This interview originally ran in Guitar Player’s October 1986 issue.

Steve Vai is the most exciting hard-rock guitarist since, well, Eddie Van Halen. He is as unique in his own way as Van Halen or Adrian Belew — or Allan Holdsworth, for that matter — are in theirs. Flashy, funny, and unpredictable, he boldly goes forth where no man has gone before. And now, performing for his biggest audiences ever with David Lee Roth, he may well become a touchstone for new directions in rock guitar.

On Eat ’Em and Smile, Roth’s group is rounded out by former big band drummer Gregg Bissonette and the inimitable Billy Sheehan. The pairing of players the caliber of Vai and bassist Sheehan is almost unprecedented in rock, and it works.

From the album’s opening sounds — Dave’s conversation with Steve’s talking guitar in “Yankee Rose” — it’s clear that listeners are in for an extraordinary performance. The musicians deal in swampy grooves, uptown blues, big band jazz, and heavy metal. Stunning unison fingertaps on bass and guitar break new ground. Vai laces his fills and solos with amazing whammy feats and unexpected turns. At the heart of it all is his unique personality and sense of humor — his attitude, as he calls it.

Vai first met singer David Lee Roth at a Hollywood after-hours club. At odds with the rest of his band Van Halen, Dave tapped Steve for songs for his upcoming movie Crazy from the Heat. When Van Halen reformed with singer Sammy Hagar and the Crazy from the Heat film deal fell through, Dave asked Steve to help him form a band.

The duo composed “Yankee Rose,” “Goin’ Crazy!,” “Elephant Gun,” “Big Trouble,” “Bump and Grind,” and “Ladies’ Nite in Buffalo?,” and brought in producer Ted Templeman to man the consoles at Fantasy Studios in California and the Power Station in New York.

On the day of this interview, Vai was home preparing for a year-long tour. Afterwards, he plans to record another solo album.

Do you feel much pressure replacing a famous guitar sound behind a famous voice?

No. I don’t feel like I was replacing Eddie, but I know we’ve got to go out there and prove ourselves. This is one of my biggest stabs, and I’m aware that every single thing I do is going to be under a microscope. But I can’t think of that, or else it’s not going to allow me to be at my best. I was nervous for about a minute, and then I said, “Forget it. It’s not worth my energy.” A lot of energy goes into being nervous.

How does playing with David Lee Roth stack up to past projects?

It’s completely different. I’m freer to do a lot more things. He pushes me; he really likes to hear a lot of guitar. When I think I’m just about to go on the verge of overplaying, he says, “No, keep going.” Dave’s very constructive. He’s a crazy man [laughs], but he really knows what he’s doing. I trust the guy. I’m thoroughly enjoying the gig, and I’m honored to be here.

What’s it like working with Billy Sheehan? Was there ever a danger of overkill?

[laughs] There always is a danger of overkill with me and him on the same stage! I had seen Billy perform before with his band Talas, and I was pretty amazed by his technical prowess. But I thought that I could never play with a guy like that. He’s really good, but he plays like a guitar player. I was nervous when I heard that he was going to be doing the gig. I thought, how is this going to work? Upon rapping with him, though, I realized that he’s a very mature musician. He respects me as a guitar player, and together we work things out. We set aside places for each guy to do his thing. There are really no weird vibes or attitudes. Our relationship gets closer every day. We do some pretty funny stuff together, which you’ll hear and see onstage.

The unison two-handed bass and guitar parts in “Shy Boy” may well be unprecedented in rock.

Yeah. See, that’s why Dave’s a really smart guy. That’s why he got Billy and me — for things like that. It’s funny — people think it sounds so amazing, but Bill and I are scratching the surface of what we’re going to be doing together in the future. Honest.

Is it tough confining yourself to 4/4 after all your time with Frank Zappa?

I can play in odd meters just as well as I can play in 4/4. But no, I don’t find it hard at all, because there are things that I have to do inside of this 4/4 framework that are different than what I had to do with Frank. Now I get to express myself more as Steve Vai, as opposed to expressing myself as Steve Vai playing Frank Zappa’s music.

Does much trial-and-error go into the parts you come up with, or do you work them out before playing them?

When I’m writing a song, my best stuff usually comes when I pick up the guitar and play. “Goin’ Crazy!” was like that. I had been working with Ry Cooder on Crossroads, and he inspired me. I’d be playing all these notes, and Ry would sit down and start tapping his foot and playing these grooves — and I felt embarrassed. God, man, this guy knows where the beat is! This guy’s got serious soul. You ask him to play thirty-second notes in 10/16 time, and forget it. But I was very moved.

One day he was warming up, getting ready to lay down a track, and I couldn’t have paid enough money to be able to watch what he did in a half-hour. Later on, I was in Dave’s basement, picked up my guitar, and said, “I wonder how he fingerpicks like that?” I started using three fingers to play this lick that I used to flatpick, and that’s how the “Goin’ Crazy!” lick came out.

Writing, for me, is a reflection of my state of mind at the time. I wrote “Big Trouble” in a hotel room in Albuquerque, New Mexico. It was a beautiful day out, I loved being on the road, and five minutes before we had to get onto the bus, I picked up my guitar and blam — the song came out verbatim. Then there are things like “Ladies’ Nite in Buffalo?” which took a long time. I pieced it together a little bit each day. It’s more of a construction.

Do you come up with lyrics, too?

No. Dave comes up with all the lyrics and every ounce of vocal melodies, like he always has in the past on all those Van Halen albums. I come in with different guitar parts, and we collaborate at putting them together. Sometimes the band pieces the music together before the lyrics are written. We try to get it tight before Dave comes down and does his thing. Then he helps get the arrangement together, we work it up, and he starts doing his vocals. If he’s working on a vocal line, I might say, “Why don’t you try it like this?” And he might make suggestions about a guitar lick. It’s a really nice chemistry.

Did it take less time to record Roth's album than, say, Alcatrazz’s Disturbing the Peace?

It took less time than Alcatrazz, but more time than the average Van Halen album because we had horns to do and stuff like that. At times I didn’t know if I liked it or not, because I wasn’t quite used to Dave’s and Ted’s approach. But then I realized, boy, it’s really fun. Get in there and do it. We kept about 50 percent of what Dave sang on the basic tracks.

I’m used to sitting in the studio and tweaking and playing and punching and tweaking some more and EQ’ing and punching again. With this, it’s get in there and kill the guy with the ball. It really works.

Were you constantly aware of how the music would translate to the stage?

Yeah. A lot of it’s live, and then I doubled many of the guitar parts. I’ll give an example: The rhythm guitar in “Yankee Rose” was played all the way through, and then I doubled the whole thing verbatim. The halftime section in the middle had this nice little arpeggiated chordal thing that was kind of open and bare. So I said, “Let me try putting a solo on it. Let me try something weird.” I hooked up a couple delays set to some long delay, checked my volume, and made sure I was in tune, and they rolled the tape. They liked what I did and kept it.

For the solo at the end, Dave said, “You should try to do something that’s going to be very animated in the video.” He had seen the Alcatrazz video where I shove the guitar between my legs and throw it down, so he wanted something like that. I said, “Hey, sure. What am I here for?”

Were the talking wah-wah guitar and vocal exchanges at the beginning of “Yankee Rose” cut at the same time?

Oh, yeah. When Dave and I first started doing that, we sat and just talked to each other for hours like that.

Was the opening of “Shy Boy” recorded at a high volume?

[laughs] When we did that, I was in the studio, as opposed to sitting in the control room or being isolated from my amps. I ran over to the amp at the beginning of that song, got down, and let it feed back like crazy. I ended up doubling that really fast lick when the band comes in. And then I just played through the whole song with one guitar — a couple of punches here and there.

How did you and Billy cut the unison duet?

That whole thing was almost all done live. I cleaned up a couple parts on it — I’m not going to tell you, “Yeah, sure, I went into the studio, plugged in, and just wailed.” That happens a lot on this record, but there are times where I wanted to clean up little things. The very first part of the “Shy Boy” solo was done on the original track, and it wasn’t doubled. I just played along and then stopped. I overdubbed the second part, the real fast thing, and doubled it. You can hear it when it comes in: it’s panned left and right.

For the siren effect, I switched on my delay, which was set to like a 792-millisecond delay with a lot of echo. I hit a harmonic and pulled up on the tremolo bar. If the pitch rises slowly, the echo pitch rises too, but it’s a little delayed. This creates a real dissonance.

Is that your horn arrangement in “I’m Easy”?

Yeah. I wrote the score and directed the horn section. You should have seen it: I had snakeskin pants on, my hair was flipped out, and I was sitting in this director’s chair with a baton in one hand and a big score in the other. Twelve of New York’s best studio players were there, and I’m going, “Okay, now, can you make this a little more staccato over here?” [laughs] That was a pretty straight-ahead arrangement.

I loved doing that — Berklee training, you know. I’ve always written big band charts. I have a stack of orchestra scores that I’m waiting to hear one of these days when I’ve got the money to have them done. I love big band music. Listen to Frank Sinatra and Count Basie at the Sands — incredible stuff, man, conducted and arranged by Quincy Jones. It’s so big, it’s like heavy metal in a sense. There’s a lot of energy to it.

What inspired you to play blues fills through that track?

I originally comped through the whole thing with a tinkly clean guitar tone, but it was a lot more complicated. It was real voice-leading and had a lot of movement. Ted gave me the idea to maybe put bluesy-sounding guitar over the whole thing. So after I recorded the laid-back comp guitar, we did the horns. Then I did the guitar over the top of it with my pink Jackson.

My tone and everything I play on that is a reflection of Ted Templeman getting me to do it, because I always view myself as being the world’s worst blues player. I’m always thinking, “This isn’t working; this isn’t happening.” I enjoy it in a sense, but I’m not an authentic blues player. But Ted kept saying, “It sounds good. Keep going.” So I said okay, and just did it.

How do you finger the very last note of the solo?

I just tapped it with my right-hand finger. It’s not a harmonic, but you can do it with your tongue right on the harmonic [picks up guitar and quickly demonstrates]. Sounds great and feels tingly.

How do you think up strange approaches like that?

It’s weird; I don’t know what comes over me sometimes. It’s like walking into a room where there’s a putter and a cup five yards away. You hit the ball, you know it’s going to go right into the cup, and it does. You’d scare the greatest putter alive.

Sometimes you just know when it’s going to connect. You don’t know why it does it, and you can try it again but it will never happen. Every now and then when I’m playing, that happens. I feel like I’m in a frenzy or something. I could know a solo perfectly, but when I get in front of people and play it, I might do something completely different that’s twice as good. I feed off of other people’s energy. When the sound is there and the attitude is right, I get so excited.

I wonder if it’s good for me sometimes. I just get crazy. And with Dave, this is the situation where it happens most of all.

How did you put together “Ladies’ Nite in Buffalo?”

The whole album was written, but there was a certain area that we wanted to attack that wasn’t quite established by Dave yet — something in a dance area, something that had sort of a cool New York sound. I went to work and came in with a completed demo, except for the vocals. My demo was much more elaborate, but Ted decided to chop a lot of stuff out, which was probably for the best of the song.

We had all the parts, and we just exchanged some of the spots, like the chorus became the bridge. Then Dave just did his vocals on top of it.

It’s interesting how that riff expands as it goes along.

There were originally three different guitars — one track just for solos, one for the chorus melody, and one for stuff so it all overlapped. When we were recording it, the band needed a scratch guitar track to lay parts down with, so I said, “Okay, let me try to play all three guitar parts at the same time.”

I threw on my guitar, didn’t even tune up or play with the settings on the amp, and bang — one time through, we did it. I was going to redo all the guitars later on, but Ted liked the feel that I produced just from sitting in there with no pressure or anything.

Of course, being an artist I hemmed and hawed: “I want to do it again. There are mistakes, blah blah, woof woof.” But they convinced me that it was really beautiful the way it was.

Did you double part of the solo?

Yeah, the second half. It’s funny — I started out with a completely different solo in mind, and just when the tape was rolling, I said, “Ah, the hell with it,” and that’s what came out.

At the beginning of the solo, I hit a note and used the bar to play a melody. The second half of the solo was originally the first half — the sextuplets. I decided to build it, add some speed to it, and climax — that’s a high G that I’m stretching to. And doubling always gives something like that a nice effect.

What was your approach on “Goin’ Crazy!” and “Tobacco Road”?

“Goin’ Crazy!” is just one pass all the way through, except for the solo, because I wanted to have a rhythm guitar underneath it.

“Tobacco Road” was almost one take all the way through; I broke a string during the solo, and I had to punch in the last lick. One of the most uncanny things that ever happened to me in the studio occurred during “Tobacco Road”: if you listen to the last time Dave sings “In the middle of Tobacco Road,” the guitar goes bill and says “tobacco” right along with Dave. It’ll never happen again in a million years.

Of all the songs on the album, “Elephant Gun” seems to have the most Vai-like characteristics.

Yeah, the sort of high-energy approach. I literally did that one time through and then doubled it. We were in a rush to finish it, and we had another few minutes in the studio before Cyndi Lauper had her time booked. I said, “Let me double this. I know what it’s going to sound like.” And nobody thought I could do it in five minutes. I said, “Just let me try it. Roll the tape.” Plugged in, rolled the tape, and boom — done.

You must have a phenomenal memory.

No. I just work really hard. I’ve got a good memory, but it’s short. We worked out a lot of “Elephant Gun” in the basement. Bill and I are doing a lot of stuff in there together.

Did you work out the “Big Trouble” solo in advance?

I knew what I was going to do. First, I did the song with the band and doubled it. There was one lick in the bridge section that I couldn’t get quite right; I had to do it a couple of times. We did a first take on the solo, but it was a little sloppy here and there, so I did the same thing again and the parts were cleaned up. I had a blast doing that solo. It always moves me.

Your fills in that tune come in at the same volume as Dave’s vocals.

I was riding the guitar on the mix because I knew where all the fills are. So every time there was a fill, I’d throw it up there.

A few seconds into the solo, you get a very different tone for a few notes.

Where it sort of sounds like an Indian from Venus?

You take the Floyd Rose tremolo bar, turn it around so the handle’s back over the fine tuner for the high E, and pull up on it. I bounce the bar on my hand. The most traditional way of playing the vibrato bar is to just push it down. I have my guitars rigged so that I can pull up on the bar so the strings go sharp. I do that by routing out the guitar.

You can raise the pitch when the bar is in standard position, but it’s cooler when you turn it around and bounce it. I don’t pull it all the way back, but just enough to make it go sharp about a half- or whole-step. If you do it real sharp and fast, it gives a cute little effect. If you push back or pull up far enough on the bar, the strings fret out. That’s how I got the little mouse sound.

What’s the first sound in the “Bump and Grind” solo?

You take a scruffy pick and scratch it across the high strings. That solo sounds like ponies on ice. And then there’s one sound where I pulled the B string off the fingerboard.

I also ran up to the microphone stand and went rrrr, rubbing my strings on it and hitting the volume control so the echo would produce that effect. Originally, that solo started off really different. There was a lot of hammering, but I wanted to stay away from that a little bit. The last part of “Big Trouble,” where it plays really fast, is all hammer stuff.

What can you say about “That’s Life”?

I recorded it with a big Ibanez jazz guitar, just bopping through the chords. You should see the arrangement that we did beforehand — it was completely balls-to-the-walls. I was really rocking it out, and that’s the way we’ve decided to do it onstage.

At 33 minutes, Eat ’Em and Smile is a fairly short album. Were other songs recorded?

A lot of songs. We had quite a few, but we wanted to print the album at a very hot level in the disc. When you do that, you have to keep it short because the louder you cut and the more bottom you have on the record, the deeper the grooves are.

What guitars did you use for the project?

I recorded about 80 percent of the album with my green Charvel [a Strat-style model, serial number 3733]. The others were the pink Jackson and a couple of Guilds. I used a Coral Electric Sitar on a couple things, but it never made it to vinyl. I also had a beautiful Guild 12-string and a Fender 12-string, and I may have used an Ibanez on a couple of tracks for background things.

How did you route your signal?

For my live setup, I went directly into the amps — either the Carvin X-100Bs or, for the dirty stuff, Marshalls that were modified by Lee Jackson or Jose Arredondo. On “Shy Boy” and “Tobacco Road,” the Jackson-modified amp is on the left and the Jose amp is on the right. A lot of the other stuff is just the Carvin amp going directly into a cabinet, and that’s it.

