Chords for Joe Satriani - They Don't Know How Broke I Am (6 of 11)

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[F] _ _ _ _ _ [Bb] _ So I moved out to California, [N] _ _ _ wound up in this band called The Squares.
Jeff Campitelli, who's playing with me now, was in the band.
We had a singing _ bass player who was a great vocalist.
And we worked from about 79 through 84 just killing ourselves,
trying to become famous and popular, and we played clubs.
We got as big as we could in the San Francisco Bay Area
and couldn't get arrested anywhere else.
Outside that 50-mile radius, it was forget about it.
So on a Christmas break when we decided we were going to take a few weeks off from each other,
I decided to do something unusual.
And at the time there were—this is pre-Internet,
so there were magazines around called Option and Sonic Option Network, _ _
_ _ which was really a network of independent record producers and artists.
And I think I just found it in a coffee shop or something.
And I'm looking at all these records by people, and I thought,
we should be doing this, you know.
We should be making our own records instead of killing ourselves trying to get a record deal, you know,
and have our labels solve our problems.
So _ I started looking into it, and coincidentally,
we used to rehearse in this warehouse next to a company called Nolo Press,
and they were famous for making books with tear-out sheets
to allow you to do anything from start your own business,
take care of your own taxes, get a divorce, adopt somebody, whatever.
_ They'd step by step show you what to do.
You'd fill out the form, tear it out, and bring it down to the courthouse or wherever you had to file it.
So on this break over the Christmas holidays,
I decided I was going to start a record company, a publishing company,
and I was going to make a record, and then when we came back,
I'd present it to the band and say, see, we can do this, you know.
So, but it wound up being a very avant-garde sort of sounding record.
It was no drums, keyboards, or bass.
It was all guitar.
It was all a lot of me tapping and scrapping and doing all sorts of funny things with it,
and I printed up on these really big 45 rpm 12 inches, _ _ _ _
and it became this generic looking Joe Satriani record
that you can see on eBay every once in a while.
And, but that was, you know, that was the beginning of Joe Satriani, the solo artist.
Although I was doing it more as a, as self-exploration or just sort of a musical,
_ _ you know, pushing myself into a new universe, sort of an experiment,
it really became _ _ a way that I could see a new path for myself, you know.
But I didn't really, it didn't really hit me until I saw a review of it in Guitar Player magazine,
and as I was reading it, I was actually rehearsing with another band,
and someone said, hey, I think your record's reviewed here.
Is this you, you know?
So I'm looking at it, and there's this little paragraph,
and I realized they, you know, they're talking about how weird the record is,
and who is this Joe Satriani guy?
He must be really strange.
And I thought, they don't know who I am.
They don't know that I'm, you know, practically in the same town.
They don't know that I'm the guitar player in the squares
that's been playing in a power pop band for the last five years.
And that was that one moment where you see, you know, you hit the fork of the road,
where you go, you keep being the person you think you are,
or now there's this other version of you, and then I started to realize that's who I am.
That what I've been doing all this other time was trying to, you know,
sort of like sign up to be a slave of the entertainment industry.
But here was my real path, which was record company president,
which, you know, was just a chair in my _ kitchen, you know.
And I had my own publishing company, which, you know,
no one was sending me any money, but at least I also owned my publishing.
_ And I realized I was producing my own records, and I thought, okay,
this is, it's laughable, but it is the reality.
So I immediately made plans to record another record.
And this time I thought I should have drums and bass and keyboards,
and _ _ _ I wound up with getting no support.
Now at the time, if you went around to studios or agents, managers,
and you said, I have this idea to do an instrumental rock and roll record,
they'd say, what the hell is that?
That doesn't even exist as a genre anymore.
You know, Jeff Beck was 13 years ago, forget about it, you know.
_ _ And so, again, this is, you know, this is the 80s.
And so we used to get free credit cards in the mail, you know.
And so I got, you know, after this one day, it was really,
this is like a moment of synchronicity.
I get back to my apartment, sort of dejected about not getting any, you know,
any green light from anyone who wants to help me out with this project.
I'm going through my junk mail, and there is, you know,
Mr.
Joseph Satriani, you have been selected in your neighborhood.
And I'm thinking, they don't know how broke I am, you know.
Or maybe they do.
So anyway, but it was, it had a $5,000 line of credit.
And so, and it came with checks.
So I went around, I went back to the guys at Hyde Street
and to John Cuniverdi, my live engineer at the time.
And I said, what if I paid you in advance for what we think the whole record's going to cost?
What can, you know, what can you cut me?
So they immediately, you know, I got a like 50% discount
because everyone was dying for money.
And so I just maxed it out immediately.
I spent like $4 _ ,990 that one day, and it was just like, oh man, I better make a good record.
And then went until the money was gone, and then that became Not of This [F] Earth.
And when it was done, _ I was completely broke,
and the collection agencies were calling.
And the very week where I thought I was facing total economic ruin, you know, _
Greg Kin called me up for a second time and said,
Joe, you've got to join the band this time.
We're in the middle of making this record.
Our guitar player's out, and please help us.
So he didn't know how much I needed this gig, you know.
So _ I remember going to the studio that very day
and cutting a couple of tracks with them
and making a deal with them that solved all my problems _
as record company owner, producer, _ artist severely in debt.
And then that year that I played with them,
I negotiated a deal with Relativity Records
not only to release Not of This Earth, but to sign up to do a multi-record deal.
The next record, which of course, was Surfing With the Alien. _ _ _
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