Jennifer Batten
Guitar Icon & Innovative Solo Artist

Sandeep Kulkarni (00:03.074) Today's guest is Jennifer Batten, a legendary guitarist whose career spans global tours, solo projects, and decades of innovation on the instrument. From major world stages to her own multimedia solo shows, she's built a path defined by virtuosity, curiosity, and reinvention.

Suraaj Parab (00:24.239) Welcome Jennifer to the artist conversation.

Jennifer (00:27.451) Thanks for having me. How are you doing?

Sandeep Kulkarni (00:29.838) Pretty good, pretty good. We are so excited to have you. We couldn't wait for this interview. When Suraaj told me that you would be joining us, we were so thankful, and thank you for your time.

Sandeep Kulkarni (00:47.768) So I'm gonna jump right into it, Jennifer, about your origin in finding the guitar. You've been playing guitar since the age of eight, if I'm not mistaken. What was it about the instrument that grabbed you so early and told you this was going to be your language?

Jennifer (01:06.821) Well, there were two things. One was that my sister got a guitar and I didn't, so I was jealous. That pissed me off. And the other one was seeing the Beatles on TV. I lived in a little tiny town in upstate New York, and the whole town had Beatlemania. We would go to each other's houses when we were seven and eight years old and play the 45 singles over and over and over again. The whole vibe of music really intrigued me. Plus, my dad especially was a real music fan, and as long as he was home, he was gonna have jazz records on.

Sandeep Kulkarni (01:49.942) That's amazing. And where was this in upstate New York, if I may ask?

Jennifer (01:54.233) A little tiny town nobody's heard of, but the closest bigger town would be Watkins Glen. They used to have race car races there.

Sandeep Kulkarni (02:03.278) It's amazing when you say you guys were all experiencing Beatlemania. Of course, those were the times. Did you play all the songs even at that age? I mean, play along or just listen?

Jennifer (02:18.833) No, only listen. Yeah, I just started guitar lessons when I was eight years old with the very basic things, learning the first three frets of the guitar and reading out of a book.

Sandeep Kulkarni (02:31.293) Nice, nice. Crazy.

Suraaj Parab (02:35.269) Crazy, really. Jennifer, you came out of the early classes at the Musicians Institute and then stepped into a career that would become anything but ordinary. Looking back, when did you first feel that your playing had found its own identity?

Jennifer (02:55.654) I'm still waiting! You know what? I really had a trajectory. I remember I used to take some of my favorite players like Jaco Pastorius, Van Halen, Jeff Beck, Robben Ford, and Pat Metheny, and I would take all of their solos and put them back-to-back on a recording. I would only listen to those recordings.

I remember thinking at one time that all of the sounds were taken. Everybody had the original sounds, and there was nothing left. So, I specifically set out on a mission to try to get an original sound. I learned two things that sounded really fresh to my ears. One was memorizing a book by Joe Diorio called Modern Intervallic Designs, which is very athletic playing with big skips of fourth intervals or higher. I really got into that.

The other influence was a student who went to the school the same year I did, Steve Lynch. He eventually joined a band called Autograph, who had a big hit in the '80s called "Turn Up the Radio." We would get a seminar at school once a month by different monster players like Pat Metheny or Lee Ritenour. One month, it was Emmett Chapman, who invented the Chapman Stick—the instrument Tony Levin is most famous for playing. The month that we got the Chapman Stick seminar, there were only 60 of us in the class, divided into two sections. All of us were thinking, "It's gonna take a lifetime to get the guitar down. Why would we want to start another instrument like the Stick?" We listened, it was great, and then we all blew it off.

Well, Steve got an idea because the Chapman Stick is a 10-string instrument—five bass strings, five melody strings—and there's no picking; it's all tapped. So, Steve started experimenting with tapping on the guitar. That was at the same time the first Van Halen record came out, long before they really hit big. Steve's approach—I don't think he was even aware of Van Halen when he started tapping—was very original. I was fascinated by it. When school was out, I took a lesson with him, learned how he was thinking about tapping, and then just went off on my own and started experimenting. I thought between the things I was developing with the intervallic skips and the tapping, maybe that would become a unique voice. That's a long history for a short answer!

Suraaj Parab (05:47.067) Really interesting. I remember watching Liquid Tension Experiment in my childhood, and that was the time I actually got introduced to Tony Levin and the Chapman Stick. When you saw that Chapman Stick, did you ever try it?

Jennifer (06:03.077) I did, and it was impossible.

Suraaj Parab (06:06.091) Really?

Sandeep Kulkarni (06:06.254) Impossible as in just physically difficult, or a steep learning curve?