I split the amps in stereo with a Roland SDE-3000 delay and miked it from there, and maybe I went into a Boss overdrive or something. I used a little AMS digital reverb on a couple of things, and an Eventide SP-2016 signal processor that does everything — you can make your own effects. It’s got auto-panning, stereo panning, stereo chorusing, stereo flanging, big rooms, little rooms. It has this one patch called “dual robots.” It’s ridiculous, really amazing.

There are a couple of songs where the tone was put through maybe a pitch-bend or a little Harmonizer.

Do you sense competition with other rock guitarists?

Consciously, I don’t participate in competing with them. But subconsciously I can’t tell you whether I do or not. I would suspect that somewhere in there, Steve Vai is a very competitive person. I would very much not mind being in the greatest rock band of the day. Everybody is striving for something out there. But I really don’t feel like I’m competing with people, because everybody expresses themselves differently. There’s enough success to go around.

More than most players, you’ve managed to push far past your roots.

My influences are the same as anybody’s, in the sense that they are events. But when people play an instrument, it’s very personal because they are creating a complete reflection of their personality. What you create is what you are, and what you are is a product of your experiences in life. I don’t mean to say that if somebody is a sloppy player, they’re a sloppy person. It goes far beyond probably what you or I can analyze, but it’s there and it’s naked. If you’ve got your head on straight enough, you can see right into it. There’s no hiding who you are when you create music.

I could sit here and say I love Jimi Hendrix and Jimmy Page. Sure, they inspired me, but what brought me to be turned on by that music? Attitude is a big part of the way you play. I practiced endlessly when I was young. I still do, but what I do now is the way I feel now. An event that happens tomorrow could completely change the way you approach everything. You could have the same equipment and know the same scales, exercises, and bends, but they’re going to sound completely different. You’re a different person.

So your personal relationships have more impact on your style than other musicians do?

Exactly. There was a point in my late teens where I thought it was really cool to be miserable and hate things and think that people were assholes, because then people gave me my space. And then I realized that it was just an act of my ego and that I was becoming a miserable person. The world started to take on an ugly glow.

I reached a point in life where, through the grace of God, I went into a dark night of the soul. I realized that many of the things I loved to do weren’t good for me, and I said I don’t need this. I can play you tapes that I made back then, and you wouldn’t believe the same cat was doing it. “Chronic Insomnia” [from Vai’s Flex-Able Leftovers] came out of that period, as well as darker things that I can’t even bring myself to listen to.

And that stuff wasn’t an accident — I could duplicate it for years. But I don’t want to go there anymore; there are other places I can go now. I was very lucky to have supportive people around me. My parents were the greatest. God bless them. Going on the road with Frank Zappa at such a young age was a bit traumatic, but I started appreciating other people’s efforts. I began to realize that you have to be compassionate to the way anybody expresses himself and try to home in on the beautiful things that a person tries to do. I became a happier person, and I was able to relate to people better.

What are the drawbacks of being a rock guitar hero?

Well, I never really saw myself that way, so it’s hard for me to comment. There are so many great players, I can’t consider myself a hero. I’m a reckless player. I’m sloppy sometimes, but I love playing. It’s very hard for me at times, and then sometimes it’s so easy, I just lose my mind.

The kids are going to listen to what I do, and if they like it, they’ll try to cop some of it. And then they’re going to realize that this is the starting point, and that they’ve got to take it a lot higher than this. So to stroke myself and say, “I’m a guitar hero” will be very embarrassing in the future when somebody comes along and does what I’m doing at a technically infinite level.

What do you think the future holds for rock guitar?

I can visualize what the next step could be, but I’m not sure I can explain it. It’s an approach where there’s no technical or physical limitations — except, of course, the impossible ones. This kid might be in kindergarten or whatever, but somebody’s going to come along who thinks of something like speed with a completely different attitude than what everybody thinks of it now.

Speed is just going to be a silly device to make a very serious point. I could even see myself doing it, but it would take total concentration for a long period of time to develop this new approach. This person will do things that nobody else is doing, whether it be with unequivocal speed, vibrato bar work, a new device that could be put on a guitar, or a new piece of outboard gear. It could be anything. But it will take imagination and a certain personality. And then, of course, everybody will jump on it.

What are your views on young players mimicking their favorite guitarists?

Jumping on something right away and copying it verbatim shows you where you’re standing. It’s an insecurity statement. I don’t want to freak anybody out, but it’s saying, “I can’t come up with things on my own. I’ve got to grab this.” This is not to say that it’s not beneficial to cop somebody else’s stuff. I’ve copped a lot of Hendrix; that’s how I got the basic foundation of my whole way of approaching chords.

But there’s a fine line between inspiration and loss of identity. That’s something kids should be really careful of. Ask yourself; you’ll always know. When you’re doing it, there’s a little voice that’s telling you whether it’s the right thing to do, or whether you’re doing too much of it. You’ve got to listen to that voice and believe it.

It’s always fun to do what somebody else is doing, and maybe even play it faster or with more vibrato, but still, you’re better than that because you’re your own person and you can be original.

What’s your ultimate goal?

My goal in life is to be internally happy. I love music, but there are other things. To sit here and say, “Well, my goal is to have my own studio, to make my own records” — that’s petty. I can make my own music on a cassette player if I want. One match, and the whole studio is gone. One axe, and my hand is off. One car accident, and I might never see you again.

I accept that these things are possible, but believe me, I have a great time in life. I very much appreciate being able to do what I like. You might laugh, but if I wasn’t a musician, I probably wouldn’t mind being a mailman. Look at it — you get to exercise. You get to walk in the rain and sun; you meet people. It’s your attitude that’s going to make you happy.

It’s awfully nice to know that you can make somebody else happy, too, but the only way that you can do that is to first make yourself happy.

When all is said and done, your sense of humor seems to be at the very heart of your playing.

Good. I don’t want people to think I’m too serious. All the musicians who are reading this have a sense of humor. Apply it to your music. That’s where all the diversity comes from.

Steve Vai once found himself sitting in Eddie Van Halen’s home studio, surrounded by shelves of tapes the guitarist had recorded on his own — a private archive that may soon be heard by the public.

The material, Vai recalls, was extraordinary.

“I was up at Edward’s house once, in his studio,” Vai tells us via Zoom. “He invited me. He had a room filled with tapes, and he was pulling them out and we were listening. He would just sit and record and play.

“And I’m listening to this stuff and, I’ll tell you, nobody plays like they do when they’re sitting in their room alone. It was a whole library of tapes, and it was such great stuff.”

The experience prompted Vai to ask Van Halen a question he’d long wondered about.

“I said, ‘Why don’t you make a solo record?’” Vai recalls. “But he always felt that Van Halen was his solo records.”

Now Vai is among those eager to hear what may emerge from Van Halen’s vaults, which his brother Alex Van Halen is currently reviewing with help from Steve Lukather.

“So I’m sure there’s a lot there to play with, and it’ll be great,” Vai says. “And I’m really glad Alex is working with Luke. More than anybody I knew through the years, Luke and Edward were like this.” Vai crosses his fingers. “So that’s the best guy to help with this.”

Alex Van Halen has acknowledged that he and Lukather are going through recordings his brother left behind after his death in 2020 at age 65. No details have been shared about what may be released or when.

Vai, of course, has plenty on his plate to keep him occupied until the Van Halen material becomes available for public consumption. He’s currently on the road with the SatchVai Band, his new endeavor with longtime friend — and former guitar teacher — Joe Satriani. They’ve released three songs so far and have completed a full album, though no release date has been announced. The tour wraps May 30 in Virginia.

Five weeks later, Vai will be in Europe with Beat, the all-star quartet featuring co-guitarist Adrian Belew, bass guitarist Tony Levin and drummer Danny Carey of Tool, performing music from the early-’80s era of King Crimson.

The group launched in 2024, and Vai says its popularity has surpassed all expectations.

“I took the gig because I loved the music, and I’m just attracted to virtually impossible challenges — and Robert Fripp guitar parts, that’s a virtually impossible challenge,” says Vai, who has received both Fripp’s blessing and valuable input along the way.

“The big surprise I discovered when we got out there was this: It’s not the musicians who are the attraction, although there’s some of that. It’s the music. It’s the way the music is supported by those fans. They are fiercely supportive. The music was the boss, and that music is beloved. So the turnout was a surprise and a delight.”

Vai and company have already taken Beat around North America, South America and Japan. The upcoming European run will wrap July 27. A Beat Live album from the tour’s early legs was released in September.

“We’re hoping some more Beat stuff will happen after that,” Vai says — which, of course, raises the prospect of the band creating music of its own, an idea that leaves the guitarist somewhat ambivalent.

“Well, that’s an interesting question that comes up,” Vai acknowledges. “It comes up in my mind and everybody’s. And of course it can happen. We could sit and start writing things.

“But I’m not quite sure how I feel about that, because in Beat I feel like a dutiful soldier. That’s my role. I’m here to do my best to deliver Robert Fripp’s notes to the fans who love this music. Of course there are some of my notes in there, but they’re not my songs, and they’re not my musical DNA.

“So I’m trying to figure out: If I start writing for this, how does that square with King Crimson music — and then what is Beat? I don’t know yet, but it’s something to think about, and maybe there’s an answer in there someplace.”

Vai adds that after focusing on SatchVai and Beat, he’ll be eager to return to his own work. On his docket are an acoustic-and-vocal album and, he says, “three or four” albums drawn from sessions with the Metropole Orchestra in the Netherlands and the Tampere Philharmonic Orchestra in Finland. He also has a piece to compose that will be performed during the summer of 2027 in The Hague, and he’ll host a Creamsicle Sunset cruise on the Rhine River around the same time.

At first, Joe Satriani wasn’t sure how to respond to one of Steve Vai’s most elaborate new recordings.

The track arrived dense, layered, and saturated with guitars — the kind of maximal arrangement Vai is known for pushing to extremes.

Satriani remembers his immediate reaction:

“What am I gonna play on this song that’s got 18 Steve Vai guitar tracks on it?”

It wasn’t frustration so much as recalibration. After decades of working with Vai in different contexts, this was something else entirely: a fully formed sonic environment already overflowing with guitar ideas before he even entered the picture.

The track is “Dancing,” the Spanish-flavored latest single from the SatchVai Band, which also includes bassist Marco Mendoza, guitarist Pete Thorn, and drummer Kenny Aronoff. The song is an interpretation of a piece by Italian singer Paolo Conte and is accompanied by a humorous video featuring 13 dancers, including Aronoff and mutual friend Brendon Small of Metalocalypse fame.

“I found that track in the early ’80s and just fell in love with it,” Vai says. “I kept listening to it through the years and imagined it as a guitar piece. I sent it to Joe and said, ‘I’ve got a crazy idea. I want to turn all the horns into guitar parts and beef up the arrangement.’

“I thought he’d say, ‘What are you, crazy? This isn’t rock and roll.’ But he came back and said, ‘I don’t know what I’m gonna play on this, but I trust your insanity,’ so we did it.”

Vai says the third single was originally intended to be Satriani’s “Mayhem,” but both agreed “Dancing” offered a better left turn creatively.

Satriani agrees the choice worked precisely because of its unpredictability.

“It is good, because it is so different,” he says. “It showcases some of Steve’s bizarre ideas about what you can do with the guitar and arrangement — like a peek into the genius of Steve. I remember thinking, ‘This is the craziest idea Steve has ever had,’ and when it came together it was just pure fun.”

The SatchVai collaboration began decades earlier in suburban Long Island, where a teenage Vai studied guitar under Satriani. Vai says those early lessons rarely felt formal.

“We’d sit in his backyard with two electric guitars, no amplifiers, and we’d sit back-to-back and just play,” he recalls.

What began as instruction quickly turned into long improvisation sessions — an early training ground built entirely on listening and reaction rather than technique.

That shared instinct resurfaced decades later when the idea of recording together finally became unavoidable.

A 2024 co-headlining tour accelerated things. The two began jamming at the end of shows, and informal ideas evolved into full exchanges of compositions.

Vai sent Satriani two pieces that became “The Sea of Emotion, Pt. 1” and “Pt. 2.” From there, momentum took over.

“We said, ‘Come on, let’s do it. It’s time,’” Vai says.

Satriani says timing was crucial. Both musicians were no longer operating under the pressure of proving themselves.

“I’m glad we waited for this,” Satriani says. “Now we’re older, and we’ve had a crazy roller coaster of success. If we’d done it earlier, we would’ve brought that anxiety into the studio and had pressure from outside sources. Doing it now, we were able to let it just happen.”

The SatchVai album weighs in at 10 songs — “I Wanna Play My Guitar” is the only one with vocals — and has been mixed and mastered. It has no title or release date yet, however, though the pair is anxious for fans to hear the full body of work.

When the album does finally drop, Satriani and Aronoff will resume with Sammy Hagar’s Best of All Worlds band for summer shows, while Vai will be back with the all-star King Crimson adjunct Beat for a European tour during June and July. They also each voice a desire work on their next solo projects, which will leave the prospect of SatchVai as a going concern somewhat up in the air.

“Joe and I kind of work in the moment,” Vai says. “We never even talked about putting a band together until it just happened, because the time was right. I think that’s going to be the M.O. moving forward.

“I know that we are interested in getting back to being our own generals and entering back into our own creative impulses on a solo level, but SatchVai was such a fun process, and it was easy and creative and fun, I can’t imagine not working together again, even if in the future it’s just sharing tracks and creating like that.”

Brendon Small has spent the past few years rethinking both his guitar collection and the way he plays.

Some of that reflection was forced. In August 2022, a dozen of Small’s guitars were stolen from his home studio in Los Angeles.

Those included Gibson Les Paul ’57 and ’59 reissues, a Fender ’54 Custom Shop Stratocaster reissue, a Gibson Thunderhorse prototype and guitars that had been personal gifts from Joe Satriani and Steve Vai, as well as a rare Moog guitar that’s no longer in production.

“Our house was under construction, and I think it was workers who stole them,” Small recalls. “One day I was rehearsing for a Dethklok show and I had some guitars out, and I think they saw where they came from. That morning someone busted into my place and took everything I had out.”

The guitars were also being used while he was working on Dethalbum IV, Dethklok’s fifth album.

“It was like, ‘Okay, 12 of my guitars are stolen and I have to fly to Philadelphia and do a show.’ I didn’t have any time to ruminate or feel bad about it. I just had to keep pushing forward.

“I had to have a stoic take on it, because I’m also the boss of the Dethklok thing, so I can’t be gently weeping in front of my crew. It doesn’t look good.”

Small — who also makes a guest appearance in the SatchVai Band video for its song “Dancing” — says he had “big plans” for the Satriani guitar that was stolen.

“It had this Sustaniac pickup, and I wanted to do some cool stuff with it.”

He wound up replacing it with a new model, but the original “was one Joe played that he gave me as a gift because I helped him on a project. And then the Vai guitar was a JEM Universe seven-string with just great tone that I used to record on Dethalbum III. So at least I got to play it on a recording.”

The Moog guitar, meanwhile, was equally unique.

“It had two kind of Sustaniac-style pickups,” Small says, “and you could create crescendos from nothing. It would go from silence to slowly buzzing the strings as each string starts vibrating. I was like, ‘Oh, this is a film score machine.’ I played it for a long time but never really got to record anything good with it, and then it disappeared.

“Maybe I’ll find another one at some point, for a reasonable price. But because they don’t make them anymore, they’re up there in price.”

Small has also made voluntary changes to his guitar collection. Last July, the creator of Dethklok and Adult Swim’s animated Metalocalypse — which celebrates its 20th anniversary this year — sold “a bunch of guitars,” he says.

“I just didn’t have room for them, and they weren’t getting played.

“So I was like, ‘Am I gonna pay to store these? What am I doing? I need to get them to someone else who can play them.’”

The guitars included electrics he used on his first show, Home Movies, and on Dethklok’s 2009 tour with Mastodon, including a Gibson E2 Explorer that was his main guitar around 2010.

“But I just don’t play them enough,” he explains.

The sale was a success.

“They all sold the first day — which makes me think I should’ve priced them higher,” he says with a laugh. “But what are you gonna do?”

Small, who currently has Dethklok on the road for the Amonklok Conquest Tour with Sweden’s Amon Amarth, has also made some technique changes in recent years, owing to age and what he calls “accumulated bad habits” from decades of playing.

“Something happens naturally when you’re onstage,” he says. “You’re so kind of ‘electrocuted’ by nerves that you start digging in more. My whole thing now is, ‘How do I not dig in? How do I lighten up and stay in control?’”

Over the past year, that led him to study more deeply, including a lesson with Jason Richardson “to come over and basically, like a golf pro, watch my swing and tell me where I’m fucking everything up.”

