Joe Satriani recently had an interview with Sonic Perspectives, where he revealed his thoughts on the replacement of Deep Purple’s Steve Morse.
Morse, who played with the band for 28 years, departed last year in July to focus on his wife, who is battling stage 4 cancer. Morse’s announcement came a few months after the guitarist stated that he would be taking a break from the band with the hope of returning once his wife’s health improved.
In the interview, Satriani was asked if he got a call from his former bandmates to replace Morse. He declined:
“Oh, no, I didn’t think of it. I knew that they have a really big circle of friends that play guitar that are great.”
The guitarist then explained whether or not he would be able to make it work if he got the call:
“So I just figured someone was already lined up, and even if they called, I’m so involved in so many things right now, I don’t know how I would make that work. It would be a lot of work because a lot of their show is the Steve Morse era which is the largest era of Deep Purple.”
He then revealed that he was trying to play like another guitarist and continued:
“There is a lot of Steve Morse stuff that is really hard to play. It’s different, Steve is a very unique player. It was easier for me when I was thinking of trying to play like Richie Blackmore, you can’t really play. You can’t copy them, you can’t replace them.
But you can play kind of like him because he was a blues-based kind of classic rock player, which is more like my style. Steve is more progressive, and so for a second, I thought whoever takes Steve’s place is going to have their work cut out for them.”
Satriani played as the touring guitarist of Deep Purple from 1993 to 1994, right after the departure of Blackmore. The band wanted Satriani to be the permanent guitarist, for which he stated that nobody could replace Blackmore, turning down the band’s offer. Not after too long, the guitarist changed his mind and joined the band.
The guitarist left a year after his joining, stating that they called him when his solo career was at a very interesting stage. After the departure of Morse, the band announced Simon McBride as their new permanent guitarist in September 2022.
See the interview below.
