving force for Metallica’s cresting musicality during the mid ‘80s.
Speaking to Guitar World in 2016, Hammett said Burton’s knowledge far outstripped his.
“Cliff studied music in college,” said Hammett. “I had a grasp of music theory, thanks to Joe, but Cliff went the whole length and learned musical theory and everything. And he was way into harmonies.
“James really absorbed the dual-harmony thing and took it to heart. He made it his thing, but it was originally Cliff’s. Cliff also inspired James greatly on counterpoint and rhythmic concepts.”
When Metallica were really starting to build a bit of momentum following their incendiary debut LP, Kill ‘Em All, Hammett would still travel for his lessons with Satriani – only he didn’t have the car. As Metallica were writing Ride the Lighting, Hammett was riding a bike all the way down to the guitar shop where Satch taught.
“It took me over an hour and a half, because I lived, like, 25 miles away,” he said. “So I would ride the whole way there – all huffing and puffing and sweaty – and I’d grab a guitar off the wall. After we finished, I’d grab my lesson papers and bike 25 miles again home! [Laughs] It was hilarious. I felt like Lincoln walking 18 miles to go to school or something.”
Satriani could not believe some of the stuff that Metallica was coming up with. Hammett was looking for ideas for where he could take his solos – and Satch had the theoretical bona fides to guide him. Though, he says, Hammett would have to choose his own path.
“I couldn’t tell him, ‘This is what you play’, although my understanding of theory allowed me to suggest options,” said Satriani. “He took that information and made an album.”
And that was Satch out of the teaching game, January 1988. He would of course reunite with is other most-famous student, Steve Vai. What was the other have of the Satch/Vai Band virtuoso duo like as a student? Capable, says Satriani. Very capable.
“Steve was a great student, really motivated and gifted,” said Satriani. “He was an accordion player before I met him, so he had a musical background, but he was pretty much a beginner guitar player when he started with me. He was so good when we got things going that he grew up on the instrument extremely quickly.”