“I realized I got into some bad habits with playing and posture. I realized, ‘Oh, that’s a nerve issue — but if I play a little more on point I can get rid of that, and I can get control of my hand back.’ I just kind of realigned everything this year.”

Small also began doing CrossFit exercises, including “pull-ups and all that stuff,” to make his hands “just kind of not nearly as sensitive as they were,” helping reverse the problem.

To that end, he also got some useful tips from Satriani and Vai.

“We were talking about the right hand — just the right hand — and keeping it in shape, and remembering how little I need to engage to have total control and great tone and be able to access everything from one place.

“Steve was telling me about how he stands onstage — what muscles he tightens to keep his back and his arm available — all the basic stuff that doesn’t come secondhand. It’s been like re-learning the guitar.

“Being mindful is the thing — just constantly sending messages to myself, like ‘Take it easy, lighten up. There’s a big solo coming up, but remember, it’s no big deal.’”

In some respects, he says, it’s simply business as usual.

“I realized playing guitar is never easy from day one. It’s always hard, even when you start getting good at it.

“I think about my favorite jazz players, like John Scofield — a guy like that has to get up and maintain being John Scofield every day. Pat Metheny’s got to be Pat Metheny and keep cultivating and sculpting. It’s a challenge.”

It’s also not lost on Small that he gets to talk about these matters with the likes of Satriani and Vai, whom he’s also had the opportunity to join onstage on various occasions.

“Those are terrifying, terrifying moments — but you know you have to do it,” he says with a laugh. “Usually I join them when they’re at a point in the show where they’re warmed up… and that’s a tricky place to be if you’re sitting there trading fours with people who inspired you to play guitar in the first place.

“Mentally it’s insane, but you do it anyway.”

Spending time with his heroes has also taught him that they deal with the same challenges in their playing as everyone else.

“Listening to them talk and complain about the same things I do — it’s like waking in a dream state,” he says. “How do I relax? How do I stay in my mind, in my body through the performance and deliver the best thing I can deliver? That’s the hard thing.

“They want that same sweet spot. It’s a dragon all of us will forever chase.

“Those are pinch-me moments.”

The Amonklok Conquest Tour runs through May 21 in Las Vegas, and Dethklok has four additional headlining dates afterward.

As a bassist’s bassist, Billy Sheehan has, not surprisingly, played with an assortment of similarly accomplished electric guitarists — from Dave Constantino in his first band, Talas, to Mike (K.) Krompass in his current group, the Fell.

The Buffalo native was, most famously, part of former Van Halen frontman David Lee Roth’s band on his first solo album, Eat ’Em and Smile, and the accompanying tour, with Steve Vai on both. He formed Mr. Big after that with Paul Gilbert and has also logged time with Explorer’s Club, Niacin, the Winery Dogs (with Richie Kotzen), Sons of the Apollo (with Ron “Bumblefoot” Thal) and more. You’ll also find him on Kotzen’s solo albums and on recordings with Terry Bozzio, Tony MacAlpine, Michael Kocab and others.

“I’ve just started to create a catalog of everyone I’ve recorded with, and what songs I did, and it’s going to be gargantuan,” Sheehan tells us with a laugh via Zoom from his home studio in Nashville. “It’s a Herculean task. It’s a reminder of all the great players I’ve been fortunate enough to work with… ’cause you never really stop and think about it all at once. You look at it all together and it’s just, like, ‘Wow…’”

Sheehan is just as excited about the Fell, which also includes frontman Toby Rand and drummer Nick Chiarore. The hard-hitting quartet started about 10 years ago, according to Sheehan, and released its first EP, Killswitch, last October. A full album is on the horizon, too, giving Sheehan another entry for his bulging résumé.

“I’ve just gotta play,” he explains. “I want to play. I’ll play till I can’t play, or until my playing isn’t as good as it should be. But I feel like I’m still improving every single day, so to be out playing is very important to me. And having the opportunity to have the Fell and make more music has just been great.”

That said, we tapped Sheehan for a personally guided trip through his past and the guitarists he’s shared stage and studio time with.

Steve Vai

“I got him in the David Lee Roth band. The original idea was Steve Stevens, but he was busy with Billy Idol and wisely decided to stay with him. I told Dave I know another Steve, ’cause at the time my band Talas was on Relativity Records out of New York City, and Steve was also on that label and we’d talked about doing something together before the Roth thing happened.

“Steve, because of his association with Frank Zappa, had a sense of humor about his playing, which was very important for the Roth band. I was into Zappa in my early years as well. Being into Zappa will do things to you — in a good way. It was impossibly complicated music, and I learned how to dissect it and play it.

“I didn’t end up playing music like that, but that lesson was great, and Steve and I can sit down and recite side two of Live at the Fillmore together. Zappa. That had a lot to do with his playing. His guitar playing became kind of quirky. He had all the fundamentals very, very down, then added the quirkiness from the Zappa thing.

“So Vai came in and was just awesome, a great, great player. So he was in and we had a great time putting that Eat ’Em and Smile tour together. And he’s such a dedicated player. We’d be in the dressing room before the show and he’d be there for hours, just working on stuff, head down for hours at a time before every show, pretty much. That also shows how much he cares about the audience, too, ’cause you want to do the absolute best for them all the time. Steve is definitely in that club.

“And on the road we had a blast. Some things changed after that, and I left the band, but I’m forever thankful to David. He was a huge help in my career, and I learned so much. It was a real Ph.D. in Showbiz 101.

“I did some of Steve’s solo tours, and it was always a blast. We had so much fun on those tours — no nonsense, no drugs, drinking, disrespectful rock star bullshit. We were all just legitimately having fun, and it was like a 24-hour comedy show. There was a lot of mutual respect in the bands I played in with Steve. I have nothing but great things to say.”

Paul Gilbert

“Paul came to see me play in Talas when he was a kid, still a teenager. We were playing in Pittsburgh once, and I remember a tall guy in the audience; the stage was only about this high — there wasn’t any space between the stage and the crowd — and Paul was standing in front of me.

“I did my very first bass guitar clinic in Pittsburgh, and Paul was there. Then we started having opening acts and we wanted to help promote the local scene, so we’d hire an opening act from the city we were playing. And one of the bands that opened up for us was Paul’s band — ‘Oh, that’s that tall kid!’

“We became acquaintances, and when he moved out to L.A. I’d go see him at the Musicians Institute. One night I judged this contest at Gazzarri’s and there he was, and I told the other judges, ‘Watch this guy…’

“When it came time to put Mr. Big together, I thought Paul would be a great addition to it. I talked with Pat Torpey first, then got Paul, then found our singer [Eric Martin]. I watched Paul grow from a really great and competent guitarist, which he already was, into a consummate musician who knows so much — great songwriter, singer, performer, entertainer.

“He’s the whole package. But when we were starting Mr. Big it was his very beginning in that, and I watched him grow through the years. I’m very, very proud of what he’s accomplished for himself — and he’s a sweet, wonderful guy as well.”

Richie Kotzen

“One of the reasons I wanted to do the Winery Dogs was to let the world know about Richie, ’cause he’s so great, yet somehow wasn’t hugely famous, which I think is an abomination. I wanted people to hear him sing and play and write, ’cause he’s great. And he’s another wonderful guy, just a great, hardworking player dedicated to his craft.

“He’s way more bluesy and less of a, let’s say, technician, but his technical abilities are more influenced by jazz from that brief stint he had with Stanley Clarke. I hear that a lot in his playing. One of the first things we did, I could hear, like, the pads of a saxophone. There was no sax, but he phrased it so expertly that you can almost hear the same kind of pads, which is a really cool aspect of his playing.”

Steve Lukather

“I’ve known Steve and seen him and hung with him a lot of times. Great guy. So he came in to do the solo on ‘Things Ain’t Like They Used to Be’ [on 2000’s Niacin album, Deep] — Glenn Hughes sang on it — and Steve just flew in from somewhere. He was probably jet-lagged, and his gear showed up and we played him a little bit of the song. It got to the solo part and he played this solo off the top of his head — just picked up his guitar and played it. Didn’t think it through or plan anything.

“Then we spent three hours trying to top it before we finally said, ‘Let’s just use the first thing,’ ’cause it was so good. To me that spoke volumes about his capabilities; he just came in and, bang, it’s done. We were foolish enough to think we should get something different. Sometimes you’ve gotta let an artist do his thing, and with Steve I’ll tell anybody, ‘Just let him do it. I guarantee you’re gonna be happy.’”

Ron “Bumblefoot” Thal

“What a genius player. I don’t know when I met him initially — I think in L.A. at some of the jams he was around — but I’ve known him for years and years and years. He is a supremely capable and competent musician. That fretless double-neck — he kills on that thing. It’s very unique; it sounds very much like a slide guitar, the way he phrases some of his passages on that. It’s just brilliant.

“I don’t know if there’s a better player out there, and he’s another wonderful, sweet, giving, honest, righteous human being, which is very important. He knows all the Talas songs, which I think is pretty cool. I took that as a great compliment that he knew about Talas and could play the songs.”

Steve Vai has a surprisingly simple formula for becoming a guitar virtuoso — though few players will enjoy hearing it. According to the former Frank Zappa and David Lee Roth guitarist, the path to elite-level technique isn’t mysterious at all. It’s just relentless discipline.

In fact, Vai says the process is so straightforward it’s essentially an “intellectual exercise” — provided you’re willing to spend hour after hour chasing perfection.

For many players, virtuosity is the ultimate goal when they first pick up an electric guitar. That’s especially true for those who came of age during the 1980s era of superstar shredders — or in today’s social media landscape, where jaw-dropping technical players seem almost as common as clouds in the sky.

Vai, who has long occupied the virtuoso bracket himself, doesn’t see the route to that level as particularly complicated — though he admits it certainly isn’t something that can be achieved overnight. And, like any morally responsible superhero, it’s not just about possessing such powers; how you use them matters just as much, if not more.

“I can tell you how to become a virtuoso very easily,” he says matter-of-factly during a recent appearance on The Magnificent Others, hosted by Billy Corgan.

“Okay, tell me,” Corgan replies. “I’m still after it.”

Vai is forthcoming with his answer, though it isn’t quite the get-shredding-quick cheat sheet many guitarists might hope for.

“You have to practice nonstop and practice perfectly,” he explains. “And you have to practice fast, and you have to get bulletproof intonation. This is an intellectual exercise. When I was younger, that’s what I did. I set the clock and I set the metronome.”

The former guitarist for Frank Zappa, David Lee Roth and Whitesnake is also sympathetic. He acknowledges that “practicing endlessly is not for everybody,” but he recalls the demanding routine he followed — likely influenced by the strict tutelage of Joe Satriani — when he was still a budding player.

“My schedule back then — I was happy if I got nine hours a day. I was very neurotic, very myopic,” he says.

He isn’t the only high-profile guitarist to have embraced an obsessive practice routine. Randy Rhoads had a compact pedalboard custom made so he could practice in his hotel room. Meanwhile, Jack Moore, son of Gary Moore, was often sent to his room to practice his vibrato.

Then again, Marty Friedman says he never practices at home and suggest others shouldn’t do so either. In other words, there’s no single blueprint — Vai is simply describing the approach that helped transform him from a wannabe rock star into the real deal.

But his lesson doesn’t end there. Once a player can shred at Ferrari-like speeds with spotless precision, he says, the next step is learning when not to show it off.

“There wasn’t a lot of melody involved,” Vai says of those early practice sessions. “But luckily for me, I was a huge fan of ’70s Top 40. I love melody. So the ability to shred is fine and good, but without melody, there’s no shelf life in a performer’s career.”

Still, while Satriani can boast of having taught several future stars — including Vai, Alex Skolnick and Kirk Hammett — one of his former students has since criticized his rigorous methods and claims he’s done just fine without them.

Guitar Player Presents is thrilled to partner with Another Planet Entertainment to bring the SatchVai Band to the fantastic Fox Theater in Oakland, California, on Saturday, April 4.

Featuring Joe Satriani and Steve Vai, the SatchVai Band is embarking on its debut U.S. tour, dubbed Surfing With the Hydra. With Animals as Leaders — featuring modern progressive electric guitar virtuoso Tosin Abasi — in the opening slot, the night is shaping up to be the six-, seven- and eight-string event of the season.

Says Satriani, “You do not want to miss this show with this lineup!”

SatchVai debuted in March 2024 with a tour and the release of their song “I Wanna Play My Guitar,” featuring Glenn Hughes on vocals. The band’s new single, “Dancing,” marks the latest chapter in their creative evolution, with Satch and Vai weaving melodic lines over a hyped-up Latin groove.

Satriani says the show will feature new material from the forthcoming SatchVai album alongside selections from the duo’s shared catalog. The SatchVai Band lineup also includes guitarist Pete Thorn (Chris Cornell, Don Henley), drummer Kenny Aronoff (John Fogerty, John Mellencamp) and bassist Marco Mendoza (Whitesnake, Thin Lizzy). Together, the ensemble is built for unbridled guitar mastery and explosive musicianship.

Animals As Leaders will also celebrate the 10-year anniversary of their breakthrough album The Joy of Motion by performing it in its entirety.

Abasi says, “We are beyond honored to be joining Joe Satriani and Steve Vai on tour. In many ways, our band would not be what it is if not for the impact of these two icons. Getting a chance to hit the U.S. with them is a bucket-list experience.”

Get your tickets now.

WIN TICKETS!

For a chance to win a pair of tickets to see SatchVai Band in Oakland, California, on Saturday, April 4, please send an email and put put “SatchVai” in the subject. Include a sentence about yourself and why you want to go. Phone contact greatly appreciated for confirmation.

Winner must provide their own transportation to the Fox Theater in Oakland, California, and have their own accommodations in the area. Best of luck!

EVENT DETAILS

GP Presents SatchVai Band plus Animals As Leaders

Saturday, April 4

8:00 p.m.

Fox Theater

Oakland, CA

We'll be handing out free packs of Martin strings

Get Tickets

Listening to Matteo Mancuso is impressive, but witnessing his devastatingly precise electric fingerstyle shred up close in person is mind-blowing. Having the chance to do so on American soil is a rare treat, as the young Italian virtuoso spends the lion’s share of his time overseas. Mancuso resides near Palermo, Sicily, and only travels to the States on occasion.

But he is coming to the States for his first extensive tour this spring, and he was at the NAMM Show in January where he put on a blistering show before a huge and enthusiastic audience at the Yamaha Grand Plaza Stage. Before heading home, Mancuso played a few gigs in California, and Guitar Player did a Presents promotion for his show in Santa Barbara at the stunning Lobero Theatre.

We caught sound check and then he walked us through his gear (see video below). Afterward, in the dressing room, he graciously sat down for an intimate look and in-depth explanation of his otherworldly plucking technique that is the talk of the guitar universe. He also hipped us to inside information about his upcoming album, Route 96, dropping April 24 on Artone/Music Theories.

The album features a couple of cool collaborations. The kickoff cut, “Solar Wind” is a dazzling duo with shred icon Steve Vai, while the advance single, “Isla Feliz,” features gypsy jazz master Antoine Boyer. The utterly unique blend of different guitar styles and tones makes it one of the most interesting instrumental tracks you’ll hear this year.

Watching the “Isla Feliz” video, it appears you laid down a gypsy acoustic track with the band, and then perhaps overdubbed your electric lead part and Boyer’s gypsy lead. Would you please explain your vision and how you developed the track?

That is how we developed the track. I wanted to build a song incorporating gypsy, electric guitar, and classical elements on the same record. Antoine Boyer was the first guest I invited for the album, and I’m excited about this being our first collaboration.

It’s a perfect fit because he’s not the typical gypsy player that only plays Django [Reinhardt]. He listens to a lot of different stuff and can play a variety of styles. So, he was open-minded enough to participate, and I feel that what he did is a masterpiece.

How did you go about getting Steve Vai involved on the album’s first cut, “Solar Wind”?

I wanted to get close to Steve’s style in order to invite him, and “Solar Wind” was my attempt to write a song resembling that. There are a lot of melodies with his kind of taste, and like Frank Zappa, I used odd time signatures such as 5/4 and 7/8.

Did you ever listen to the classic fingerstyle rock players like Mark Knopfler and Jeff Beck?

Of course.

There’s a great Jeff Beck tribute in Northern California involving a virtuosic player originally from Italy named Daniele Gottardo that Steve Vai praised as one of the brightest talents in modern electric guitar. Care to share thoughts on him?

Oh yeah. He is truly one of the best players in the new generation. And I’m not just saying that because he’s Italian. Daniele is a complete player. He can literally play everything. I remember when Daniele’s videos came out. Everyone was mind-blown by his tapping technique, his taste and his tone.