Jennifer (06:16.217) Physically, it did not feel comfortable at all. I don't know if I was playing it wrong, but I had my left hand over the top trying to get down to the lower bass strings. Plus, I had a short attention span and I was trying to learn the guitar. So, the guitar won.

Sandeep Kulkarni (06:36.238) The guitar won. That is amazing. Talking about the big stage and what it taught you, Jennifer, you were chosen out of a hundred guitarists for Michael Jackson's Bad tour and ended up spending a decade in his band. What did that scale of performance teach you about discipline and consistency?

Jennifer (07:03.819) Well, I already had the discipline long before I got into his band. I was a super guitar nerd, and I used an egg timer after school was over. The school really taught me discipline because we were forced to learn what we had just been taught. At the next class, if you hadn't learned it, you would get really behind really fast. I had a really extreme practice routine after I got out of school where every hour I would work on something new—like an hour of sight reading, an hour of ear training, an hour of arpeggios, an hour of scale patterns, and on and on. Eventually, that hour morphed into an hour of jamming, and then it reset the timer for just one more hour of jamming.

The Michael Jackson gig was such a huge deal that once I got in there with the band and knew the songs we were supposed to learn, I spent all my waking hours just going over them, making sure all the parts were accurate. It worked out; I did my homework. That's the biggest thing about joining a group like that. You have to be easy to get along with, of course, have a good vibe that people want to be around, and do your homework. That's number one.

Sandeep Kulkarni (08:24.746) That's number one, right? Because you're playing with amazing musicians all throughout, and you're performing at these crazy venues with the world watching you. I remember watching you when that solo came out. I don't remember what grade I was in or if I was in college, but I was in a metal band back then. My guitar player, my drummer, my other guitar player, and I sat down and were like, "Look at this. This is amazing." We were all blown away. I still remember that very well.

Jennifer (09:13.559) I'll tell you, I was at a band rehearsal with a cover band when we first heard "Beat It" on the radio. We were setting up our gear, and that song came on. We just stopped and looked at each other when that solo came up. One guy thought it was Allan Holdsworth. I set about to learn that, and there were so many new techniques within that solo at the time. I gave up about three times before I finally got it.

That was long before digital, you know. I had one of those tape decks that musicians used to use that had the variable motor. You would turn the motor down, and of course, the whole pitch would change as well, so you had to transpose it back up. But when I finally got it, I started playing it in the cover band, and boy, did that serve me well.

Sandeep Kulkarni (10:04.59) Amazing. Amazing.

Suraaj Parab (10:05.595) That's super. Jennifer, I want to move a little into your chapter with one of my favorite musicians, Jeff Beck. What was different about playing with Jeff, artistically and personally, that made that chapter stand out so deeply for you?

Jennifer (10:31.67) That was 180 degrees different from Michael. Michael expected everything to be exactly the same every night. Most of my job in that gig, although I did get some solos, was to play the parts, groove, and make it feel good. Every song had to be in the same order because of costume changes and pyro cues.

With Jeff, he wanted it to be different every night. He wanted to be inspired; he didn't want to get bored by sounding exactly the same every night. He wanted to get fired up. As opposed to just playing guitar, I was essentially a keyboard player in Jeff's band because I was triggering keyboard sounds off this big rack of gear. He must have spent so much money hauling that thing around the world! Now, I could get ten times the amount of sounds just from a laptop. Those were very early days for the guitar synthesizer, and the triggering was so much slower. It was a real challenge. But I kind of enjoyed playing keyboards for Jeff as opposed to just guitar.

Suraaj Parab (11:51.867) From the perspective of a guitarist, which part did you enjoy most? Playing the same set part every night, or getting challenged every gig to play something different?

Jennifer (12:10.059) When I say "play something different," there were set parts and set forms with Jeff, of course, but you were completely free to be creative, and he loved it. If you threw him a little curve that was different from the night before, he would really dig that. It was just wide open. It was so much fun.

I enjoyed it more, although I loved playing with Michael as well. Jeff had been my guitar hero since I was thirteen years old. To even get a chance to play with him once without an audience would have been great, but to get to tour with him for three years, really experience what he was about, be in the studio with him, listen to music on the bus, and hear his opinions—it was just like gold. Everything was gold. I learned so much from him.

Part of it was being more like a Zen player. In the '80s, there were so many guitar records that came out where everybody would start blazing from beat one until the end. Jeff's thought was basically that as long as the drums are grooving, that's all you need. He would just sprinkle what was appropriate on top of that, as opposed to trying to impress anybody. That's why he resonated with people. He was able to morph the emotions that he felt into the guitar. Nobody had a more godlike tone than he did; it was just phenomenal.

