The hotly anticipated Best Of All Worlds tour is right around the corner, and Joe Satriani has given fans a closer look at some of the wild mods he’s made to an EVH Frankenstein electric guitar he'll be playing during the shows.
However, he’s worried about what the consequences of gutting the guitar will be, as he jokes: “It's my own mod on Frankenstein – Eddie's gonna come back and kill me!”
The upcoming tour will find Satch step into the sizable shoes of his hero Eddie Van Halen, as he performs both Hagar- and Roth-era Van Halen hits alongside Sammy Hagar, Michael Anthony, and Jason Bonham.
Satriani has been taking no shortcuts in his preparation for the tour, but in one of his most interesting revelations yet, he's revealed there’s nothing particularly special about the particular Frankenstein replica that acted as his blank canvas.
It is, in fact, a standard, off-the-shelf EVH Striped Series Frankenstein (circa $1,500) from Bananas At Large, and not some million-dollar one-off. Although he does add, with a wry smile, it will be worth a million dollars after the tour.
The virtuoso has already showcased another modded EVH guitar on his Instagram, and like that white-and-black Stripes Series, this too has a Sustainiac in the bridge.
Eddie was known for his experimentation with the Fernandes Sustainer pickups. However, those mods were typically made to his Peavey Wolfgang models rather than his Frankenstein, so it's interesting to see how Satch has accommodated both sounds in his tireless tone quest.
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“I added a Sustainiac, a clear pickguard, [and] I removed the stuff that doesn't do anything,” he tells YouTuber Jeremy White.
“I also added a kill switch,” he goes on, confirming our suspicions concerning one extra mystery button that could be found on his other mod. It will be fascinating to hear how he uses it.
Satriani has credited “master luthier Gary Brawer” for the work. He also adds that, despite his ghostly Van Halen concerns, his modifications were made in the spirit of his idol.
“[Eddie] was a tinkerer and an inventor and thank god,” he says. “It sounds really good, [it’s a] fun guitar.”
With final tour preparations now well underway, the true extent of Satriani's gear tampering has been revealed.
Satch has already confirmed he's working with 3rd Power Amps for a custom-made tube amp to nail Eddie's 1986 guitar tone. Recently released rehearsal footage has also shown that his trusty Ibanez signature guitars will also play a part on the tour, alongside his EVH models.
In one of the more obscure ways to learn valuable information, he's also revealed how slipping up while playing Mean Street on Howard Stern taught him a lesson about Eddie's guitar tone.