The same is true about you, particularly regarding the use of advanced fingerstyle techniques to rip licks on electric. Is it safe to assume that you were classically trained on using free strokes and rest strokes?

Yes, of course. There are quite a lot of differences, and you need to learn how to play with both techniques. Free stroke is a little bit harder to control because you don’t rest your finger on the next string after plucking a note. Your fingers are kind of floating around, so the free stroke technique requires development.

I use it a lot for playing passages with one note per string, such as arpeggios. It helps very much to have a dedicated finger ready to strike each string, so you don’t have to wait for the pick to arrive on the string.

You also have the thumb available. So the wrist is like this [demonstrates coming at natural strum-style angle of about 45 degrees]. It’s not like that [with elbow tucked in and hand perpendicular to the strings]. All four fingers are available, but I never learned how to use the pinky, so I never do.

Using free strokes informs your phrasing. You wind up playing different forms and patterns. For example, I like to play perfect fourth intervals. [He plays an arpeggiated passage.]

It appears the plucking hand is in the shape of a claw with the thumb and first three fingers each assigned to a string. As you play arpeggios from low to high, the position jumps from hovering at the ready over strings six through three, to five through two, and on up to strings four through one. The reverse happens on the way down, and for anything in-between or back and forth, you move the focus to wherever is appropriate.

Yes, exactly. Each finger is assigned to a different string, and you basically move your hand based on what strings you have to play.

For a passage requiring successive notes on a single string, that’s when you pull your elbow in and flip your hand vertical for the rest stroke technique, correct?

Yes, the rest stroke technique is a little bit easier to control if you’re playing on the same string, basically tremolo picking. The other advantage of developing a strong rest stroke attack is greater volume.

For example: this is the free stroke [plays a tremolo picking part]. This is the rest stroke [plays the same thing, and it’s clearly louder.] They always suggest playing melodies with the rest stroke for more volume and clarity, and then using the free stroke for arpeggios because it’s easier.

So I learned this lesson from the classical world, and I try to apply it on the electric guitar. Of course, I wind up using the free stroke when playing melodies on multiple strings, but I prefer to use the picado, the rest stroke technique, because then there’s more clarity to the line.

I pull my elbow in so that my arm and wrist are going straight downward, not bent to the side. The fingers are more relaxed because the wrist is straight. Although I will hold my hand a little bit further away from the strings and have somewhat of a downward bend at the wrist. It’s a little bit more comfortable to me to do some of the lines.

Bending the wrist too much, like some bass players do, is not good for your tendons or your comfort. Of course, the classical way is to use a stool and place the guitar on your left leg, which makes the bending less of a problem because it’s not so severe and you have that support.

It's cool how you have a ledge built-in on your guitar above the sixth string to support your thumb while using fingers for rest strokes. How many fingers do you use typically?

I often do it with two or three fingers.

When you get going with picado plucking, does the order of fingers go: middle, ring, index?

Well, it’s kind of a mix. I can do it in both directions. Sometimes the order can be 3, 2, 1, 2, 3. It’s almost instinctual to me, depending on the line. It’s a bit easier to have the accent on the same finger when playing triplets.

The tremolo picking part near the end of “Eruption” is a great example of a line that breaks down into triplets, so repeating the pattern of ring, middle and index fingers is always good. But for something more varied such as this Malmsteen run, it’s more of a mix. [He plays a crazy Yngwie Malmsteen passage.]

It's wild to watch someone rip Yngwie licks using fingerstyle.

It's rare to see this approach on electric guitar, but I don’t think it's a technique that I totally invented from scratch. I borrowed some techniques from the bass world, the classical world, and some other things from the electric world as well. I had to figure out variations from the classical technique because classical players don’t need to control distortion, and they have more space between strings.

Therefore, my movements are comparatively a bit less wide and more focused. I also need to control distortion a bit, so I’m palm muting just a tiny bit. If I mute too much, then I don’t have the same sound.

What are your thoughts on fake versus natural nails?

Natural nails don't last long. You need fake nails. I use acrygel, which is a mix between acrylic and gel. It’s hard enough for my attack and doesn’t get consumed too much by the strings. Of course, I must file a little bit with sandpaper after every concert, but other than that, it’s a good solution.

How do you avoid the nails getting hung up on the strings?

The angle of attack is key. The point of impact when I pluck is slightly to the left side of the nail. That’s where it gets consumed most by the strings, especially on my middle finger. The other side is not that important to me. What’s is important is the shape and that the nail is not too long. The less space you have between strings, the shorter the nail needs to be.

Classical guitars do have much wider spacing. How come more classically trained players don’t apply those fingerstyle techniques to lead electric guitar the way you have?

Well, I don’t know. It’s very complicated to play electric guitar with fingers. My story is that my father is also a guitar player. He can also play with a pick, but back when I became interested he was playing a lot of fingerstyle classical guitar. Meanwhile, I was listening to a lot of rock music.

My introduction to guitar was AC/DC and Led Zeppelin. I was way more fascinated with the electric world. So, I started playing electric guitar with fingers because I thought that every guitar was meant to be played like that. I didn’t know that you should use a pick for electric and fingers with classical. I figured you can play whatever you want.

“Of course, I could never play like him. I never tried. Only an idiot competes with Eddie Van Halen.”

So said Steve Vai to Rolling Stone in 2020, as he reflected on his friendship with Eddie. Vai certainly spoke from wisdom — after all, he was David Lee Roth’s guitarist after Roth left Van Halen. He knew what would be expected of him and that he needed to cut his own path to avoid being compared to and overshadowed by the great Eddie Van Halen.

“When I joined David Lee Roth’s band, it was great opportunity for me to play such well-constructed rock songs,” Vai said. “Of course, nobody can play them like Edward, but you do your best.”

Eddie was certainly aware of the guitarist who had taken his place alongside Roth. And while Ed knew his own talents were immense, he remained humble and believed other guitarists had something to teach him. Allan Holdsworth for example: Ed was a huge fan of the guitar giant and did everything he could to help him land a recording contract. With Ed, there was never competition, just a desire to play guitar and keep getting better.

So he kept his eye on Vai and was pleasantly surprised at what he heard. Unlike the numerous EVH clones, Vai combined his limits-stretching electric guitar techniques with lyrical melodies. Joe Satriani — who stepped into Ed's shoes on last year's Best of All Worlds tour — might impress you with his bluesy fusion, and Yngwie Malmsteen with his neoclassical chops. But Vai combined an almost operatic beauty with the sort of avant-garde eccentricities of his former employer, Frank Zappa.

And when Eddie heard Vai apply his magic to his own songs in Roth’s band, he was duly impressed.

“I’m going, ‘This guy is better at what I do than I am’, you know?” Eddie told interview Shaun Baxter in 1995.

“But,” Ed added, “ he lacked the vibe… the feel. He was technically very proficient but stiff. It always made me feel bad in a way. Because it made me feel like, ‘Wow, is that how people perceive me?’ ”

Vai stayed with Roth from 1985 through 1989, during which time he performed on the singer’s albums Eat ‘Em and Smile and Skyscraper. Once he was out, Ed felt it was safe to give him a call.

“The day after I left David Lee Roth’s band — I don’t know how Edward found out — but he called me,” Vai told Rolling Stone. “That was the start of a nice relationship and friendship.”

Vai recalled that they hung out frequently over a six-month period, during which he visited Ed’s 5150 Studios and was treated to private listening sessions of his work tapes. “He played me stuff that was never released,” Vai recalled. “I said, ‘Why don’t you make a solo record?’ And he always felt that the Van Halen records were his solo records.

"But this stuff he was playing me was really quite nice. It was all the things we loved about the way he played.”

While Ed considered Vai the one guitarist who out–Van Halened him, Vai believes Ed was a rock and roll game changer with only one peer.

“If I had to use my intuition,” he said, “it’s Hendrix, it’s Van Halen, in rock guitar. So many great guitarists came along and contributed, but those guys just did something for us that reshaped not just the way we played instruments, but the way we write the music, the way we dress, and the way we act onstage. It goes really deep. So I firmly feel that he was one of those monoliths.”

Vai certainly has his own share of fans who consider him a game changer. Tosin Abasi recently spoke of working 16 hours a day in a salmon processing factory in Alaska to buy his Steve Vai signature guitar.

For those who want to channel some of Steve's guitar mojo, his three top guitar tips will prove worthwhile.

Frank Zappa’s music was known for pushing boundaries, but his former guitarist Steve Vai says what he did to his collection of electric guitars was just as revolutionary. He even took a screwdriver to one of Jimi Hendrix’s most famous instruments.

Vai — who would later enjoy stints with David Lee Roth and Whitesnake following his time as Zappa’s onstage foil — learned a lot from the madcap musician. Beyond having his musical capabilities stretched to breaking point, and hearing Zappa prophesy his future as a guitarist, Vai also learned why he shouldn’t be afraid to hack away at his beloved instruments.

“Frank was completely irreverent when it came to guitars,” the guitarist tells the Rocktails with Ahmet Zappa podcast, hosted by Frank’s third child. “He manipulated them and did things to them at a time when it was taboo. Frank would have Midget Sloatman [his guitar tech] go into his little workshop and put in all these electronics.”

One great example of the Zappa-ification of a guitar is his Baby Snakes SG. Among its features were a custom onboard preamp with an 18 dB boost, phase switching and tone-shaping circuitry.

But the experiments weren’t limited to his own guitars. Zappa also modified a guitar Jimi Hendrix had used — and burned — at the 1968 Miami Pop Festival. He had been gifted the instrument in 1977 by Hendrix’s former roadie, Howard Parker, who had rescued it from being left in a dumpster after the show.

“He had the burnt pickups and everything removed,” Vai explains. “He put a parametric EQ in that Hendrix guitar. It was beautiful. And he would use all this stuff.”

It wasn’t long before his bandleader’s mad guitar science rubbed off on him.

“I started thinking, ‘I don’t have to play just a Strat or a Les Paul,’” Vai continues. “‘I can do whatever I want. Frank does it.’

“I went to Performance Guitar in Hollywood, and I said, ‘I want this, and I want that, and I want this,’ and I didn’t know anybody would care what I was doing.”

From his long-standing Ibanez signature JEM to his multi-necked Hydra — and, more recently, his twist on Brian May’s Red Special — Vai has since forged his own wacky luthiery legacy.

Speaking to MusicRadar in 2022, Vai credited Zappa’s “suck it and see” ethos as the precursor to his JEM guitars.

“Frank Zappa had no governor,” he said. “When it came to taking a guitar that Jimi Hendrix burned at a concert and then putting parametric EQs in it — it didn’t matter whose guitar it was. It looked cool. So I decided at one point — and this was simple, innocent, low-hanging fruit, not having any intention of making something that anybody else would be interested in except myself — and what that was, was the JEM.

“When you are doing things innocently, it’s not like you feel like you are being blasphemous. Like it’s blasphemous to put a whammy bar on a Les Paul? Fuck you! I’ll do what I want!”

Elsewhere, Vai has shocked Brian May by revealing a 1970s encounter the Queen guitarist was unaware of, and has named the one player he felt was even more revolutionary than Hendrix.

Steve Vai was still building his résumé when David Lee Roth handpicked him to front the former Van Halen singer’s band in 1985. But as Vai now explains, it took the intervention of a seasoned pro to bail him out when his lack of experience put him in a pinch.

The gig came after some prophetic encouragement from Frank Zappa, who had promoted Vai from transcriber to full-time band member over the course of three years. Vai followed up his Zappa stint with a head-turning debut solo album, Flex-Able, in 1984.

But when he stepped into the role as Diamond Dave’s foil, he quickly realized his gear was better suited to experimental rock than the high-gloss bombast of Roth’s arena-ready world.

“When I joined Dave, I was embarrassingly inexperienced with what people would call ‘big rock guitar tone,’” the guitarist says in the new issue of Guitar World.

At that point, Vai was playing Jackson Soloists, which he paired with a Carvin X-100B tube amp. The 100-watt head was more commonly associated with bands like Jefferson Starship and Warrant than the high-gain antics of EVH’s Marshalls.

“The Carvins weren't cutting through for the more aggressive tracks,” Vai says. “Luckily, Steve Stevens was recording across the hall. I mentioned my tone troubles, and he lent me one of his favorite Marshall heads and cabs.”

Stevens, best known as Billy Idol’s guitarist and the mad genius who used toy ray guns to create an iconic guitar solo, was also a session musician. He was working with Ric Ocasek and contributing to the Top Gun soundtrack around the time DLR’s Eat ‘Em and Smile was tracked.

“Boom! Instant magic,” Vai adds. “I ended up using his rig for most of the album. He saved my bacon!”

Although Vai knew his time with Roth would be brief, it was a valuable launchpad for his career.

By 1989, Vai was walking out the exit, with a blossoming solo career and a stint in Whitesnake ahead of him. He became the first in a long line of future superstar shredders to be employed by Roth.

Elsewhere, Vai has recalled his hilarious full-circle moment with Brian May and named the guitarist he believes was more revolutionary than Jimi Hendrix.

Steve Vai’s full interview features in the new issue of Guitar World. Copies can be ordered from Magazines Direct.

Journeyman guitarist Steve Vai has recalled two of his most poignant meetings with his early hero Brian May, and how it created “the most satisfying full-circle twists the universe has offered me.”

The former Frank Zappa, David Lee Roth, and Whitesnake man has taken to Instagram to show off his ‘Green Red Special’ — a gift from the man himself. Modeled on Brian May’s homemade axe, it is bestwowed with some important tweaks to eliminate the possibility of a repeat of the first time he met the Queen guitarist.

The electric guitar was built by U.K. firm Guyton Guitars and has been described by Vai as “devotion made tangible.” It features a longer scale length than the guitar May built out of an old fireplace with his dad while he was still a teenager — it has a 25.5” scale, usurping May’s 24” creation.

It also has a stunning quilted maple top, a much thinner neck, and Yonderbosk Vai-Sonic pickups. This trio of single coils was custom-wound for Vai specifically for the instrument. For Vai, it’s the realization of a near-lifelong dream.

“In the 1970s, when I was a kid in Carle Place trying to figure out how to play anything in tune, Brian May was one of my absolute heroes. His tone and touch oozed rock and roll class,” Vai writes on Instagram. “The songs he wrote and the notes he chose dug deep into my psyche and helped shape a future fantasy image of myself in my mind.

“His Red Special was not just a guitar to me, it was a mythical object, an alchemical wand built by a young genius and his dad,” he adds. “I studied every photo and rumor I could find. That guitar planted the seed that maybe someday I could build my own, which thankfully never happened, due to a total lack of expertise.”

But the guitarist didn’t stay locked away in Vai’s imagination or on his record player forever. At 20, he relocated to Los Angeles. There, he started work as Frank Zappa’s transcriber, before being promoted to guitarist and learning an invaluable lesson from the eccentric musician.

“I landed a tiny apartment at Fairfax and Sunset, and one night I walked into the Rainbow Bar and Grill and saw Brian just standing there. Alone. Like a normal human,” Vai remembers. “I thought I was hallucinating.

“Brian was incredibly kind to this unknown kid and then did the unthinkable: he invited me to a Queen rehearsal at Zoetrope.”

It was a ”pinch me” moment for Vai, who was still coming to terms with the fact that he was on the payroll of another one of his heroes.

“Sitting in a room with the entire band was already unreal enough, but then I saw the Red Special,” he says. “I pointed and said, ‘Is that it?’ Brian said, ‘Yup. Want to try it?’ Time definitely slowed down.”

Guitars, though, can be highly personal things. He soon realized that he and the Red Special were not the perfect match.

“After idolizing that guitar my whole youth, holding it was seismic,” Vai purrs, before dropping the all-important ‘but.’ “I thought, ‘This is it, I’m finally going to sound like Brian May.’ But much to my chagrin, I didn’t. I sounded like me. And between the gauge .08 strings, ultra-low action, and a neck the size of a small tree, I played it like a baby giraffe on roller skates. Still, it was heaven.”

Though the guitar wasn’t quite what it was in his dreams, it remained a memory he held dearly. It seems May didn’t forget that meeting, either.

Vai continues: “After [Vai‘s second studio album] Passion and Warfare came out [in 1990], I was invited to perform at a Guitar Legends concert in Seville, Spain, and Brian was the musical director.

“Brian told me the story about a young guitarist he once let play his guitar at rehearsal, a kid who was in town working with Zappa and who played amazingly well. I let him tell me the whole story and then said, ‘Brian, that was me.’ This stands as one of the most satisfying full-circle twists the universe has offered me.