Sandeep Kulkarni (13:57.464) That's amazing. Can you think of an incident or something from one of the shows with Jeff Beck that stands out—like a curveball thrown at you or something interesting?

Jennifer (14:15.669) Well, the first thing that comes to mind is that everybody knows he liked to work on cars. He was working on cars maybe a week or two before we did a European tour, and he slipped on some grease and fell. His middle finger on his left hand got overextended, and it was really hurting him. He went to the doctor, and the doctor messed with it and said, "You'll be fine." It turns out his finger was broken the whole time during the entire tour, which thankfully was only about a month long. He went and saw another doctor afterward who did an X-ray, which should have been done the first time around, and they essentially had to re-break it and let it bond correctly. But he was in pain the whole time. I remember one gig where he just muscled beyond it. He did that every night, but one gig in particular, I felt like he was gonna levitate above the ceiling and leave us all behind because he was just so on fire and determined to get through it. I can't imagine trying to do that.

Sandeep Kulkarni (15:27.758) Since he was such an expressive, fearless, unpredictable, and singular musician, what did being inside his musical world teach you that still lives in your playing now?

Jennifer (15:52.574) It's really hard to put into words. I'll go back to Steve Lynch, because when I was at the guitar school, we all had to perform a tune. At that time it was only guitar students, so they had to hire bass and drums. Steve played "Cause We've Ended as Lovers" off of Blow by Blow. I remember everybody else was trying to be a jazz player, including myself, and to listen to him with high gain just ripping the hell out of that solo really made an impression on me. After school was over, I set about to learn every solo on Blow by Blow and Wired. In order to memorize all that stuff, you have to put the hours in—weeks and months.

When I play, I'm never consciously aware of any "Jeff-isms" that I learned because I've spent a lot of time learning Wes Montgomery solos, Van Halen, George Lynch, and Charlie Parker. It's not like I set out to play like Jeff, but I hear from other people, "I can hear the Jeff in you." In fact, Jeff said that as well. His wife reminded me of that when I went over for his funeral. It wasn't that it was distracting to him; it was just that there were certain elements that I picked up because I loved it. The stuff you resonate with most is what is gonna remain in your playing.

Sandeep Kulkarni (17:30.414) Of course. What memories you must have. I can't even imagine.

Jennifer (17:35.333) I've gotta write it all down before I forget!

Sandeep Kulkarni (17:38.51) Start a blog! I'm sure a lot of people would love to read it.

Jennifer (17:46.192) Yeah, well, that needs discipline that I don't think I have.

Suraaj Parab (17:50.555) Diving into your solo career, you built your own solo work, including performing your music in sync with films you create. What does that format allow you to express that a traditional band setup doesn't?

Jennifer (18:17.034) Well, it's a very safe environment because the tracks don't change. There's no energy put into reacting to, say, some bizarre drum riff that might throw you off and make you wonder, "Where is beat one now?" It actually makes it more relaxed, and I have a certain confidence where I'm able to create in my solos—and not just the solos, but the melodies as well. When you play melodies and you've got a long run of shows, you automatically get bored with yourself and try other things. You try approaching a line in a different way or in a different octave just to keep yourself interested.

It's just a different vibe. I wouldn't want to only do that, but I really enjoy it. It's a smaller audience typically, very intimate. With the films, there's a whole other element of entertainment. I realized very early on that just me on a stage playing to backing tracks is okay for a guitar workshop, but it's not very entertaining for a general audience. That's why I came up with the idea of making the films.

Sandeep Kulkarni (19:35.626) For a solo show, that asks for a different kind of presence, right? There's nowhere to hide, but also total freedom. What do you enjoy most about standing fully inside your own vision on stage?

Jennifer (19:55.622) I feel like it's more of a community between me and the audience. I tell stories between the songs, and humor is a big deal. I noticed when I first started doing it that when I played for audiences that were not English-speaking, it was so much more difficult because I didn't have that humor to connect with, so I just played more and talked less.

It's such a different vibe for the crowd. With Michael Jackson, it was typically 50,000 people a night, and Michael looked tiny to most of them unless they looked at the screen. But when you're in front of an audience of 50 or 100 people and you get a chance to talk to them afterward, it's a real connection that's very different.

Sandeep Kulkarni (20:56.11) Would these solo shows be local, or do you go around the country and the world? What kind of audience is it?

