It’s the golden rule of session drumming: never work with children, animals or guitar virtuosi. Against the odds, Katche made sure the Joe Satriani album was as memorable for the beats as for the riffs.

Manu Katche says:

“I wouldn’t describe myself as a fan of much music in that world, but I’d seen Joe live and it was, like, ‘How can that be possible?’ So when [producer] Glyn Johns called me I thought, ‘Yeah, that’s a challenge’.”

“Glyn wanted the record to be something organic; I remember arriving in San Francisco, and Glyn just saying to everyone, ‘Listen up guys – I just want takes,’ which means, first, second, third, fourth – it doesn’t matter, but he wanted a whole take from A to Z and no overdubs. So we had to have that in mind, and it wasn’t that easy, but great fun.”

“It was also hard because, of course, Joe’s music isn’t what I do regularly. I remember listening to his other albums in my hotel, and then to the demos, and trying to make a bridge between what he’d done in the past and what I was supposed to achieve. I have to say, I had more work to do in my head.”