“People would say, ‘OMG, if this guy is in the back of a guitar store, teaching, what does it say about the music business?’ But, of course, within a few years, everybody would know his name”: Testament’s Alex Skolnick on what he learned from Joe Satriani

Alex Skolnick play his silverburst ESP signature model [left] while Joe Satriani plays his JS signature Ibanez .

Joe Satriani changed guitar for good long before he got a deal and made it as a recording artist. Just think of all the players who studied with him back in the day.

There was the jazz guitar fusion ace Charlie Hunter, whom Satriani would later describe as a “genius,” Third Eye Blind’s Kevin Cadogan, David Bryson of Counting Crows – and of course the most-famous of all, his friend and now co-collaborator Steve Vai.