Fifty-three years after Steve Vai turned up for guitar lessons at Joe Satriani‘s house, the two have finished a record together. The fourth single, “Mayhem“, is out now.
Joe Satriani and Steve Vai will release The Sea Of Emotion, their first studio album together, on November 6 through earMUSIC.
The pair have been circling this for half a century. In 1973 a 13-year-old Vai started taking lessons from Satriani, then 17, in Carle Place on Long Island. They went on to build separate careers that between them reshaped what people expected an electric guitar to do, and shared stages for decades through the “G3” tours Satriani founded, without ever making a record.
“We’ve been planning this since 1973,” Vai said. “Just unconsciously.”
The opening came from a “G3” reunion tour that left both of their schedules clear at the same time. What started as a suggestion to record one track grew when Satriani sent Vai two finished pieces, “The Sea Of Emotion, Part 1” and “Part 2“.
Working together turned out to be less straightforward than a shared history might suggest.
“The biggest surprise was that we write in completely different ways,” Satriani said. “And that’s what made the project so fun and interesting.”
Eric Caudieux produced and played keyboards. The rhythm parts were split across a long list of players they have both worked with over the years: drummers Gregg Bissonette, Jeremy Colson, Kenny Aronoff, Matt Chamberlain and Mike Mangini, and bassists Billy Sheehan, Bryan Beller, Philip Bynoe, Matt Bissonette, Marco Mendoza and Henrik Linder.
Glenn Hughes sings on “I Wanna Play My Guitar“. It stands as one of his last recorded appearances before he announced on August 4 that he is stepping back from touring and live performances ahead of open-heart surgery.
The album’s centrepiece is a three-part suite that returns to the Carle Place school field where the two of them used to sit and talk about music. “The Sea Of Emotion, Part 3” opens with a reel-to-reel recording made during one of Vai‘s early lessons.
“It illustrates just how far we’ve come,” Satriani added. “We’re these two kids who haven’t found our sound yet, but we’ve got enthusiasm. We’re chasing something, and we’re determined.”
For Vai, that is the point of the record rather than a flourish on it.
“That’s when I really feel, like, wow, we really did it,” he said. “It’s a beautiful coming together of me and my friend in a very intimate musical way. That was the reason we did the record.”
“Mayhem” is not the start of the campaign. Three tracks have appeared over the past 16 months: “The Sea Of Emotion, Pt. 1“, “I Wanna Play My Guitar” and “Dancing“, the last accompanied by a video directed by Brendon Small. Six of the album’s ten songs remain unheard.
“Mayhem” is also new to anyone who has seen the pair live this year. It is not among the material Satchvai has been playing on their current “Surfing With The Hydra” tour.
The Sea Of Emotion tracklist:
- “Mayhem” (3:39)
- “Bronco Freight Train” (5:07)
- “Dancing” (3:40)
- “The Feeling I Know” (5:57)
- “Zoot Suit Riot” (4:36)
- “Old Sins Have Long Shadows” (4:43)
- “I Wanna Play My Guitar” (4:16)
- “The Sea Of Emotion Pt. 1” (5:49)
- “The Sea Of Emotion Pt. 2” (5:20)
- “The Sea Of Emotion Pt. 3 / Reflections On A Year And A Half” (6:39)
Satriani has been touring as a headliner for more than three decades and started the “G3” package tours that have carried most of the instrumental guitar world through them at some point. His records have sold in excess of 10 million copies, with two platinum albums, four gold and 15 Grammy nominations. His most recent solo album, The Elephants Of Mars, was his nineteenth. He also plays in Chickenfoot with Sammy Hagar, Michael Anthony and Chad Smith, and spent 2025 and 2026 on the road with Hagar, Anthony and Kenny Aronoff.
Vai has sold more than 15 million records across 45 years and won three Grammy Awards, with a résumé that takes in Frank Zappa, David Lee Roth and Whitesnake before his own solo work. Since 2024 he has also been part of BEAT, alongside Adrian Belew, Tony Levin and Danny Carey, playing 1980s King Crimson material across North America, South America, Japan and Europe.