“Through the years since, I’ve been blessed to have had the opportunity to get to know Brian, jam with him on multiple occasions, and even work with him. It’s always an immense pleasure and honor, and he always delivered like a boss.

“And now comes the part that still makes me blink, laugh, and shake my head in disbelief: The true unspeakable honor of this extraordinary guitar he had custom-made for me and gifted to me.

“It’s a ‘Green’ Red Special! It’s hard to find the words. I’m truly humbled.”

Elsewhere, May has gifted his best friend, Tony Iommi, with a special left-handed version of the Red Special, which could yet get a Gibson-made reissue. The Queen guitarist signed with the historic gear makers in 2024, with his first-ever signature guitar, a 12-string SJ-200 acoustic, hitting the shelves last year.

Guitar virtuoso Steve Vai says there was only one time that Frank Zappa commented on his future as a guitar great, and it proved to be a slice of advice that he’s held tightly onto since.

Before he was a superstar solo artist, becoming David Lee Roth's choice of guitarist to wage war against Eddie Van Halen, and before his rockstar spoils as a member of Whitesnake, a young Steve Vai began his career transcribing Frank Zappa’s music. It was no small task, and he’d soon be rewarded with a promotion to the band’s guitarist proper.

“There was only one time he ever commented on my future, and I'm reluctant to mention it,” he tells Billy Corgan's The Magnificent Others podcast. “We were in the studio, just him and me, playing ‘Sleep Dirt,’” an acoustic guitar duet from Zappa’s 1979 album of the same name. “Frank would look for special things in a musician; something that they could do that's quirky and interesting, and he’d pull it out of you and use it in his palette.

“So we were jamming. And I remember just stopping because I was stunned. Just some months before that, I was in my bedroom in Long Island listening to his records, and I had a moment of ‘What's going on?’”

As Vai explains, he was “brand new” at the time, and he found himself in the thick of life in the band of a man he’d spent years idolizing. Zappa, it seems, picked up on his insecurities.

“It was almost like an existential crisis or something,” Vai continues. “So I kind of tripped, and he looked up. He goes, ‘You okay?’ and I said, ‘Frank, I don't know what I'm doing here. How did I get here?’”

Cue the madcap musician to offer some words of wisdom. He asked Vai how many Tommy Marses there are, referring to his keyboardist, Tommy Mars. “There’s one,” Vai responded. He asked him how many Vinnie Colaiutas there are in the world — Colaiuta was the Zappa band drummer for much of his career. “There’s only one,” Vai quipped.

Then he turned the question onto his guitarist: “How many Steve Vais are there?”

“I didn't understand that, because I didn't see myself as anything special whatsoever,” Vai says. “I thought about it, and then he said, ‘I think you're a genius in ways that have yet to be discovered.’”

Vai didn’t let that inflate his ego.

“I just thought he was being nice,” he explains. “I just thought it was a nice thing to say. And I didn't understand what he said. I thought, ‘Well, maybe I'll do something great someday. I'm still trying to find it.’

“I think he saw my potential to do something obscure. But everybody is a genius when they find what they love, and they throw themselves into it without any excuses.”

Vai certainly did that, from wolf-whistling guitars on “Yankee Rose” to his insane taming of his multi-necked Hydra guitar, obscure isn’t all that obscure to Vai. His experiences at Zappa’s side — a man who regularly tested his mettle — set him up for greatness.

“I think he was just interested to see how far he could take me with playing crazy stuff on the guitar,” he told Guitar World of the infamous, mind-boggling “The Black Page.”

“But the things that I did with him that I think he got the biggest kick out of were ‘The Jazz Discharge Party Hats,’ or ‘The Dangerous Kitchen’ or ‘Drowning Witch.’ These are all pieces of music that just had an uncanny type of guitar expectations.”

Recently, not content with his prestigious lot, Vai has become Robert Fripp’s successor in the King Crimson spin-off band, BEAT. And when King Crimson’s hand-ruining guitar parts left Adrian Belew in need of surgery, Steve Vai came to his rescue.

Elsewhere, Van has recalled the guitarist he considers more revolutionary than Jimi Hendrix and explained how a theft helped him get Frank Zappa's phone number and kickstarted his career.

Steve Vai has long been worthy of a seat at the high table of guitar virtuosos. While he doesn't want to be dragged into a debate over who is the best of the best, he's happy to name 10 players who blew his mind.

And of them all, Vai says just one was more revolutionary than Jimi Hendrix.

Vai knows a thing about the subject. After years of rigorous guitar lessons from Joe Satriani, he became Frank Zappa's “stunt” guitarist before replacing Yngwie Malmsteen for one album with Alcatrazz and helping launch David Lee Roth's solo career. The singer had deemed him the man to help him dethrone his former bandmate, Eddie Van Halen.

In the years that followed, his shred-laden exploits as a solo artist saw him climb to the upper echelons of electric guitar greats.

But as he says, there’s a difference between being better than everyone and being ahead of the game.

“Many musicians can be considered ahead of their time, but usually, they’re not,” he told MusicRadar in 2017. “They’re mainly ahead of everyone else at that time.

“For example, Jimi Hendrix wasn’t ahead of his time; he was perfect for his time and ahead of everyone else."

On the other hand, he says — revealing his pick for the guitarist more revolutionary than Hendrix — “Allan Holdsworth was definitely ahead of his time because it’s hard to realize how great he is. Not many people actually understand.”

Whereas Hendrix worked within the blues-rock idiom and took it to new places, Holdsworth ripped up of the rulebook altogether. His playing combined his unique approach to harmony and liquid legato with horn-like phrasing, which stemmed from his desire to make the guitar sound more like a saxophone. He invented his own complex systems of chords and scales, combining them with fluid tapping techniques and unconventional note choices that put him in an entirely different league from other guitarists.

“I would not be surprised,” Vai continues, “if in 100 years from now, if people are still even listening to guitar — which I suspect they will be — he’ll be singled out as ‘the one’ alone, so to speak.

“The way he uses the whole-tone scale is like his own baby shoes. It’s so easy for him. I can hear any guitar player and I know what they’re doing; I might not be able to play it, but I can see it in my mind’s eye. But I do not know what the fuck Holdsworth was doing at all.”

The British guitarist was also on the receiving end of glowing praise from Vai earlier this year when he guested on Billy Corgan’s The Magnificent Others podcast. He said the reverberations felt from Holdsworth’s guitar revolution can still be felt.

“The reason why I am so attracted to him is because his musical mind is unique,” Vai added. “He had his own vocabulary. He had his own way of constructing chords. His own understanding of how they go on the neck.”

But Vai wasn't the only one touched by his genius. Writing for Guitar Player, Robert Feist, who co-engineered the three-time GP cover star’s most groundbreaking albums, lifted the lid on what he was like to work with, and why he was so unique.

“He had a brilliant mind and a strong vision for what he wanted,” he said. “My job was to make that happen.”

One particularly poignant moment came as he listened to tapes in the small hours, waiting for his order at a fast-food drive-through.

“I’d heard Allan in the studio many times before, but sitting there, waiting for my breakfast sandwich, listening to his solo, it struck me,” he recalled. “There was a physical sensation to my reaction, a flash like a dream or a memory, something old combined with the future. The tape sounded and felt much larger than the recording we’d just made.”

In related news, Vai has revealed how a theft led him to get Frank Zappa's phone number and ultimately change his life forever. And while Vai received Robert Fripp's backing to assume his place in the King Crimson tribute group Beat, Eddie Van Halen was slightly less complimentary about his guitar playing. Which just goes to show, you can’t please everyone

He may be a world-class shredder, but Joe Satriani is also celebrated for his work as a guitar teacher, and with good reason. His past students include some of rock and metal’s most celebrated players, including Steve Vai, Kirk Hammett, Alex Skolnick and Primus technical expert Larry LaLonde.

But not everyone has clicked with his teachings.

Cake guitarist Xan McCurdy says he wasn't thrilled about his Satch studies. After first picking up electric guitar at age 12 to impress his brothers, McCurdy developed an appreciation for “super mod and British sounds” in his teenage years. That led him to link up with teachers in the Berkeley, California area, including Satriani, in the mid 1980s.

“I felt like he was trying to build an army of shredders,” he says. “Like nonsensical, not musical things; just finger exercises. It was not even scales, just, like, getting your hands to flow, and have the ultimate dexterity, you know? And that was not what I was into because I did not care at all.”

Their differences boil down to two things: taste and, for McCurdy, a distaste for regimented routines.

“I mean, there was a moment when we all got into Van Halen,” he continues. “But I sort of found my little niche subculture world, and I was all about Chuck Berry and the blues guys.”

And so, while a generation of players practiced two-handed tapping and emulating the world’s hottest guitar player, McCurdy was putting his attention elsewhere.

“I didn’t take a lot of lessons, and he hated me because I didn’t practice his stuff enough,” he adds. “And then I found a guy who, instead of having this long-hair shred-master [vibe], this guy would just smoke a joint, and be like, ‘All right, so what do you wanna do?’”

That resonated with McCurdy, and he was able to home in on the parts of guitar playing that mirrored his emotional connection to music. His band's music grew past a sole adoration for Chuck Berry, with country, mariachi, disco, rock, folk music, and hip-hop all flavors for their widespread sound.

Obviously, not every had the same experience with Satch. Skolnick said he learned volumes from his strict attention to detail and practice. As his skills improved and he could go toe-to-toe with the local guitar teachers, he decided to study with their teacher.

“And the guys in the neighborhood had all studied with a guitar player named Joe,” he recalls. “I didn’t know anything about him. I just knew he was an Italian guy. His name’s Joe, and he’s a very serious musician. If you don’t do your homework, he’ll fire you as a student.

“Years later, everybody knows who that is. But at the time, he was this local legend. So I studied with him for a couple years, and that obviously had a huge impact.”

Skolnick's time with thrash icons Testament ultimately got him a gig with Ozzy, but it would be curtains after just one show — even though he doesn't believe his playing was the problem.

As for Satch, he's not teaching anymore, but he does keep an eye on up-and-coming talent, including one next-gen player who he says can “shred any guy out there.”

Steve Vai has revealed the mix of tenacity and luck that helped him get his break in music while he was still a teenager. It was that combination that led him to his big break working with Frank Zappa and, eventually, putting his impressive electric guitar skills to work as the maestro’s so-called stunt guitarist.

Long before he became David Lee Roth's guitarist, filled in for Adrian Vandenberg in Whitesnake and became known as one of modern music's great guitar virtuosos, Steve Vai was a kid growing up on Long Island, where he took guitar lessons from his neighbor, Joe Satriani.

Manhattan and its career opportunities was just an hour or two away. And it was there, circa 1976, that one of his friends came through with a key ingredient in Vai’s success: a Rolodex desktop card file containing phone numbers for a recording studio’s celebrity clientele.

“I was 16, and I’m in my little teenage bedroom, practicing, practicing,” Vai explains to Billy Corgan’s Magnificent Others podcast.

“And one of my friends came in, and he had stolen a Rolodex — that’s how you used to get phone numbers — from a studio in New York City.

“I’m sitting there, practicing, and he’s going [reading from the Rolodex], ‘Mick Jagger. Cool!’ ‘Pat Benatar!’

“And then he gets to the Zs and says, ‘I have Frank Zappa’s phone number.’ And I went, ‘You have what!?’”

Vai snapped to attention at the mention of Zappa’s name. Of all the guitarists in the 1970s universe, he was the player whose complex music resonated with him. He immediately took down Zappa’s phone number.

“And I tried calling — at 16,” Vai says. “His wife answered, Gail. And oddly enough, knowing Gail the way I know her now, the fact that she took the phone call… Because I’m like, ‘I’m just a fan, I got your phone number… Can I talk to Frank?’

“And she said, ‘Well, Frank’s on tour. Call back in six months.’

“So I did. Well, ‘Frank’s on tour again, call back in another six months.’ And I did that three times until I was 18. And I was at my friend’s apartment at Berklee, and Frank answered the phone.”

“Oh my gosh, he was so nice. I caught him at a good time, and he gave me his address, because I told him I knew he was looking for Edgard Varèse scores… and the Boston Public Library had those scores, so I Xeroxed them. I said, ‘Hey, Frank, I’d love to send you these scores. I have a transcription of The Black Page.’”

The name is one studio musicians gave to notoriously difficult transcriptions packed with flurries of notes. Zappa decided to compose his own “black page” and titled it accordingly.

Vai continues: “And I said, ‘…and I have a tape of my band.’

“And oddly enough, he said, ‘Well, just send it directly to the house.’ And he gave me his home address, and I mailed it, and that’s how it started.”

Zappa was so impressed he wanted to hire Vai on the spot. But since he wasn’t yet 18, Vai had to wait.

“He wanted me to audition for the band, and then, when I told him I was 18, he said, ‘Forget it.’ But I had sent them this transcript.”

Instead of joining Zappa’s band and touring, he spent his first years transcribing the avant-garde guitarist’s music, a position he held until he became a band member at age 20.

Over the next few years, Vai appeared onstage and on record with Zappa, often credited as “stunt” guitarist for his ability to play nearly impossible parts. In 1983, Vai’s own composition “The Attitude Song” was published as a Flexi-disc in Guitar Player, setting the stage for the release of his debut solo album, Flex-Able, released in January 1984.

Just goes to show what determination can do.

In related news, Vai recently revealed the grueling practice routine that helped him become a virtuoso—and why he did it.

Steve Vai says he was on the cusp of becoming a teenager when his fascination for the electric guitar — and, more specifically, shredding — began. Practicing became an “addiction,” and now he’s revealed just how intensive his routine used to be.

Few guitarists have as many notches on their belt as Vai. He served as Frank Zappa's "stunt guitarist," helped kickstart David Lee Roth’s solo career, joined Whitesnake and launched his own incredibly successful solo career. These days, he's writing music with Joe Satriani as part of their SatchVai Band. The virtuoso journeyman has rarely kept still.

But getting to that point took a lot of effort.

“When I was younger, I chose the route of being fascinated by chops,” he tells Billy Corgan on The Magnificent Others podcast. “It was an interesting discovery, and it was just something as simple as, ‘Look, if you sit down and just practice, you get better.’

“And when I started getting better, it gave me a feeling of enthusiasm, self-respect, which I needed at the time,” he continues. “So it becomes sort of like an addiction.”

Tom Morello has often spoken about how he regularly practiced for eight hours a day to get his chops up, and he and Vai aren’t alone in their diligent approaches to guitar craft.

But Vai accepts they are outliers in many ways.

“Practicing endlessly is not for everybody. It’s only for those who have a pull to do it. You can try to force it, but if it doesn’t feel natural to you,” he says, it won't happen.

“My schedule back then — I was happy if I got nine hours a day. I was very neurotic, very myopic.”

A desire to play, he adds, was a defining factor in him honing his skills. The “pull” and “attraction” of the instrument, of tracing his fingers across its fretboard, kept him on the straight and narrow. Moreover, it took the chore out of the most off-putting thing about learning a creative skill.

“The funny thing was, it didn’t feel like discipline,” Vai explains. “People say, ‘You must have been very disciplined.’ Sometimes I would go to sleep early on a Friday so I could wake up and practice all the way ‘til Monday. It was a passion. Passion is a much more powerful engine of creation than discipline.

“Discipline implies you have to fight something, you have to push yourself to do something that you don’t really wanna do. But passion says, ‘You’re gonna do this because you want to do it. It’s in your heart.'”

Vai’s chat with the Smashing Pumpkins bandleader also saw him reflecting on moving away from making “weird music” to become a rock god in David Lee Roth’s band in 1985. It’s no secret that Roth had grown tired of Eddie Van Halen hogging the limelight in Van Halen, and he was driven to forge a career under his own name, and create a band that would be bigger and better.

But Vai, who had immense respect for EVH, didn’t see it that way. He knew bettering the virtuoso was an impossible job.

“It was a good time, we were young, we wore the most outlandish clothes, the stages were the size of a football field, and we played our asses off,” he reflects. “I knew that I wasn't going to try to sound like Edward or do anything like him.”

Meanwhile, other players have shared their top tips for becoming a better guitar player that are less time-consuming. Vinnie Moore has said what players should do to avoid being too mechanical, which goes against a long-standing rule, and Marty Friedman says players need to do this, or else they'll never up their game.

If intensive regimes are your bag, check out Ben Harper’s gig-day routine. It’s not for the faint-hearted.

It’s no secret that when David Lee Roth left Van Halen, he was hellbent on besting his old band and outshining the guitarist who kept stealing the limelight from him. While Eddie Van Halen and company turned to Sammy Hagar to fill the void, Roth shrewdly tapped another hotshot guitarist to go toe-to-toe with: Steve Vai.