Jennifer (21:14.385) When I first started doing it, I bought a motorhome, which kind of kept me to this continent. I booked several tours all around America. I would go from Seattle down to Florida, doing a loop and crisscrossing. It's a wonderful way to travel because, instead of getting a subpar breakfast from a hotel, I could wake up next to a lake in a park and cook my own breakfast.

I did that several times with the idea of building the show in America, and then I started getting more calls to go to Europe, South America, and Mexico. My show was portable; I could just take a laptop for the films. I would take two projectors because I was paranoid one wouldn't work and there goes the show. My carry-on was very heavy—it probably wouldn't even be allowed anymore—but it worked out really well. I had one Italian agent who would book me around Europe, mainly for a trio band. If there was a date that he couldn't fill with the trio, he could always find a date for just a single person because it was a lot less expensive. So, he'd just send me off to Madrid while the band hung out in Rome!

Because I already had that material, when I got booked for workshops, I incorporated the films into that too. It's just one more element of entertainment. Instead of telling general stories between songs like in the solo shows, I would talk about techniques and sounds between songs and answer questions.

Sandeep Kulkarni (23:36.44) So it's almost like an interactive experience.

Jennifer (23:41.423) Yeah, absolutely. It's funny you mention that because there were several films where I wanted to do more interactive things, but I never fully expanded it. There was one part in a film where a cartoon mouse would look at me at a certain time. I knew when that was coming up, so I worked it out so I would look back at it like it wasn't planned.

I would get a lot of comments from people that surprised me. People who don't know how film editing works think it's a miracle that different pictures change exactly on the beat. They go, "It's amazing, you played that one thing and the picture changed at the same time." Well, it's very easy to do in editing, but it's nice that it seems miraculous to somebody in the audience.

Sandeep Kulkarni (24:36.546) You're giving them a full-package experience. You're playing, you have the films, you're interacting, and you're connecting with them afterward because it's a smaller audience.

Jennifer (25:00.878) Yeah, I really enjoy doing it. I've been so busy doing other things lately that I haven't done it in about a year. It kicks my ass too, because that music is much more difficult than what I'm normally doing. If I don't play it for a year, I really have to do my homework to get it up to par.

Suraaj Parab (25:20.063) Speaking of touring and staying curious, you are still touring globally in different formats—bands, solo shows, clinics, and masterclasses. What keeps touring alive for you after all these years instead of it feeling repetitive?

Jennifer (25:41.848) Ultimately, I can bitch and moan about travel because it's hard. It's really hard. The long-haul flights are just crazy, and a lot of things happen at home while I'm away—I can't be there for someone's birthday or wedding and things like that. But ultimately, I enjoy playing. I just enjoy making sound. I can feel like crap, but then I get to a soundcheck, and just making sound lifts my spirits. I started describing playing like this a few years ago: I realized that playing music for me is like purging demons from my life.

I think anybody that plays music realizes this. You might be feeling lackluster or uninspired, but you spend a couple of hours playing music and it changes your brain chemistry. It's not a guaranteed lift, but there is a hell of a larger percentage that you're feeling way better when you're done than when you started.

Sandeep Kulkarni (26:53.934) That's amazing. What you just said is interesting because that applies to any musician, whether it's a drummer or a singer. I'm a singer, for example. I love doing my morning vocal workouts, and after doing them today, I felt ready for the day. It applies to everyone.

Jennifer (27:20.532) I think for vocalists even more so, because there's a direct connection as opposed to going through an instrument and out. The breathwork and everything that goes with it is a whole other level.

Sandeep Kulkarni (27:27.779) Right, right. When you step into a clinic or a masterclass, what do you feel younger players most need to hear—not just about technique, but about building a life in music?

Jennifer (27:53.225) Oh boy. There's part of me that wants to discourage them all because it is not easy.

Sandeep Kulkarni (28:00.0) Of course. We'd love to hear your take on it because you've been around for so long and are still out there kicking ass.

Jennifer (28:11.341) I've been really lucky because I got some really great gigs. The last couple of years, I've been doing several Michael Jackson tributes around the world, and now with the movie out, there's a lot of momentum for that. He was the biggest star in the world, and that really helped make lifelong connections for me.

Before 1987, I sure wasn't thinking about where my career would be in 2026! I thought it would be completely different. I put out solo albums, and in the '80s there was Satriani and Vai and all the guitar hero stuff, so I thought, "Okay, that's my direction." That was my direction, but things morph and change, and you need money in this world, you know? I experienced what it's like playing my own music to smaller audiences, trying to build them, and dealing with the whole thing of trying to promote yourself on social media. It makes me just want to put a bullet in my head!

