Big Foot

Chickenfoot is a supergroup made up of Sammy Hagar on vocals, Chad Smith of the Red Hot Chili Peppers on drums, guitarist Joe Satriani and bassist Michael Anthony, formerly Hagar's bandmate in Van Halen. This is the first single from their second album Chickenfoot III.

During an interview with SoundSpike, Hagar explained this was not a unanimous pick to be lead single. He said: "Why we picked that single, it wasn't my first choice. I thought it was too typical of what people would expect from Chickenfoot, and it is. It's kind of like an extension of the first record, and our personalities - fun, fun fun. The rest of the album is much more musical. It's not like heavy, 'Woo, we have to listen to this.' We got down. It's really good. It's not to be messed with. This being the most typical song, the record company and some of the people said, 'Let's make that the first single.' I said, 'I don't care, every song on the album's great. You can throw a dart.' When they kept saying to me, 'What song do you want?' I 'm going, "'I don't care, every song's great.' It's the first time I could ever say that on a record. Usually, you have two or three songs that you know are your best songs. This time I don't know what the best song is. I have very high hopes for that CD."

You may be wondering why the band decided to title their second album Chickenfoot III. Here's Hagar's explanation in the same SoundSpike interview: "We took a long time before we could get back together because of everyone's schedules. When we started working on it, we jokingly called it 'Chickenfoot IV' - as a joke. But then when the album was done, we said, 'This is not a joke.' We went, "If we say 'Chickenfoot IV,' it's going to put a little bit of a joke twist on it." But it was way, way too advanced to be 'Chickenfoot II.' The only song that kind of bridges the gap is the one you're hearing, 'Big Foot.' The rest of the stuff is way in the distance, man. We took a giant step forward and it's more like a third or fourth CD. We're not joking when we call it 'Chickenfoot III' because we skipped over the dreaded second record."

"Big Foot" was originally the working title for the song before Sammy Hagar added his lyrics, but the singer ended up retaining the name. Joe Satriani told MusicRadar: "I was writing for the rhythm section, something where we could come together and create a force that was bigger than the three of us. I wanted it to be huge, just totally overwhelming. I called the song 'Big Foot,' just figuring that Sam would come up with another title. He ended up loving the name and wound up using it for the whole story. He sang quite a lot of it while we were tracking. I love recording like that."

Satriani has recorded a series of mainly instrumental albums under his own name. He discussed with Music Radar the difference between his solo work and playing in a band: "In my other career, I spend a lot of the time playing melodies and solos. In Chickenfoot, I get to play a lot on the low strings of my guitar, which I do enjoy. Being real deep in the pocket is so cool, and it's really great when you can find that place with Mike and Chad. On 'Big Foot,' it's hard to tell the difference between the JS2400 and a Jimmy Page Les Paul. I wanted to get the guitars to sound close to each other, but there's a slight change in their tones, however subtle. There's a Rickenbacker 12-string in there, too - a little fairy dust."

Smith and Anthony don't have to fight their way through Hagar's vocals or Satriani's guitar on Chickenfoot III, resulting in a good balance between the four musicians. Satriani told Sleaze Roxx this was a natural thing for the band. Said the guitarist: "If you put on a guitar and you were playing with Michael Anthony and Chad Smith you'd understand that you want to be part of it and not on top of it. When I was writing 'Big Foot', I wanted to write a riff where the three of us could sound like a wall of sound -- where we'd be so tight that no one would be the superstar except for Sam's vocal when he came in. The same goes with Sam, he doesn't want to over sing it, he wants to fit right in. Ultimately it makes for a larger sound when you have everyone joining forces rather than someone trying to be the superstar."