Roth’s solo career may not have even threatened to reach the heights of his rival, but for Vai — who advanced his career from being Frank Zappa's transcriptionist to his “stunt guitarist,” and become a mildly successful solo artist on his own — was simply thrilled for the opportunity.

“It was a good time, we were young — I was 25, 26 — and we wore the most outlandish clothes,” he tells Billy Corgan on his The Magnificent Others podcast. “The stages were the size of a football field, and we played our asses off.”

Vai’s electric guitar talents are undeniable, but his body of work at that point — seven studio and live albums with Zappa, and one solo album, 1984's Flex-Able — was pretty eclectic compared to the stadium rock David Lee Roth was gunning for. Vai knew the gig was temporary and wanted to make the very most of it while he could.

“It was great while it lasted,” he continues. “I was able to live in that world because, as a teenager, even though I had all this interest in compositional music, rock music was embedded in me.

“It was kind of like acting in a sense. I knew it was fleeting, that it was trendy, and I was in a position where I could play my butt off and then it would be over. Then I could go back to playing weird music.”

Vai might have been just looking for a good time, but Roth was looking to prove a point. With virtuosic bass player Billy Sheenan, who would go on to enjoy success with Mr. Big and the Winery Dogs, and drummer Gregg Bissonette, who has since become sticks for hire for Vai, Joe Satriani and Andy Summers, Vai wanted a best-in-class band. This was far from the David Lee Roth show, even if his ego implied otherwise.

Ironically, though, Vai didn’t see himself in competition with Eddie Van Halen.

“In the background somewhere, there was the extraordinary thought that I need to somehow keep up with Edward, which is an illusion, because you can't,” Vai says. “But what I could keep up with was my own expansion. I loved Edward.

“When he hit the scene, you know what happened? Everybody's input jack closed up.”

Vai's resume would help him score the gig as Roth's foil. But he wasn't about to start a war with Eddie.

“When word got out that David Lee Roth was looking for a guitarist, it was probably the most coveted rock guitar position,” he reflects. “I was in my little apartment on Fairfax Street in Hollywood. And as soon as I heard that news, I turned to my roommate and I said, ‘That's my gig.’ But it didn't come from a place of [in a commanding voice] ‘That's my gig!’ It was just this intuitive thing.

“The next day, the phone rings, and it's David. I just knew that I could make it work ‘cause I had a rock and roll fire in me. And I knew that I wasn't going to try to sound like Edward or do anything like him.”

Ultimately, Vai’s plan to quietly return to writing weird music didn’t quite pan out. Whitesnake came calling in 1989, but when he did peel back from the scene several years later, he did so knowing he never stepped on his hero’s toes. Because no one could, not even Yngwie Malmsteen, despite his claims that Eddie was “threatened” by him.

Roth, meanwhile, continued to showcase his knack for hiring unknown superstar guitarists, with a rich lineage of shredders following in Vai’s footsteps. But his biggest hit — “Yankee Rose” — came from Vai’s genius.

Brian May has the résumé of a rock god, but he doesn’t see himself as a dot on other players' fretboards, and that’s forced him to reconsider his approach to the electric guitar.

He was voted the greatest rock guitarist of all time in a 2020 Total Guitar poll, a feat he also repeated three years later. For that matter, his “Bohemian Rhapsody” guitar solo is deemed one of the greatest ever written. Yet he feels his playing is limited.

“I have none of that high-speed, high technical skill of a Steve Vai or a Joe Satriani,” he told MOJO in 2017, three years before his first poll-topping triumph.”

However, like David Gilmour, who has also admitted that shredding proved beyond his capabilities, May has played to his strengths.

“What I have is a connection between the mind and the fingers, which just serves me in a particular way,” he explains. “I find that I can connect what’s in my head through the fingers to what’s coming out, and it’s quite a smooth connection.”

His relationship with the guitar — in particular his one-of-a-kind Red Special — is almost telepathic.

“You get to the point where you can almost turn off any kind of thinking process,” he says. “You just allow what’s in your head to go through your fingers.”

Moreover, May believes that, contrary to some, tone isn’t solely about the gear someone uses.

“I think a huge amount of a guitarist’s sound is in the fingers, and in the body and mind, as well as the way it’s played,” he continues. “You own a guitar, play it, and it becomes a part of you more and more as time goes on.

“The sound that people mainly know me for is a guitar that sustains, and something happens to you when you hold a guitar like that in your hands.

“I always used to wonder about that when I was very first starting. I remember people used to sing and play at the same time, the same notes, and I thought: I wonder how that happens? And it happens through doing it for a lifetime.”

Of course, this is an instance where gear does play a role beyond being a conduit for noise making. His Red Special, handcrafted with his father over two years, features an irregular tremolo system that adds greatly to the instrument's sustain.

“The strings lock onto a milled steel plate, which pivots on a case-hardened knife edge,” he explains. “The tension of the strings is balanced by two motorcycle springs. There is very little friction in the system. I also designed a special bridge that has rollers that move, instead of the usual arrangement where the strings come over a fixed bridge.”

Still, while May understands that he can’t outgun the likes of Vai and Satriani, that hasn’t stopped him from letting fly from time to time. He 1983 collaboration with Eddie Van Halen — “Blues Breaker,” a whirlwind 13-minute solo fest — proves as much, even if Eric Clapton, to whom the song was dedicated, derided it as “horrible.” Most of the time, May's playing was more reserved, playing a small role in a much larger picture.

“I think the guitar, to me, is always secondary to the song,” he said during a Q&A at a Red Special fan event last year. “It's not an excuse to go in and show off. It's a way of enhancing whatever material you're using. So I'm always trying to coax different textures out of it — different sounds, different moves.”

That's why he says he had to fight Freddie Mercury to add a guitar solo to this Queen hit, feeling the song called for the texture some lead guitar would bring. It was but one piece of a much larger puzzle.

Such a mindset, he feels, outstrips fireworks for the sake of setting fire to something. But, like Gilmour, he was able to reframe a limitation to find a more unique voice on the instrument.

Meanwhile, Noel Gallagher has revealed the hilarious response he gave his son when he asked his dad why he couldn’t shred like the players on Instagram.

And in related news, May made a surprise at Coachella back in April, playing a Queen classic with Benson Boone. He has also criticized potential law changes that will favour AI companies, and discussed why Jeff Beck's playing was unmatched.

How difficult is it to perform the guitar parts from King Crimson's 1980s' catalog?

Apparently very. Adrian Belew said he required surgery on his left hand after performing the group's music on his recent tour with Beat, the supergroup featuring guitarist Steve Vai, bassist Tony Levin and Tool drummer Danny Carey that performs Crimson's 1980s music.

Their tour saw the quartet honoring the prog legends’ trio of ‘80s albums, Discipline (1981), Beat (1982), and Three of a Perfect Pair (1984), and the challenge of the material was not lost on the two guitarists.

In the build-up to the road show, Vai revealed that the “relentless” picking patterns of the Discipline track "Frame by Frame" were particularly difficult, especially in light of his 2021 shoulder surgery. Several dates into the tour, King Crimson founding guitarist Robert Fripp recognized Vai's struggles and emailed valuable tips to help him master the song.

Post-tour, however, it was Belew who was left nursing his wounds. He had to have surgery to combat the bout of carpal tunnel syndrome that plagued his left hand as the tour made its way across the US.

“It would get numb,” he tells Guitar World. “And during part of the tour, it would stay numb from the moment that I woke up, all the way until sometime during soundcheck.

“It was a little scary,” he adds. “I’d be like, ‘Oh, boy, you better wake up soon!’”

Fortunately for Belew, his co-guitarist could sympathize with him, having suffered two cases of carpal tunnel in the past.

“Steve Vai was able to walk me through the process since he’s had it done twice,” he explains. “He reassured me that it was a simple operation and that it was not something that was going to go wrong. And on top of that, he introduced me to one of the best surgeons in the United States, who had done this work.”

The surgery, as Vai had predicted, was a success. “It’s perfect,” Belew says of his hand now. “This was an easy recovery and an easy operation.

“I’m back to full use of my left hand. While recovering, you can’t do much with it, and it’s a little tender,” he continues. “And then, you finally work back up to tempo. Now, I’m playing as I always did, except that there’s no more pain.”

Although having a shared lineage in Frank Zappa's band, Beat is the first time Belew and Vai have worked together. Seeing the man who fronted King Crimson for just shy of two decades, night after night, left Vai gobsmacked.

“I would say Adrian is underrated in the echelons of guitar,” he said earlier this year. “Nobody plays like anybody else, nobody can play like me, but they can get sort of close. Honestly, there’s no one close to Adrian.

“There’s a special way he’s crafted his own dimension of sounds,” he extends, although his oddball, MIDI-propelled Parker Fly guitar, which he dusted down for the Beat shows, certainly helps him with that.

A BEAT live release, “BEAT LIVE”, is due for release September 26th via InsideOut Music. The first track to be lifted from it, “Neal and Jack and Me” shows how the Vai-Belew guitar tandem is walking the tightrope between faithful renditions and thoughtful reimaginings.

“This isn't a cover band,” Vai exaplined while preparing for their maiden show. “We're reinterpreting some things. My style and sound will flow into it, because it will be coming out of me.

“I'm trying my absolute best to respect every note that Robert wrote, it's just how I perform it might be a little different.”

In related news, Fripp’s somewhat controversial comments about Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton have resurfaced. The guitarist is currently recovering after suffering a heart attack earlier this year.

And hopes of a new King Crimson album have been dashed. Jakko Jakszyk had said that work on a new album was underway, but the band's management has since reduced expectations, calling excitement “premature.”

Last year, when Joe Satriani and Steve Vai issued their incandescent collaborative track, “The Sea of Emotion, Part 1,” millions of fans across the globe celebrated the news they’d been waiting decades to hear, that the two electric guitar virtuosos were finally — finally — recording together.

As it turns out, that’s partially true. During a Zoom chat with Guitar Player, streaming below, Satch and Vai revealed that, yes, they are working on an official album project, due sometime next year, but their first dual recording occurred when they were teenagers in the 1970s, when Satriani, then the hotshot neighborhood axe-slinger, taught guitar newbie Vai lessons — for five bucks an hour.

Vai recalls that Satriani recently sent him a reel-to-reel tape of a jam they’d recorded called “Reflections of a Year and a Half.” “It was just Joe playing some chords and me struggling through this riff,” he says. “I transferred it to digital and thought, Wow, this is great to have. It's like, eight minutes, 10 minutes long, and we're just jamming.”

The two had already recorded “The Sea of Emotion, Part 2,” but Vai was intrigued by this early recording. “I thought, What would a Part Three sound like?’ So I went back to the tape and took a little snippet of it, the riff, and we use that on the record… We took elements of that and wrote another piece of music around it.”

Satriani laughs.

“We peaked at 16 years old!” Vai adds, “It's so great. Everytime I hear it, I'm that teenager again, just being totally fascinated with everything that was happening.”

In advance of the full album, Satriani and Vai — or SatchVai, as they’re billing themselves — have just issued the rousing new song “I Wanna Play My Guitar,” featuring Glenn Hughes (Deep Purple, Black Country Communion) on vocals. As fist-in-the-air rock anthems go, it’s hooky and full of swagger. And — no surprise — it’s packed with bravura guitar work.

Explaining the inspiration for the song, Satriani says, “How did we feel as kids? Steve and I growing up on Long Island, dreaming about being rock and roll superstar guitar players… Silly teenage dreams, but what did that really mean?

“Now that I'm an adult and I have a stronger handle on how to express myself, how can I bring some of those memories of what we experience to life in a mature way? And although this isn't very mature, I’m saying, ‘I want to turn it up loud. I want to drive you crazy and all that kind of stuff.’

“Meanwhile, I'm thinking, Glenn and Steve are going to hear this, and they're never going to let me forget how bad it is. But it was finished and it's a collaboration, so I'm like, ‘Guys, you got to help me do this. I know the song's going to be great, but there are bits that really suck right now.’

“And they came to the party when we finally had that vocal session. It was great to get Steve and Glenn to come in and help bring the song together and add some great elements to it to make it really take off.

“But at the heart of it is just a teenage kid who wants to go to the garage, plug in and turn really loud and just annoy everybody.”

This June, the SatchVai Band (which also includes drummer Kenny Aronoff, bassist Marco Mendoza and guitarist Pete Thorn) heads to Europe for the debut of their Surfing With the Hydra tour. To hear Satch and Vai tell it, the idea of joining forces to form their own group was something they had always planned on — one day. “It just kind of showed up,” Vai says. “It was a plan sort of in the background our whole lives, but it did just kind of happen all of a sudden. ‘Hey, we're doing this now! Look around — we're doing it!’”

“Like Steve said, we always knew it would happen,” Satriani says. “We just hadn't really worked out the details.”

He recounts how everything started to come together following the conclusion of the 2024 G3 reunion tour in which the two were joined by Eric Johnson. Satch and Vai were gung-ho for a 2025 run of dates, but Johnson was already booked.

“Steve and I decided, ‘Well, we'll just keep going,’ but we didn't want to make it a G2,” Satriani says. “Somebody from either one of our camps said, “Oh, wouldn't it be great if you had a track to sort of announce the fact that it's just the two of you going out?’ And we thought, ‘Oh, yeah, great.’

“Then all of a sudden we just start writing and recording, and there you go. It just sort of snowballed from, ‘Wouldn't it be great if you had a second track? How about an album?’ And we thought, Wow, I guess it's here. It has arrived.”

Joe Satriani and Steve Vai are about to drop the debut song from the SatchVai Band, and Guitar Player has an audio exclusive of the new track.

Titled “I Wanna Play My Guitar,” the tune is a blistering tribute to guitar shred and hard rock, featuring the SatchVai Band — Satriani and Vai, rhythm guitarist Pete Thorn, bass guitar player Marco Mendoza and drummer Kenny Aronoff — with Glenn Hughes on vocals.

The track is a monster whose theme is perfectly suited to a group that features not one but two electric guitar virtuosos, riffing and playing lead work in precise, tight tandem.

“When I started writing this song I had no idea how important the contributions from Glenn and Steve would be,” Satriani says. “What they brought to the track made it all happen.”

As Satch reveals, he originally intended Hughes and the Darkness singer Justin Hawkins would share vocals.

“I got this crazy idea on the Monsters of Rock Cruise where Glenn and Justin were both performing,” he explains. “Unfortunately, when I got back from the cruise I tested positive for COVID and I entered into a 10-day fog, forgetting if I had sent the invitations to collaborate.

“When I finally recovered, I heard back from Justin‘s people that the Darkness was going to be releasing a record at the same time and he wouldn’t be able to contribute to the song, so, I sent a rough demo to Glenn and he was into it.

“I pray no one ever hears that demo of me singing into my iPhone!”

For Vai, “I Wanna Play My Guitar” encapsulates the single-mindedness of his and Joe’s youth as budding guitarists.

"This song depicts all that Joe and I used to think about as teenagers. All of the things we loved about pounding rock and roll and the glorious guitar,” he says. “It is an absolute phenom for us to be able to present to you now our teenage aspirations in this song.

“I remember those days and how absolutely exciting it was to play the guitar. Our whole world revolved around it as if it was a mysterious monolith, as it is, and I know that there are teenagers right now that are feeling the same thing about this sacred instrument when they play it.

”It feels like freedom and joy and I recommend everybody find some time in their life to play the guitar. And to be able to hear the mighty voice of one of our childhood heroes on this track, the great Glenn Hughes is more than the icing on the cake, enjoy!”

Satriani and Vai announced the SatchVai Band in December 2024. The musical union came about after the guitarists and their respective bands played their first tour together — outside of their G3 dates — earlier in the year.

The SatchVai Band marks the first time in their musical careers that the two electric guitar virtuosos and lifelong friends have performed in a band and composed together.

The duo released a brief clip of the band's rehearsal footage in April. The tantalizing minute-long video featured Vai soloing over Satriani’s "If I Could Fly," before both guitarists performed the iconic two-hand-tapped run in Satch's "Always With Me, Always With You."

The duo then harmonized on Vai's "For the Love of God" before the clip ended with them performing the main riff from Metallica’s "Enter Sandman." The tune was a staple on the G3 reunion tour and a significant cut, considering that Metallica guitarist Kirk Hammett was, like Vai, once one of Satriani’s guitar students.

The SatchVai Band will undertake their debut road show, the Surfing With the Hydra tour, this summer. The road show kicks off June 13, in York, England, with dates scheduled in the U.K. and Europe through August 2.

