MusicRadar

"The music is flowing and energy is there," says Joe Satriani (left) of Michael Anthony and the rest of Chickenfoot. © Tim Mosenfelder/Corbis

"If that was the tough part, we're in pretty great shape," says Joe Satriani about Chickenfoot's just-completed "Road Test tour," during which the band - which also includes Sammy Hagar, Michael Anthony and drummer Kenny Aronoff (filling in for Chili Peppers man Chad Smith) - played a series of no-frills, guerrila-style club dates to break in songs from their new album, Chickenfoot III.

"We're planning a full-scale tour for 2012," says Anthony. "Before we do that, we wanted to do something low-key to work things out. Come January, we'll play larger places in England and Europe, but it'll still be a quick run of shows. Ultimately, it all leads up to the big tour."

MusicRadar always likes to catch up with "The Foot," so we sat down with Satch and Anthony the other day to talk about how the new songs are going over live, what changes they've made to their live rigs and how Kenny Aronoff is affecting the band's dynamic.

The set you did on the "Road Test" dates was probably 80 percent the new album. What was it like playing shows where you've actually had to cut songs?

Michael Anthony: "It was pretty cool being able pick and choose songs instead of having to draw everything out. I mean, we did some jamming, but there has to be some limits. Sammy's a pretty talkative frontman, but even he runs out of stories to tell!" [laughs]

Joe Satriani: "I think we did practically the whole new record – the only thing we didn't play is the song Different Devil. We held off on that one because it's going to be released as a single in January, I think."

Anthony: "Different Devil should sound really great live. It'll be cool to do that when we do our full-on tour. What I like now is that we can really move songs around. We don't have to stick to an exact script."

Satriani: "Putting a set together is a funny thing: You want it to have ups and downs sand tell something of a story, and I'll admit that I had a hard time picturing how some of the new songs would translate without the production of a big show. Because we just played clubs for the initial run, we did things pretty bare bones. I was concerned about that, but as turned out, everything was fantastic. People reacted to the new stuff like they were old favorites."

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