Chickenfoot
Chickenfoot

The debut album by Chickenfoot is pure rock & roll. It's one of those albums that's great to listen to in the summer, when there's a persistent heat and you're dripping with sweat in never-ending afternoons: you manage to survive just because you've got an ice-cold beer in hand, and you know very well that open windows certainly don't bring any cool air, they only serve to annoy all the neighbors with that excessive volume. Forget headphones, iPods, and various nonsense...

However, it's necessary to take a step back since talking about a "debut" isn't quite correct, given that the members of Chickenfoot are Joe Satriani, Sammy Hagar and Michael Anthony of Van Halen, and Chad Smith of the Red Hot Chili Peppers. How did it come about? Very simply: the four have been friends forever, they often played and fooled around at Sammy Hagar's club in Costa Mesa and thought it would be a good idea to come out with an album. It's certainly not the first "superband" that seemingly forms by chance, nor will it be the last. What surprises in this operation are two aspects: the simplicity with which the whole setup was put together and the perfection of the 2.0 apparatus.

Chickenfoot recorded and produced the album themselves, had it distributed by smaller labels, and organized the tour: zero traditional promotion and a lot of viral promotion, with a perfect web strategy. In short, no support from record companies, resulting in the ability to offer an album at a significantly reduced cost (I, for example, got it on play.com for 11 euros and 90 with free shipping), also because this time the web truly became an integral part of the album: just as an example, the 10 pages of the booklet are available online in high-quality pdf, and are free for everyone, even for those who downloaded the album but maybe then go to see Chickenfoot live. The result? An extraordinary sales success (6th place on the billboard chart), a first part of concerts in the USA all sold out, a European tour with about twenty dates between June and July, and another thirty dates in North America between August and September. In the world of music, this is certainly not the first time such a thing has happened (just look at the sensational case of Radiohead), but that it's done by four such heavyweight names in American rock music should make the entire record industry think hard.

But let's leave all that aside and return to the 11 songs on the album: my advice is to turn up the volume full blast and to hell with it. Sammy Hagar's voice scratches more than ever, Satriani's guitars hold their own with full and rounded sounds, the rhythm section travels like a train (I was very impressed by the work done by Chad Smith, and this is coming from someone who usually doesn't even listen to the drums). Then, don't expect masterpieces: this is an album born from the desire to have fun and play by the four band members, who have indulged in the most classic all-American rock & roll, the kind that goes all out and makes you tap your foot without even realizing it from the first to the last song. Truly sunny music, full of choruses and beautiful, rounded riffs, made by people who don't need to prove anything to anyone and who have one sole thought: to get on stage, play, and have fun. There's no doubt, this is a band born to play live and those who have the fortune to see one of their concerts will understand what I'm saying.

It's only rock & roll... but I like it!