Steve Vai
Steve Vai
Steven Siro "Steve" Vaiis an American guitarist, composer, singer, songwriter, and producer, born and raised on Long Island, New York. Vai was voted the 10th "Greatest Guitarist" by Guitar World magazine, and has sold over 15 million records. A three-time Grammy Award winner and fifteen-time nominee, Vai started his music career in 1978 at the age of 18 as a transcriptionist for Frank Zappa, and joined his band from 1980 to 1983. He embarked on a solo career in 1983...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionMusician
Date of Birth6 June 1960
CountryUnited States of America
My past is very interesting, and I treasure it, but to write about it, it's just not on my radar.
Lenny Breau was a genius - inspired and really loose. I loved how he used the guitar as an extension of his inner freedom, because, obviously, on the outside there were a lot of trainwrecks going on. But when you listen to him play, you hear what kind of guy he really is
Baby don't wake me, let me take you on an endless journey. We touch and the softest kiss explodes with lust. It's real and you can't deny the heat you feel. And if I die before I wake, baby that's all right.
What I look for in music is artistry, sincerity, and simplicity, and Tom Waits has all of that. I want to make a connection to the creator.
It's hilarious, because my guitar has what's known as a tremolo bar or a whammy bar. And the whammy bar is probably the most alien thing on my guitar that could possibly relate to a classical guitar.
My main calling in life is to seek and achieve spiritual balance, and to express that through my instrument. Everything else is here today, gone later today.
When I was a teenager in the '70s, I was really into those great bands like Led Zeppelin and Queen and Jethro Tull, Deep Purple, Alice Cooper.
I have an independent record label called Favored Nations on which I released an album by an artist called Johnny A, who plays an arch top Gibson through a Marshall, but the tone is all in his fingers.
When I was growing up, the blues did seem too simple to me. I was just a muso.
So that's the challenge for me and that has always been the challenge - finding that melody, that riff, that thing that just lights me up and makes me feel like it's Christmas.
As far as Deep Purple goes, I mean, they're iconic. Their contribution is unquantifiable, and as far as the politics involved in things like awards, you know, I don't think anything, because I know what they mean to me, and I know what they mean to the people who like them. Awards are very politically based.
I loved the idea of recording. The idea of sound-on-sound-recording captured me as a young kid, and once I realized what it was I had an epiphany. Before I was even playing the guitar, I would create these lists of how I would record things and overdub them, like Led Zeppelin song, 'I could put this guitar on this track...' and so on.