Satch lends his sunny guitar melodies to the Aristocrats bassist’s Volunteer State
Last month we announced a solo album from Aristocrats bassist Bryan Beller, Scenes from the Flood.
The effort, “a sweeping, epic-scale modern progressive double concept album,” features an all-star cast of guest guitarists, including Beller’s Aristocrats band mate Guthrie Govan, John Petrucci, Joe Satriani, Mike Dawes, Mike Keneally and more.
Now, Beller has shared one of the album’s tracks, Volunteer State, which boasts Satriani on guitar and Joe Travers (Zappa plays Zappa, Joe Satriani, Duran Duran) on drums.
Said Beller about Volunteer State, which features plenty of characteristic smooth Satch melody lines throughout, “This is the first full song of the album, and this is essentially where the story begins. It’s an optimistic road-trip song. It’s filled with intention and desire for something positive, though as you get further into it, it does a bit of a twist on you.”
He continued, “Once I wrote it, and heard the melody and felt the vibe, I felt strongly and deeply that Joe Satriani could bring something special to it, something uniquely his, that would give Volunteer State the weight it needed to be the opening chapter of such a long and winding tale.”
Added Satriani, "Bryan Beller’s new double solo album is a tour de force! I’m honored to be one of the many guest musicians on this beautiful album. Go get it!”
Scenes from the Flood is available in 2-CD (with two 20-page deluxe booklets) and 2-LP vinyl (with one full-size 24-page deluxe booklet) formats, as well as high-res and standard digital version.
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Rich is the co-author of the best-selling Nöthin' But a Good Time: The Uncensored History of the '80s Hard Rock Explosion. He is also a recording and performing musician, and a former editor of Guitar World magazine and executive editor of Guitar Aficionado magazine. He has authored several additional books, among them Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck, the companion to the documentary of the same name.
