“You’d be surprised how hard it is to find a big rock electric guitarist playing rhythm in tune,” Steve Vai says.
He would know. As Vai and Joe Satriani set out to create their new SatchVai band, they had to — for the first time together — choose bandmates to provide support for their lead guitar antics. And the rhythm guitarist who most impressed Vai was Pete Thorn. In addition to working with numerous artists ranging from Melissa Etheridge to Don Henley, the session veteran is a YouTube influencer who’s well known for his gear reviews.
“Pete Thorn, I’ve admired him for quite a while,” Vai tells Cassius Morris in a new interview. “He’s like a soldier, you know? He’s like a guitar soldier.”
As Vai tells Morris, he has special praise for the electric guitar player’s ability to perform his rhythm parts “in tune."
“There’s a way that some people hit the strings,” Vai explains. “They just explode and resonate beautifully, like Angus, or even – oddly enough – Kurt Cobain.”
Notably, Angus Young told Guitar Player about the importance of rhythm guitar playing, and Joe Satriani recently commented on Cobain’s talents as a guitar player that he feels are often overlooked.
“When you add more gain, it’s harder to make chords and playing sound really good,” Vai continues. “And Pete – he’s just a master at it.”
Thorn originally came to Vai’s attention through his YouTube channel, which he launched 11 years ago.
“I first started hearing him when he was demoing gear, and I’m like, ‘Wow, that’s a great tone,” Vai says. “I’m checking the boxes, you know?
“And his lead playing is beautiful. His intonation is great. He’s just like a real soldier,” says Vai. “And so, it’s gotta be nice to have that underneath everything.”
As Thorn himself recently pointed out, Vai made an impression on him not only with his own guitar playing but also with his humanity following the death of Chris Cornell in 2017. Thorn was Cornell's friend and touring guitarist at the time of his death on May 18, 2017. He was still reeling from his passing when a friend invited him to attend the 2017 Malibu Guitar Festival to help distract him from his sorrow.
“It was two days after Chris Cornell had passed,” Thorn tells Guitar World. “A friend who did some work for Steve invited me to get me out of the house.” Despite his funk, Thorn went to the show. Afterward, he was summoned to the backstage area to see Vai.
“Steve motioned for me to come over, then sat with me and proceeded to say — and I'm paraphrasing a bit — ‘I know you lost your friend, and I just want you to know that you can still have a relationship with him. It's too soon now, but the time will come where you think of them, and it'll be good thoughts — happy, good memories.’
“I will never forget that,” Thorn continues. “Here, I'd lost a close friend and collaborator, and a hero of mine, from the time I was 11 years old or so, took the time to console me… And that's Steve.”
Thorn joins an elite group of guitarists who have won praises from Vai. In recent years, the virtuoso has raved about Matteo Mancuso as a great new young guitarist who is blazing a trail with his virtuoso fingerstyle playing.
Nita Strauss also revealed recently that Vai — who was one of her big guitar heroes as a young player — has been super supportive of her career since their friendship began a few years ago. “Actually, he sends me emails every once in a while,” she told Rock Antenne, “and he'll be like, 'Look! What a great article about you in Guitar World.'
The SatchVai tour launches in England on June 13. Vai says he and Satriani have been “feverishly writing” new music together, which is a new skill set for him.
“That’s just so great because I’m not usually a collaborator, you know, when it comes to my catalog in my solo work,” he says. “But I am a very good collaborator when I know the project and I know the people and I know what’s expected of me, so with Joe it’s just like heaven in a cup. Because he’s just a great collaborator that way too.”
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