Click here to watch an interview with Santeri Ojala

Santeri Ojala is a musician’s musician, a guitarist who, in recent months, has become the talk of rock bands, had his fretwork fêted in muso magazines and appeared on a US chat show alongside axe god Slash. Yet the 32-year-old from Finland has never released an album or performed a concert, nor does he plan to. Until last weekend, the only place to hear Ojala play was on internet sites such as YouTube, where videos he began posting last spring under the name StSanders attracted several million hits.

A pop satirist, Ojala wasn’t filming himself playing guitar, but dubbing his own purposely poorly played solos into live footage of Eric Clapton, Eddie Van Halen, Metallica, Iron Maiden and others. While they struck rock-star poses or fixed their faces with stern intensity, the doctored soundtrack was an ear-grating series of bum notes, queasy chords and beginner’s blunders, with little trace of a tune. Olaja is a talented guitarist, and his genius was in the timing – he expertly matched their hand movements and the length of every lick so the results looked real. As his postings gained acclaim, Ojala became the toast of real rock gods – former Frank Zappa guitarist Steve Vai commented that his faked footage was hilarious. In several cases, the videos attracted more views in a couple of months than the real ones had over years.

A week ago, however, just as his so-called Slash Shreds video clocked up its millionth hit, YouTube suspended Ojala’s account and removed his postings. The website cited repeated copyright violations, but you could accuse much of the site’s material of similar infringements, so the reason would appear to be a complaint from one of Ojala’s disgruntled subjects. The Finn has the right to appeal, but, as a respected media artist, he is understandably unhappy.

“I have provided nearly 7m hits for YouTube and, as a result, they yank the plug,” Ojala says. “The YouTube slogan, ‘Broadcast Yourself’, has really gone sour, because videos that clearly violate copyright issues are left untouched. At least I broadcast something that was my own. Well, halfway, anyway...”

Whatever the outcome of Ojala’s dilemma, pop satire is flooding the internet. You can watch an impostor Paul McCartney – with every trademark tick of the original – making a cup of tea or playing a revenge song about Heather Mills to a mangled version of Lady Madonna. There’s an X-rated Kermit taking off Johnny Cash in his video for the hit ballad Hurt. Whereas once users of YouTube celebrated musicians, now they like to lampoon them.

In Ojala’s case, it was catching Vai in concert on his computer when the sound was turned off that inspired him. “Rock guitarists look even more ridiculous than usual when you can’t hear what they’re playing,” he says. When Ojala appeared on the comedian Jimmy Kimmel’s show in America, he “shredded” a Slash solo live – an astonishing performance that you can view on YouTube – while the former Guns N’ Roses guitarist shifted uncomfortably.

“What he does is impressive,” says the Garbage guitarist Duke Erikson. “When you can play guitar well – and he clearly can – it’s incredibly difficult to play that badly. Yes, he makes guitarists look stupid, but most of them manage that themselves. To not be able to laugh about it is what really makes you look foolish.”

Indeed, the most popular pop satire posting on the internet – with almost 12m hits on YouTube – is by Alanis Morissette. In April 2007, the usually sombre singer broadcast her own version of the Black Eyed Peas hit My Humps, in which she writhed around in hot pants and revealing tops. It mocked not only the song’s ludicrous lyrics – an ode to front woman Fergie’s breasts – but Morissette’s own hippie-dippy image. Critics declared it a stroke of genius that made Morissette look cool for the first time.

Whichever rock god complained about StSanders better hope nobody finds out.

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