Satriani, who grew up in Long Island and lived briefly in Japan before settling in San Francisco, took a three-week break in 1983 from his band the Squares, to record some of the music he heard inside his own head. He sold the resulting extended play 45 out of the trunk of his car and although it made a minor local splash, it came to the attention of Relativity Recordings.

Satriani, a technical wizard on the instrument, supported himself before his solo recordings struck pay dirt as a guitar teacher. Some of the students included Steve Vai, Kirk Hammett of Metallica, Eddie Van Halen, and Larry Lalonde of Primus. He followed his homegrown EP with the 1986 outing Not Of This Earth. By mid-1987 he completed his ground breaking Surfing With The Alien, a diverse and adventure-some collection that announced the arrival of a new talent, stormed the best-selling charts and ultimately sold more than two million copies, making it one of the most succesful instrumental albums of all time.

• July 15,1956: Born in Westbury New York
• 1970: First picks up the guitar
• 1971: Teaches guitar for next three years at home in Westbury, Long Island (NY). Steve Vai is one of his first students.
• September 1972: High School Music teacher Bill Wescott introduces Joe to pitch axis theory.
• 1974: Self taught for the last four years, Joe takes lessons for three weeks with Billy Baur in Glen Cove, NY. The same year studies with Lennie Tristano in Queens, NY, for two months.
• 1978: Begins a 10-year stint teaching at Second Hand Guitars in Berkeley, CA; students include David Bryson, Kirk Hammett, Charlie Hunter, Larry Lalonde, Alex Skolnick, and others.
• 1979: Forms pop band The Squares in San Francisco with Jeff Campitelli on drums and Andy Milton on bass.
• 1984: Releases five-song, EP Joe Satriani on independent label he names after his wife, Rubina. The album contains guitars exclusively.
• 1985: Completes the tracks for Not Of This Earth, financing the recording on a credit card, introduced to Relativity Records by Steve Vai.
• September 1986: Tours with pop-rocker Greg Kihn to make ends meet while awaiting a deal-decision from Relativity.
• November 1986: Signed to Relativity Records, Joe is already putting together demos for songs that will apear on Surfing With The Alien.
• October 1987: Surfing With The Alien is released (quickly goes gold and platinum).
• February 1988: On the strength of Surfing's reception, Relativity does a second printing of Not Of This Earth (the initial stock had sold out); because the original artwork is lost, a new cover adorns the second run.
• February-March, September-October 1988: Interrupts own tour twice to go on road with Mick Jagger.
• June 11, 1988: During the Surfing tour three live tracks are recorded for the Dreaming #11 EP (one studio cut-"The Crush Of Love," originally recorded for a Guitar Player Flexi-disk complete's the package).
• November 1988: Dreaming #11 is released (goes gold and fetchs Joe's second Grammy nomination).
• October 1989: Flying In A Blue Dream is released (Joe receives third Grammy nomination and album sells over 750,000 units), and includes Joe's vocals on 6 of it's 18 tracks.
• July 1992: Following two intense years of writing and recording, The Extremist is released(immediately goes gold, debuts at 24 on Billboard and gets yet another Grammy nomination); it spawns the hit "Summer Song," which is later used in a Sony Walkman Commercial.
• October 1993: The double-CD Time Machine is released: Disc One contains studio out-takes and foreign releases spanning Joe's career, plus four of the five tracks from the original Joe Satriani EP and three new cuts, Disc Two contains 14 live tracks.
• October 1994: Time Machine certified gold, and Joe begins his seventh album.
• October 11, 1995: Joe Satriani releases his seventh album, self titled "Joe Satriani", produced by Glyn Johns. "(You're) My World" was nominated for a Grammy.
• October 1996: The G3 tour, featuring Joe Satriani, Steve Vai, and Eric Johnson, played 24 dates to 90,000 fans in North America.
• May 1997: G3 featuring Joe Satriani, Steve Vai, and Adrian Legg tours Europe.
• June 1997: G3 Live In Concert CD and video released.
• June 15, 1997: G3 featuring Joe Satriani, Steve Vai, Kenny Wayne Shephard, and Robert Fripp, begins U.S. tour.