When David Lee Roth left Van Halen in 1985, he did so believing he could go bigger and better than the band he was leaving behind. Though his solo career never hit the dizzying heights that Eddie Van Halen and company enjoyed, his penchant for picking guitarists for his band can never be questioned.

Steve Vai, Jason Becker, Steve Hunter and John 5 are all hugely inspiring and individualistic players, and they helped spin gold from Roth’s core ideas. But they often had to do so under strict circumstances. On the surface, Roth was a party animal – and he did plenty of that – but behind the scenes, as John 5 explains, he could be unforgiving.

Save for his one-off industrial metal album with Judas Priest frontman Rob Halford as 2wo, John 5 was an unknown when he cold-called the singer's management, hunting for his next gig.

“I got the number from the back of [Roth's autobiography "Crazy from the Heat"],” he recounts to Spin's Lipps Service. “I called his management company. I was like, 'Hey, you guys looking for songs by chance?' They're like, 'Yeah, you could send them.'”

With no money in his pocket, he called in favors for studio time, and tracked a handful of Van Halen-channeling demos. Impressed by what they heard, Roth's camp invited him to meet with the singer at Los Angeles's famous Ocean Way studios. But he quickly learned it wasn't going to be an easy gig.

“It was crazy. This is where [Van Halen] did every song and rehearsed,” he says of his time at Ocean Way.

But when the singer discovered that John 5 – then known simply as John Lowery – was rehearsing ahead of a tour with 2wo, he moved to ensure he got the guitarist at his freshest, before he rehearsed with 2wo. David Lee Roth wasn’t one for sloppy seconds.

“At 6 am we started recording [what would become 1998’s “DLR Band”]. We did it live, and it was incredible. And he goes, 'If you can't do it in two takes, you can't do it.' And I was like, 'Whoa. This is insane!'”

Stevce Vai, Roth's first hotshot shredder, faced similar pressure cooker scenarios. “My ideas were being depended on, because I was the guitar player and it was very cool,” he told VPR Rocks. “When Dave came along, it was an opportunity to stretch that muscle and it resonated well because he has a bizarre sense of humor, and so do I.

“The energy that the whole band created was indestructible,” he says. “He depended on us to write the music, to write lyrics and melodies too. Not only did I have the freedom to write what I wanted, I had to push myself to go beyond my own vision.”

When Vai parted ways with the group, Roth turned to another white hot talent, Jason Becker, whose stock could hardly have been higher in 1990, after name-making albums with Cacophony, Marty Friedman, and as a solo artist. Despite the hype around him, Roth wanted to sculpt the guitarist's sound to ensure he matched his vision of a group entering a new era.

As Steve Hunter explained to Guitar World in 2023, his demands of Becker left the young guitarist needing his assistance.

“Jason came over for a few guitar lessons because David Lee Roth wanted him to ‘add a little more blues in,’” he reveals. At first, Hunter felt Becker's youthfulness and shredding style would be a barrier, but when he told the seasoned session player that his favorite player was Stevie Ray Vaughan, “we hit it off”.

“I said, 'OK, alright, that's good. How would you like to hear where Stevie Ray got his stuff?' And I put on an old Albert King album called ‘Years Gone By’, and Jason was floored by it.”

With a greater appreciation of the blues, Becker took to his task with aplomb, although his time in the band was cut short as his struggles with ALS brought a premature end to his playing career.

Brian Young, Roth's guitarist for four years from 2002, also saw his skills pushed to their limits during his DLR days.

“To be in the David Lee Roth band, you've basically gotta go through this boot camp to toughen you up,” he said during a 2021 appearance on Rock N' Roll Icons With Bode James. “I wouldn't say he's difficult, but he expects a lot, and he's demanding. He's a perfectionist for everyone else, even for himself. So working with him wasn't easy.

“He's paying everybody. It's his name on the marquee, so there's no argument. When Dave says something, you just do it. And I do like that. Whatever he says, whether it's right or wrong, everybody agrees with it or not. You just do what Dave tells you, and everything's fine.”

Former Whitesnake guitarist Adrian Vandenberg has reflected on the “challenge” of sharing six-string duties with Steve Vai during his short spell in the band, and how Vai’s brand of virtuosity helped him refocus his approach to the instrument.

The Dutch guitarist joined the band in 1987 amidst a backdrop of mass firings at the behest of band leader David Coverdale. Despite that tumult, he quickly added his flare to the smash hit "Here I Go Again", helping the band reach new heights.

Then, having co-wrote the band’s next album, 1989’s “Slip of the Tongue,” injury prevented him from recording his parts, which is when Steve Vai was welcomed into the fold. Naturally, that posed problems for Vandenberg, who had to watch on from the sidelines. Speaking to American Music Supply, the Dutchman has detailed how initial adversity dissipated as the pair formed a potent guitar partnership.

“[Playing with] Steve was quite a challenge because he's a virtuoso,” he underscores. “It was an interesting challenge because it really [got] me thinking about what my style is.

“I got carried away when I joined Whitesnake, the whole fast playing bit that was going on in the States, and I've never really been into it, because I was influenced by guys like Brian May and early Leslie West, the blues players and melodic players like [Michael] Schenker.”

Echoing Wolfgang Van Halen’s recent statements that his dad’s chops “kind of ruined,” the ‘80s guitar scene as a wave of immitators followed in Van Halen's wake, Vandenberg believed too many players were focusing too greatly on the high octane elements of a wider palette of playing.

“A lot of people don't even realize that Eddie Van Halen is actually a really melodic player because it kind of got covered by his flamboyant playing,” he explains. “But if you listen to a lot of the solos, they always have a little melody that he repeats live as well. And then he does all the flurry stuff in between.”

Yet, while he didn’t associate himself with the speed freak camp of players yielding Superstrats and handling sweep arpeggios like they owed them money, it took Vai’s presence to realize he’d fallen into that same trap.

“For me, it's mainly the right note on the right spot,” he continues. “And so, touring with Steve, I thought, 'Oh, wait a minute. I got carried away a little bit the last couple of years, so I'm gonna focus on what I think I should be doing.' And that was a really great way for us to work together, because we've got such different styles. I really enjoyed it. [He's a] great guy [with a] sense of humor. [It was] a wonderful time.”

Vai had his own problems when stepping into the Whitesnake camp; a battle of identity sitting at the forefront thanks to the talents of one of his predecessors.

“Whitesnake had gone through different permutations of guitar sounds throughout the years,” he told Guitar World in 2020. “[But John] Sykes didn’t sound like any other previous Whitesnake guitarist. His thumbprint is an indelible part of the Whitesnake record he did. The fatness of that record and the rock integrity it had was all Sykes. So I knew I wasn’t going to sound like Sykes and I wasn’t going to try to.

“You cheat yourself when you try to do that and play like someone else,” he expanded. “And the audience is a lot smarter than you think; they’re very intuitive and perceptive and if you try to pull anything over on them – like biting someone else’s thing – you’ll get beat up for it.”

When he got out on the road with the band, Vandenberg now by his side, he suffered one of his biggest on stage disasters when he and his heart-shaped guitar hit the deck after his boot spurs caught a monitor. It’s one of two incidents the guitarist now calls “the tale of two Davids”.

Whitesnake disbanded in 1990, leaving Vai and Vandenberg to go their separate ways,. Though Vandenberg would later rejoin the group, Vai stayed away having built a successful solo career and remained focused on his own projects.

Vai’s latest project sees him joining up for Joe Satriani and Pete Thorn as the SatchVai Band, and new music together has been mooted.

Rudy Sarzo is one of the most respected bassists in all rock and heavy metal. He’s also of the kindest, and busiest, players in the biz. As bassist with Quiet Riot and Ozzy Osbourne, Sarzo worked — and was good friends with — Randy Rhoads, whom he holds in the highest esteem.

If you follow Rudy on social media, you’ve certainly seen one of his many tributes to Rhoads. Beyond Randy Rhoads, Sarzo has held court alongside other great guitarists, like Carlos Cavazo in Quiet Riot, Brad Gillis in Osbourne’s band, Tony MacAlpine in the supergroup M.A.R.S., Adrian Vandenberg and Steve Vai in Whitesnake, Doug Aldrich in Dio, Alex Grossi in Quiet Riot, and many others.

Dealing with that level of varied virtuosity isn’t easy, but Sarzo has it dialed in.

“What’s the key?” he asks. “With virtuosi guitar players — and all the musicians that I’ve played with — it’s about being challenged.

“I really like being challenged,” he adds. “I really enjoyed learning from all of them, both musically and as human beings.”

During a break in his schedule, Rudy spoke with Guitar Player to share his thoughts on a handful of the iconic six-string heroes he has played alongside during his 50-year career.

Randy Rhoads

“When I joined Quiet Riot with Randy in 1978, there was a certain standard of musical style on the Sunset Strip from the up-and-coming bands that later became staples of the MTV era, Quiet Riot being one of them. It was pretty much following the glam rock that was so popular before new wave and punk. I’m talking about Queen, David Bowie — you know, melodic but edgy.

“With those bands, the guitar player was usually the star. That was always the relationship going back to, say, Led Zeppelin. The guitar player was definitely the focal point of the group, and Randy, you know, everything about him was suited for that better than anyone I’ve ever known or played with.

“But what really separated Randy from everybody else was his education. He came from a musical professor and academic family. Randy, from a very early age, got a musical education, so by the time I played with him in 1978, he was knowledgeable and had a background in music. That's where his creativity came from. When we worked together on a song, he knew how to structure it.

“Randy knew composition, arrangements, theory and everything about the components that you need for creating songs. He had that, but unfortunately, he was not able to reveal it until he started playing with Ozzy. And unfortunately, even though Quiet Riot could definitely have used the compositional skills that he could apply, like his classical background, I didn’t become aware of his classical background while we were in the band together.

“I would hear Randy pick up the classical guitar and play it between lessons, and I was like, ‘Wow, you can play that!?’ He said, ‘Yeah, that’s my first instrument.’ He explained to me that he grew up playing classical, but he wanted to put together a band, and he started getting into electric guitar. But he always kept his love for classical guitar.

“But his compositions with Quiet Riot were more driven toward trying to please record companies, rather than when he started playing with Ozzy. He asked Ozzy, ‘What do you want me to write?’ Ozzy just said, ‘Be yourself,’ and that’s what came out.

"That was the real Randy Rhoads. He passed away young, but I’m sure that he left an indelible mark on musicians even today. When they discover him, they want to know more, and they get it.”

Carlos Cavazo (Quiet Riot)

“Carlos was different. Randy focused more on diatonic writing; it was more musically advanced. But with Carlos, especially with his playing on ‘Cum on Feel the Noize,’ I think he set the bar very high from a melodic and thematic soloing sense. He was basically borrowing from the chorus’s melody and just implementing these variations on it. I think it was very clever, and it was perfect for that song.

“Our producer, Spencer Proffer, not only produced the record but owned the label [Pasha], the studio [Pasha Music House], and everything. But the only thing he cared about was 'Cum on Feel the Noize.' He basically said, ‘You guys can do anything you want with the rest of the record. I just need you to deliver this song that I feel will be a hit single.’

"And it worked! Metal Health got to number one, and by then we started thinking, Wow, we’re at the top of the mountain and headlining shows. But then it became more about doing a follow-up with more of the same attributes as Metal Health

"Whereas with a guitarist like Randy, we would have done something very different If you listen to the music he was writing with Ozzy, there’s an exponential advance in his musical knowledge."

Brad Gillis (Ozzy Osbourne)

“By the time Brad Gillis came in to play with Ozzy, our goal was to finish the tour with dignity and for Randy’s memory. We just wanted to go out there and finish the tour with a guitar player who could put across the essence of Randy’s playing.

"It was really challenging, because Randy had just come out with this technique of palm muting, and a lot of guitar players did not have that down. So that was one of the biggest challenges that we found.

"But through a friend of [drummer] Tommy Aldridge, we were told about this young man in the San Francisco area who was playing covers of Ozzy songs and had gotten down that palm-muting technique.

"That’s how we became aware of Brad Gillis. He was tremendous. I gotta tell you: he was under so much pressure. I’ve gotta hand it to him for being able to handle it with so much grace.”

Tony MacAlpine (M.A.R.S.)

“Working with Tony on Project: Driver [the 1986 album by the supergroup M.A.R.S.] was a really interesting experience. Tony is a classically trained pianist. He told me that he started playing guitar because he fell in love with the sound of it.

“He was really into the tonality, expression, vibrato and harmonics that you can get with the guitar, whether you’re playing a chord or a solo. So he took his musical knowledge from the piano and classical music and applied that to rock and roll.

“But he had — and still does have — more of a progressive style than a rock and rolls style. Randy Rhoads could grab a guitar and play something inspired by Johnny Winter, which had the roots of rock and roll, but I did not really hear that from Tony MacAlpine.”

Adrian Vandenberg (Whitesnake)

“With Adrian, it was all about blues-based rock with an English accent to it. But Adrian is very unique. You don't ask him to emulate some other player — he's not one of those guys. He’s like a painter who carries his own palette of colors, and he plays in a way that makes the music more vivid.

“Adrian joined Whitesnake after the 1987 album was completed and John Sykes left. He managed to assimilate all those things that John came up with that were so critical on the 1987 record.

"When Steve Vai joined, they were a really great combination. If one didn’t deliver, the other one would. They just complimented one another.”

Steve Vai (Whitesnake)

“I loved playing with Steve. He really challenged me musically, and that’s my favorite kind of bandmate — somebody whose challenges make me a better player. Steve is a really great human being, too. I learned a lot from him.

"Steve joined Whitesnake for [1989's] Slip of the Tongue, and those songs were written by Adrian Vandenberg. But Adrian suffered a wrist injury and could not record the album, so we went with Steve. I think that's why there’s a certain style to his playing that's not necessarily how he would done it if he'd been the song writer or there from the very beginning."

Doug Aldrich (Dio)

“Doug Aldrich covered all the bases, not just the Dio material but all the Rainbow and Black Sabbath material. Where Doug really shined was in his ability to capture the essence of these playing styles, without necessarily imitating, say, Tony Iommi or Ritchie Blackmore. When Doug played, it fit the song and made it strong. Doug could do that without actually playing exactly the same thing as them. It was like he was capturing the spirit of those other musicians.”

Alex Grossi (Quiet Riot)

“Alex has been with Quiet Riot for about 20 years, and he was groomed by Kevin DuBrow. He’s the youngest guy in the band, so he wasn’t part of the ‘70s and ‘80s Hollywood scene, but he experienced it vicariously. So he’s incredibly knowledgeable, and I can count on him to come up with anything that we need. He can play the classics, but he’s also modern. I can always rely on Alex not only to deliver the goods every night onstage but to bring little surprises as well."

Joe Satriani says, “He’s the guitar player I wish I was: looks great, plays great, knows every piece of gear.”

Meanwhile, Steve Vai says, “His tone is amazing — fat and warm. And when he plays those big rock chords, they’re all in tune. That’s harder to do than you think.”

Who are the two electric guitar gods raving about? His name is Pete Thorn, a veteran sideman whose extensive resume includes tours with Chris Cornell, Don Henley and Melissa Etheridge, among many others.

Recently, the Canadian-born, self-described guitar nerd was tapped by Satch and Vai to handle rhythm guitar duties in their first-ever group, the SatchVai Band, which will also feature bassist Marco Mendoza and drummer Kenny Aronoff. For Thorn, the prospect of playing alongside two of his guitar heroes on their upcoming Surfing With the Hydra Tour is nothing short of surreal.

“It’s like the 14-year-old me wakes up from a dream in which Joe Satriani calls and says, ‘I’m starting a band with Steve Vai. Do you want to join?’” Thorn says. “That’s crazy! You have to understand — when I grew up, my primary guitar influences were Eddie Van Halen, Joe Satriani and Steve Vai. This is like a full-circle moment for me. I can’t tell you how exciting this is.”

Thorn is no stranger to auditions, but as he tells it, he nabbed the SatchVai gig based on his experience alone.

“Joe called me and said that he’d listened to my second solo album, Pete Thorn II. He said, ‘You get rock, you understand rock. I'm looking for that sort of guy.’

“After that, I had a face-to-face meeting with Joe and we discussed some of our favorite guitar players. We had a long conversation about Ritchie Blackmore. I think he was feeling me out to confirm his assumption that I'm a rock guy.”

A few days later, Thorn connected with Vai at a performance by Beat, the 1980s King Crimson group Vai fronts with Adrian Belew.

