Joe Satriani has got a name who can replace James Hetfield’s vocals in ‘Enter Sandman.’
Satriani and Steve Vai sat down with Ultimate Classic Rock Nights host Matt Wardlaw to talk about their new collaboration. When Wardlaw asked how they decided to include ‘Enter Sandman’ in the encore of their current tour, Joe replied:
“I was bouncing ideas off of my keyboardist, Ray Thistlethwaite, who has an amazing voice. You know, we just finished a G3 tour where he was singing some really old ’60s stuff. We were thinking, ‘Well, let’s move on from there and play a better mixture of songs.’ We knew we were going to be doing ‘The Sea of Emotion, Pt. 1.’”
Satriani Offered To Do ‘Enter Sandman’
The guitarist went on to reveal how Thistlethwaite reacted when he offered the song:
“We were texting the craziest ideas for songs back and forth. At one point, I just threw out ‘Enter Sandman.’ I didn’t really think he’d want to do it, but right away, he’s like, ‘We’re doing that one. I want to sing that one.’ I was pretty shocked because he doesn’t sing like James [Hetfield]. But wow, he hits it out of the park every night. It’s really a lot of fun doing that.”
Joe And Steve Are Working Together
Satriani and Vai have known each other for years but they didn’t get into the studio together until recently. They released ‘The Sea of Emotion, Pt. 1’ and are getting ready to release a full album together. In the same chat, Vai talked about how the song came together:
“That kind of kicked off organically. You know, Joe and I always tour on a solo record that we have. Our touring schedules were kind of matching, so we felt, ‘Hey, it feels like a good time, let’s go out together.’ It’s sort of like a G2 format, where I play for an hour and then Joe plays for an hour. If it’s G3, another artist plays, but then we all get together and jam at the end. It was an exciting idea to go out and tour as Satch / Vai. Then, we just started thinking, ‘Well, it would be nice to have some new music for this.’”
Later, the two also reunited with Eric Johnson for a G3 tour, which began earlier this year. Their tour kicked off on March 22 with a show at Hard Rock Live in Orlando, Florida. Their last gig is scheduled for May 12 in Santa Rosa, California.