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
... you watch Jimi Hendrix literally reinvent the instrument. He was playing from somewhere else. He was really a kind of hybrid, and I can't even begin to imagine where he came from
Most people are fascinated to see someone play an instrument in an inspired way. We are moved by witnessing musical brilliance, and it was this notion that led me to purchase the GuitarTV domain 10 years ago.
If you want to be a virtuoso then you have to set your sights above me. You have to go beyond what I'm doing. And that's for you to figure out. Because if you can do that, then I'm going to be trying to go beyond you.
I've learned over the years that you're going to be most successful at the things you're most excited to do. Every artist has a special set of tools. When you really use those tools, and you make yourself feel really good about the product you create, I think you'll find an audience for it. I've been very fortunate in that respect.
I'm always pursuing knowledge; I'm a seeker of spiritual equilibrium - and music is a big part of that.
I'm a big fan of cultural music, and that's how I try to expand my playing, by listening to music that is not conventionally American.
I was a kid, 12 or something, when the Partridge Family was big on TV. I liked the curly cord running from the bass to the amps, which were real fancy. That cord looked so cool. I said, 'Wow! I gotta play something like that!
That's the thing about great artists: They find the thing that's most obvious to themselves, what's most conscious and natural, and they put it out there and the audience comes.
Acting, at least for me, is very unreal, and when I'm doing it, I actually feel embarrassed.
I've never really heard anybody imitating anything of mine the way they do with Edward Van Halen's stuff.
Along with its enchanting and exquisite melodies, West Side Story has attitude and a tremendous amount of frenetic energy. It's emotional, theatrical and technical. It's everything.
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.
When I was growing up, the blues did seem too simple to me. I was just a muso.
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.