There was a great article in Guitar World magazine or something where they put key phrases in bold to be eye-grabbing. The guy that plays with The Aristocrats, Guthrie Govan, said in bold text something like, "I don't want to spend the rest of my life making videos of myself." And I went, Yes! If I had been born in a different era and grew up with social media, I'd probably be all over it. But it's all I can do to make a video of myself playing along with tracks. It's a "should," and I say I'm "shoulding" all over myself because I don't like it.

Sandeep Kulkarni (30:15.803) So what are you advising younger players then, when you're telling them about that reality?

Jennifer (30:19.0) I advise them to not listen to me and to do what everybody else is doing! Because actually, when you're really young, your ego is a lot bigger, you think you can run the world, and that's when you have the energy to do that. You get really pumped when you get 10 more likes or 10 more subscribers. Look at somebody like Billie Eilish—they just put up that tune "Ocean Eyes" as a lark, and it caught fire. You never know what is gonna resonate with people.

Another example is the guy singing for Journey now [Arnel Pineda]. He was homeless when they found him. His friend said, "Come on, let's make a video in the club tonight and start putting this stuff online." That changed the trajectory of his life. Whatever you want to do, you've gotta immerse yourself in every aspect of what it's about.

When I was coming up, there was no social media, so I immersed myself in getting to know the players in town, joining bands, and playing in a cover band that morphed into a fusion band, which morphed into this and that. My bass player ended up getting a gig with John Lydon in Public Image Ltd. Everybody else in the band was saying, "He's made it. We've got to move to LA because that's what you've gotta do." That motivated me to get into that world. By the time I got the Jackson gig, I was playing in five or six different bands. It sounds like a lot, but when you're in LA playing original music, you might only play once a month, so being in six bands just meant you played every weekend. Then I was teaching and meeting people through teaching. Just full immersion.

Sandeep Kulkarni (32:22.504) Amazing.

Suraaj Parab (32:22.671) You have already had the kind of career most guitarists can only dream about, and you've been recognized with honors like the She Rocks Icon Award and Guitar Player magazine's Gallery of the Greats. When you think about legacy, what do you hope people remember about Jennifer Batten, the artist?

Jennifer (32:52.907) The first thing that comes to mind is having a little bit to do with making it feel okay for more women to choose guitar as a career. I got out there because of Michael Jackson and, of course, Jeff Beck. At the time in 1987, I thought, "Okay, the revolution has begun." Before that, guys did not want women in the band; women were supposed to be in the audience, and people wouldn't take you seriously. At that time, Wendy and Lisa had been with Prince already, and I remember Billy Idol had a female keyboard player. Because MTV was a big thing, all of a sudden you could visually see the players who were touring. I thought, "Okay, here we go."

Then ten, fifteen years went by with no real change at all. It really wasn't until everybody had high-speed internet and started putting videos up that things shifted. Once you can see tons of talented women around the world online, you feel like, "Okay, I can be a part of this." It has really changed, and there are some just phenomenal players out there. I often joke that not a month goes by that somebody doesn't send me a link to some five-year-old girl in Bali who can kick my ass!

Sandeep Kulkarni (34:15.918) It's crazy to see those child prodigies. They keep popping up on my feed too, and I'm like, "What are you doing? I can't even see your fingers." It's crazy.

Jennifer (34:30.717) Yeah! A lot of people put down the ones that just have ridiculously fast chops. But when you're eight or ten years old with fast chops, you've got a lifetime ahead of you to take those chops and make them more meaningful and musical. Everybody should be encouraged. Just the fact that you're interested in the instrument, spending time, and being dedicated to it is really encouraging to everyone else.

Suraaj Parab (35:02.587) Absolutely. Thank you so much for spending this time with us, Jennifer. We really appreciate the perspective, experience, and the sense of adventure you bring to your work and to the guitar. You've been a huge inspiration to me since I was a young guitarist. Thank you for coming.

Jennifer (35:23.551) Sure. Good luck with your pursuits! Thanks for having me.

Sandeep Kulkarni (35:26.626) This conversation is a reminder that mastery is not just about skill; it's about evolution, courage, and continuing to stay curious. Thanks so much for talking to us today.

Suraaj Parab (35:39.387) To everyone listening, thank you so much for being here with us. If this resonated with you, please share it with someone. Go check out Jennifer's solo albums and her extensive body of work. She's a truly inspiring musician and one of my personal guitar idols. We will see you in the next episode of The Artist Conversation. Thank you.

Sandeep Kulkarni (36:12.974) Thanks so much.

Jennifer (36:13.992) Right. Cheers, thanks.