In a new interview with Guitarist, Joe Satriani talked about the experience of playing Eddie Van Halen’s signature guitar ‘Frankenstein.’ Though he wanted to get the right tone for the shows, Satriani struggled to play it for two weeks until he got it right.
“When I went out there and got a Frankenstein, I tried seven and had to have the shop owner tell me how they sounded,” he explained. “Besides me feeling it – because it can be difficult to pick – the one that sounds good now didn’t come that way from the factory.”
“It was lifeless and I struggled with keeping the guitar in tune. It must have taken two weeks of tweaking to wrestle that thing to the point where it would stay in tune,” the guitarist added.
When it was announced that Satriani would be joining Sammy Hagar on the Best Of All Worlds Tour Satriani needed to get his tone just right for the gig.
He wanted to capture Eddie Van Halen’s signature sound while playing Eddie’s parts. So, he teamed up with 3rd Power to create a tube amp that mimicked Eddie’s Marshall tone and made some tweaks to a few stock EVH Frankie guitars. He added speed knobs, Sustainer pickups, and more.
But now, his custom-modded guitar makes him think that Eddie would come back and kill him, as he said in an earlier interview while showing off his guitar. “It’s my own mod on Frankenstein. Eddie’s gonna come back and kill me!”
“[Eddie] was a tinkerer and an inventor and thank God. It sounds really good, [it’s a] fun guitar,” he added.
Sammy Hagar’s tour with Satriani and the rest of the band is still on. The band’s next show is on September 20 at Nagoya Niterra Forest Hall, and they are ending it on September 23 at Tokyo Ariake Arena before starting the Sammy Hagar & Friends tour.