On a Friday in early May, renowned rock guitarist Joe Satriani won the hotel luck of the draw.
It's a quirky little thing that can happen when you are touring with a band, he explained.
"Every once in a while, you pull into a hotel and if you're the lucky one in the band you get a suite," he said, sitting in what he described as "an impossibly large hotel room" in Minneapolis.
"It's got a room adjacent to the bedroom that can hold, let me see, one, two, three, four" and he counted through nine before concluding: "There's room for I'd say about 25 people."
"There's a big bar. There's these arched windows that overlook the baseball park. It's insane," he said. "Maybe you can tell my voice is echoing because there's no one here."
It was the latest stop with his new project, the superband Chickenfoot - Satriani, with Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith (drummer Kenny Aronoff is sitting in for this tour) and Van Halen refugees Michael Anthony and Sammy Hagar. The band, which has been together since 2008, pulls into Casino del Sol's AVA tonight as part of its "Different Devil Tour 2012."
We chatted with Satriani, 55, about being with such wildly successful musicians on their first major tour in support of their sophomore album - oddly named "Chickenfoot III."
What is the purpose of Chickenfoot?
"I think it's to have fun and to express ourselves through our musical roots. … When we got together that's kind of what surprised us. We made a sound that was different from the other bands we were in and it was different from what we thought we would make. But what we recognized was that what we made sounded like the music that we grew up listening to."
You eschew the label "supergroup," but how would you define Chickenfoot?
"I don't mind the term supergroup because for me, when I'm playing on stage with these guys, it does feel like a supergroup: Fantastic musicianship, everybody's got a very well-defined and unpredictable personality. The shows are always off the hook. It's always crazy, and you only get that with a supergroup. But there's this connotation in the music industry that a supergroup is put together by suits at a record company … for a project to capitalize on record sales. This is more of a DIY supergroup. We do everything ourselves."
Today's listeners use that term more to define you as the cream of rock's crop.
"That's how it feels to me. Because when we're in the studio and we get an idea, 45 minutes later we have a recording. That's how I know this is a supergroup because we can move that quickly and move in a very decisive way."
When you got together, there didn't seem to be any sort of learning curve.
"There wasn't because there was no time. Each time we've gotten together for recordings we've always been on this incredible schedule. … Everyone in Chickenfoot has something else that they do. Chad in the Chili Peppers, I've got a solo career. Sammy has a million things going on. And Michael Anthony has perfected the art of vacationing forever. So when we get together for Chickenfoot, everybody knows it's only for a finite amount of time. … We say goodbye and don't see each other for four or five months."
Given your collective experiences, have you been able to check the egos at the door?
"I think everybody truly likes each other. … Everybody is just too relaxed; everybody has accomplished a lot. I think that has a big effect on making it always friendly but creatively always edgy, which I think is important."
What is Chickenfoot's mission and music?
"The very first time we played together in the studio … I think everybody thought, wow Joe doesn't sound like he does on 'Surfing With the Alien' and Chad doesn't sound like he sounds when he plays 'Give It Away,' and Sammy's not singing like it's 'I Can't Drive 65.' The personality was there … but the way that we played was this extra thing. There's four guys playing, but the fifth thing is the sound that we make together that is different than when we're off with our other groups. That became our mission … to see how we can develop that fifth sound."
Is Chickenfoot the next big rock band?
"I'm sort of a hopeless dreamer when it comes to that stuff. I always hope that we will be allowed to develop creatively so that we'll get to that spot where we will make that perfect album that becomes something that defines a generation or sound or style and that people will love listening to for decades. With Chickenfoot I think there's a great chance of that happening because of the power of the individuals."
What's it like being on stage with these guys?
"When I get on stage with Chickenfoot, I'm a lot more relaxed because it's more about having a great time. And of course there's this crazy lead singer who's running back and forth and who loves engaging people."
If you go
• What: Chickenfoot in concert with Blackstone Cherry.
• When: 8 p.m. today.
• Where: Casino del Sol's AVA, 5655 W. Valencia Road.
• Tickets: $25 to $45 through tickets.solcasinos.com
