Lorelei Reddin talks to guitar virtuoso Joe Satriani about on-stage cock-ups, food poisoning and touring the world

What are you up to at the moment, Joe? "You know I'm reading the New York Times. We just finished up the tour here in San Francisco, so we've got about four weeks to get acquainted with our families again, remember where we live and head out to Europe."

How did the US leg of the tour go? "It was great. We just had one of those tours where you have new material, a new band member, it seemed like half of our crowd was entirely new fans and it was just a wonderful tour. It was very energetic, one of those tours which had a set where one hour 40 minutes turned into two hours and 20 minutes. We just kept going, so we must have been having a good time!"

What can British audiences expect from your show? "We've noticed a continuing trend where our audience is more diverse than ever before. There's lots of young kids in the audience ten and 11-year-olds who are really into guitar-playing. We've started to get a lot of families, which is something we've never seen before in such large numbers. Ten years ago the younger generation wasn't interested in guitar at all. That seems to have completely reversed itself. It's been very exciting."

What's on your rider? "I think every year we get less demanding. I think there are some Twizzlers, which are liquorice sticks, bars of chocolate, pretzels, apple juice and stuff like that. We were in LA on the last week of the tour and they brought us way too much food, fruit and vegetables and foolishly I made the mistake of having a little bit of it and had food poisoning. I think we've decided from now on no cut fruit, only packaged food!"

What's your favourite track to perform? "Any of the new stuff has been really interesting. When you're in the studio what you record is a first attempt. You really don't know what you've done and how it's going to be received as it's quite a close affair at that point. It's only heard by three or four people before you go public. There have been some ones like that that have become epics Made of Tears and Just Like Lightning. Super Colossal the title track is a lot of fun because there's something about it that makes you feel 100ft tall!"

What track by another artist would you most like to call your own? "There are so many. Every really great song, I shake my head and go I wish I had written that one. Johnny Cash's Hurt Trent Reznor is really brilliant and really powerful. I wish I'd written that."

What's the most rock 'n' roll thing that's ever happened to you? "The really good ones have to be kept a secret! You can always count on things not working in theatrical style the curtain doesn't rise, a piece of equipment doesn't work, something breaks at the most important moment. That seems to happen continually to us and sometimes we get spooked by it."

What's the secret of your continued success? "I don't know, I think it's not good to think about it. All I concentrate on every day is trying to play as good as I did the day before and then trying to get better. I would think tenacity has a lot to do with it. We don't give up."

What are your thoughts on the new album? "I like to take a risk when releasing something. The only right way is to make a record for yourself and if people like it great. I don't think artists can second guess the audience and they shouldn't try to. We write fun music and serious music, but it's performing that we're at the top of our game."

What are you listening to at the moment? "My iTunes is somewhat eclectic! Recently I went back and listened to Velvet Underground again, I haven't listened to those guys for a while. Also I didn't have a lot of Bowie records digitalised, so I did that. The Dandy Warhols as well."

Any ambitions you're yet to fulfil? "So many I don't know how I'm ever going to work it out! There's so many records I'd like to make acoustic, blues and a jamming record, have an orchestra, direct music from the films. But I'm always so busy!"

Joe Satriani plays the Bournemouth Pavilion on June 21 www.ticketline.co.uk/0870 444 5556.

Joe's new album, Super Colossal, is out now on Epic/SonyBMG.

The DVD, G3 Live In Tokyo, featuring Satriani, is out this week.