“Steve asked me if I got together with Joe,” Thorn says with a laugh. “We haven’t all played together yet, but we’ve got a rehearsal schedule, so we’re going to do that soon.”

Backing up two guitar monsters could prove a daunting assignment for most players, but Thorn takes a measured view of his upcoming role.

“I always say, ‘I’m there to be of service,’” he says. “They both obviously have layered parts in their music that will require each of them, and I’m there to fill in the gaps. In many ways, it’s no different than what I’ve done backing up lead singers. In this case, the lead singers are Joe and Steve. To me, it’s the same thing.”

In the following interview, Thorn opens up about auditions, band chemistry and how he knows when he’s done his job just right. He also offers some sage advice for guitarists hoping to nail that big gig.

It’s interesting that you were picked to join the SatchVai Band without an audition. That isn’t the usual way things work, right?

Not usually, but the older that you get and the more you do this stuff, the less you're asked to do auditions. Not that I'm above it — I'm not. I'm happy to go and play and throw my hat in the ring. I've done that for gigs in the last few years.

A little while ago, I did a tour with Nick Carter from Backstreet Boys, and that had an audition. I went down and saw a lot of guys I remember from 15 years ago. I went in, did the audition and got the gig.

Obviously, you’re a versatile guitarist, but let’s talk about chemistry. How do you blend in and form a bond with an artist or band? You have to do it pretty quickly, too.

That's part of the skill of the sideman. I guess the more gigs you do, the more experience you gather, and that allows you to develop your ability to listen to other people, to read the room and adjust your playing.

If you’ve been in this business as long as I have, you’ve honed your musical and personality skills. There can also be unspoken chemistry — you play with a drummer for the first time, and it just feels right. When that happens, you kind of internalize it.

Backing up a star requires a lot of thought. In a way, you have to be Clark Kent most of the time, but onstage you get to be Superman for short periods. You’re not the rock star, but when you get onstage, you’re expected to go toe to toe with that person. You do your thing, you rip a solo, but then you need to step back. You go offstage and you turn into Clark Kent again.

You’re also expected to learn a lot of material, sometimes to the letter. I assume Don Henley wanted you to perform the “Hotel California” solo just like the recorded version.

Sure. I was Joe Walsh in that role. Don was very inclined to want it to just like the record. There were moments in the set when I could step out and do my thing a little bit, but generally speaking, he likes things like the record. And why not? They're classic songs, right?

Your audition process for Chris Cornell wasn’t a snap. You had two callbacks before you got the gig.

That was kind of typical for a lot of auditions: You might go down on the first day and get called back, sometimes a couple of times. It took Chris a few days to settle on people. That third day was amazing, especially when I got home and got a call from management saying I’d gotten the gig.

But the work started right away. I was told, “Chris is hiring you guys. We’re going on the road, and rehearsals start tomorrow.” I was sent songs to learn, and every night for the next three weeks I would get an email with three MP3s in it. There’d be songs like “Say Hello to Heaven,” “Hunger Strike,” “Show Me How to Live,” and the next day it’d be “Jesus Christ Pose” and other songs.

I couldn’t believe it — “I get to play these songs!” It was a magical time.

For Chris, you had to tackle songs from his solo career as well as Soundgarden and Audioslave material. That’s a lot of different sounds and styles.

That’s right. He wouldn’t micromanage — that wasn’t his thing. He would sometimes say, “That sound — could you do a little more of that part instead of the other part?” Or he’d say, “Could you play the other part that's on the record? I think it's more important than what you're doing there.”

But that was few and far between. Otherwise, he was very happy. We did “Black Hole Sun,” which starts with slide on one tone, and then it’s more distorted and you have the arpeggios and the rotary Leslie sounds. I played that and turned to him, and he said, “Sounds exactly like the album.” I thought to myself, Great. I’m doing my job.

That’s got to be a great feeling.

Absolutely. When you get in the room and you’re relaxed, you’ve learned your parts, the sounds are good, and the artist turns around and is like, Ahhhh… That’s my goal. I'm a problem solver kind of person. To bring that good energy in and try to get to the place where you're contributing and everybody's firing on all cylinders, that’s when you think, Okay, this isn't going to be as hard as I thought. That's what the artist is thinking, too, hopefully.

Here’s the other thing: My goal is to go in the room, and the first time you play a song with the artist, even at an audition, and it’s so good that you think, That could be the gig. If this was the gig right now, we’d be pretty good!

Given all the sounds and styles you cover, one would assume you need a boatload of guitars.

I do have a lot of guitars, probably 70 or so. Whatever sound an artist is looking for, you want to be able to say, “Oh yeah, I’ve got that.” I've got a line of signature guitars with Suhr. I’ve been playing their guitars for a while. I bought my first one in 2004 and had it flown across the country. I opened up the case, started playing it, and I thought, “Wow… it’s in tune!” That impressed me.

After that, I bonded with the company and started working with them. I wanted guitars that would fit sonically in a lot of situations, and I wanted them to look distinctive yet familiar and classic. I can play these guitars with Melissa Etheridge, I can play them with Joe and Steve — they really go across the lines.

John Mayer once famously compared playing blues solos note-for-note to “playing last night’s Lotto numbers,” but Zakk Wylde believes players don’t need to drastically reinvent a guitar solo to put their stamp on it. The answer, he says, hinges on “the beauty of the guitar”.

Wylde has had to be original throughout his career, and some of Ozzy’s most iconic riffs have been forged by his fingers. But he’s also spent large portions of his career playing other people’s solos. From tackling the lead work of Randy Rhoads and Jake E. Lee with the Prince of Darkness to honoring Dimebag in Pantera, he’s learned how to make the solos his own without straying from the path.

Through his own experience, the notes can stay the same – fans want to hear those notes. The change-making comes from the articulation, bends, and pick attack, the facets that make every guitarist fundamentally unique.

“Whether you're playing 'Walk' [or something else], Dime has signature solos,” he tells UK music store Andertons. “If me and you are playing the solos to 'Hotel California', and we're playing with the Eagles, you've got to play those solos the way they are on the record... If there are other solos where there's room for improv, then you can [do that], as long as you're in E Minor and you hit on signature notes that are in there.”

“But,” he continues, “[for songs] like 'Hotel California', 'Stairway to Heaven', or if Dime was with Ozzy, playing my stuff... if he did it note for note, it's Dime's touch and Dime's feel.”

Another of Wylde’s impressionist gigs is Generation Axe, a G3-type supergroup formed by Steve Vai. That's seen him, alongside a stellar cast of shredders, take on rock classics, from “Bohemian Rhapsody” to “Hocus Pocus”.

“Every time we do the Generation Axe thing, whether it's what it's Steve Vai, Nuno Bettencourt, Tosin Abasi, Yngwie [Malmsteen] – all of them [only have to] play one note, literally one note, just a vibrato or a chord, [to hear their unique] guitar tone, their feel, their vibrato.

“I know exactly who's playing. Forget about looking. I hear one note, and I go, 'Yeah, that's Tosin.' Or, when you hear Nuno shredding, within two notes I already know it's him.

“That's the beauty of guitar,” he says. “You could take the same scale, have two different guys play it, and it sounds worlds apart. They're using the same ingredients in the soup and it tastes complete. It's two different bowls of soup. I think that is just awesome.”

On the topic of note-for-note solos, Gene Simmons has extended his beef with Ace Frehley by recalling a strange moment they shared when writing "She", from 1975's "Dressed To Kill". He claims the Space Ace stole Doors guitarist Robby Krieger’s solo for “Five to One” and tried to pass it off as his own.

Of course, it isn't the first instance of an artist borrowing generously from someone else. The Beach Boys lifted the essence of Chuck Berry's "Sweet Little Sixteen" for "Surfin' USA," and Neil Young has admitted to stealing a Rolling Stones melody. But the Ace incident might just take the crown.

After earning his stripes in Frank Zappa's band in the late '70s, Steve Vai spent much of the following decade playing rockstar in David Lee Roth's band, and later in British rock staples Whitesnake.

Being a rockstar, though, comes with a bucketload of risks, and Vai has now regaled what he calls “The Tale of Two Davids” to highlight how he often put his body and pride on the line in the name of rock and roll.

“Throughout my teenage years, I was really into Led Zeppelin, Queen, Deep Purple. So I had the rock and roll thing in my soul,” he says of his stint in DLR’s band, which saw the singer trying to steal the limelight from Eddie Van Halen. “When Dave came along, it was an opportunity to stretch that muscle, and it resonated well.”

But, speaking to MusicRadar, the virtuoso has detailed the trials and tribulations that come with life on the road.

“One of the worst things that can happen to any guitar player is that your rig goes down and they don’t know what it is and can’t fix it right away,” he says.

“That’s only happened to me on a few occasions, but it’s never fun. I just leave the stage and say, ‘Sorry, something’s not working, I’ll be back when it’s fixed!’”

That feels like an easy solution – although someone should have suggested that to Richie Sambora when Bon Jovi opened for ZZ Top in 1983. But not all issues are as easy to navigate.

“There have been other challenges,” Vai continues. “Playing when it’s snowing is not fun, because you can’t move your hands.”

Yet the Tale of the two Davids lingers most tellingly in his memory.

“One was with David Lee Roth. I was playing a big arena somewhere and people throw things occasionally,” he says. “When you see them coming — not a problem. You can play with it and dodge. You can even catch it.

“So I saw something coming at me and was about to catch it, then it blew up about six feet in front of me. There was a huge explosion and I went up in the air. I could see my feet and then I was totally out, unconscious on my back.

“I opened my eyes in front of 25,000 people and Dave was standing over me going, ‘Dude! Dude! You okay, man?’ And when I said I was okay, he told me not to get up.”

Joking that “Dave always knew how to keep things interesting,” the outlandish vocalist was quick to make the most of the opportunity.

“They carried me to the back [of the stage] and Dave said, ‘When you walk out there, act all fucked-up before throwing your hand up in the air!’

“Everyone in the audience was dying to see what happened. They were wondering if I was okay and if the show was going to carry on.

“So I did this funny walk, looking all messed up, and put my hand up. I gotta tell you, the place came apart and it was brilliant. And then we did ‘Jump!’”

In '89, Vai was chosen as Adrian Vandenberg's replacement in Whitesnake, arriving in time to lay down his guitar parts for the "Slip of the Tongue" LP. His spot in the band, however, meant he had to fill the sizable shoes of his predecessors, and following the late John Sykes was no easy feat.

“Whitesnake had gone through different permutations of guitar sounds throughout the years, [but] Sykes didn’t sound like any other previous Whitesnake guitarist,” he said of the challenge. “His thumbprint is an indelible part of the Whitesnake record he did. I knew I wasn’t going to sound like Sykes and I wasn’t going to try to.”

With recording in the can, he set out on the road with another David, this time Coverdale and the rest of Whitesnake, teeing up the second half of his tale.

“It wasn’t too different,” he says of the incident in question. “Fast forward a couple of years and I was playing Jones Beach Theater with Whitesnake, playing that big heart guitar [a garish triple-necked Ibanez] in the rain.

“I usually do pretty good footwork. I never go down. You get this foot radar, knowing where the pedals are so you can act like a rock star.”

That night, in the pouring rain, his radar couldn’t help him.

“I was backing up and knew the monitor was behind me, so I was moving to step over it, but I had these spurs on my boots,” he recollects.

“The spurs caught the monitor and again I was up in the air, staring at my feet and landing on my back, completely out. And this time I had this giant triple-necked heart-shaped guitar on top of me!”

Then history repeated itself.

“I opened my eyes and this time it was David Coverdale standing over me saying, ‘Steven, darling, are you okay? Are you alright?’ It’s funny what can happen to you on stage every now and then.”

His spell in Whitesnake was shortlived, and by 1990 he was focusing on a blossoming solo career, first releasing "Sex & Religion" with Devin Townsend and Terry Bozzio in 1993.

One year later he'd put his solo ventures on ice to help Ozzy Osbourne write and record "Ozzmosis", although Wylde would return to the fold to complete the album, and Vai would, for the most part, put band projects behind him until launching the Satch Vai Band last year.

Luckily, there are no Davids in his newly assembled outfit.

Your tone starts with your fingers and your guitar. Think about all differences that tonewood choices and pickups make to how a guitar sounds.

Now ask yourself: If you had to make a choice, would you choose a cheap guitar with an expensive amp, or an expensive guitar with a cheap amp?

For Yvette Young, the math-rock guitarist for Covet, the answer is clear. As she tells Guitarist, she sees “no point” playing a high-end instrument if the amp it goes through isn’t cut out for the job.

“It’s like ruining a really nice audio file with… I don’t know… something that’s going to degrade it a lot,” she says. “There’s no point, right? I’d rather go for the expensive amp.

Besides, she adds, "‘Cheap guitar’ doesn’t mean bad guitar. I have plenty of guitars that are cheap, but I feel like they still sound really impressive for the price point.”

Young's own setup includes a boutique Silktone amp and her P90-loaded Ibanez Talman. The electric guitar is set to get a new Ibanez signature release, which will mark her third guitar with the Japanese luthier.

“I usually play [Vox] AC30s, but I kind of love how I can get something out of the Silktone without losing definition and clarity,” she says.

“It’s so balanced. [Silktone owner] Charles Henry is the best — I’ll hype him forever; he’s an outstanding person. Those amps really sound so smooth, and I feel like they make me play better.”

As for how she recommends players choose a guitar, Young has a few tips.

“You need to make sure you try the guitar in your own rig,” she says. “Sometimes, if you’re playing out of another amp, it might be brighter than you’re used to. Try to simulate the environment that you’re going to be using the guitar in as accurately as you can.”

Young recently celebrated the release of her first soundscape-conjuring signature stompbox, the Walrus Audio Qi Etherealizer, a feature-packed modulation pedal. The guitarist, who helped design the effect over an exhaustive two-year period, tells Guitar World that she wants it to be a stompbox that sparks new ideas.

“I used to be an art teacher, so the way I talk about music is very visual,” Young explains. “The hardest part in creating, I think, is starting. We have a lot of anxiety; we put a lot of emphasis on how that first mark has to be perfect, but I know with painting that, once I have a big wash of color, that anxiety disappears because I took away that sterile white canvas.

“So for the Qi Ethereal, I wanted it to be an ambient machine and an idea generator, and I wanted you to be able to play guitar with yourself and sound really full. And hopefully make your guitar not sound very much like a guitar!”

The pedal represents the latest addition to the peculiar tone-shaping tools on Young's pedalboard. They include a DigitTech Whammy Ricochet and a Hologram Electronics Microcosm, which is a looper, granular sampler, delay, reverb, pitch modulator, and filter all in one. She says that the Swiss Army pedal is “absolutely essential for me”.

Beyond that, her setup includes two EarthQuaker Devices pedals — the Warden optical compressor and the Avalanche Run delay — which sit alongside a Meris MercuryX for chorus, vibrato and reverb, and an Electronic Audio Experiments Longsword overdrive.

Young is among the cast of next-generation talents with whom Steve Vai is “fascinated" and has featured in several editions of his yearly tuition camp, Vai Academy. She and the shredder locked horns in 2022 with a colorful 80s-inspired jam. It was a moment she described as “a gift."

Vai was clearly impressed as well.

“Yvette is just a wildly artistic person from head to toe,” he had said of her. “Her guitar playing and the things she comes up with is one aspect. It’s a particular color in her palette. She has this creative perspective that I just find so refreshing. She’s an artist, she paints, and I just really love the energy and the atmosphere that she manifests.”

“I have so many years of touring behind me, and during that time there have been plenty of ups and downs,” says Alice Cooper guitarist and solo shred star Nita Strauss as she recalls her best gig and her worst gig. “No matter who you are, things can go wrong at any gig. Your gear goes down, weather doesn’t cooperate, all kinds of things. All you can do is try to play through it.

“Fortunately, if you have a good core group of people around you, problems can be sorted out and the show will go off as planned. If you do it right, the audience will never know there was an issue in the first place.”

Before rejoining Alice Cooper for a spring and summer trek that will hit arenas and festivals in the States and Europe, Strauss is finishing her own theater tour of the U.S. We asked her to pick the best and worst gigs in her long career as an electric guitar player. Here’s what she told us.

THE BEST

“There have been so many highlights — Rock in Rio, Wacken Open Air. But if I were to name my standout favorite, it would be Alice Cooper and Mötley Crüe at the Hollywood Bowl in 2014.

“It was my first Alice Cooper tour, and I had been in the band for only a few weeks. I saw that the Hollywood Bowl was on the itinerary, and I was psyched. Already I had a lot of history with the venue. It was like my hometown amphitheater. I grew up seeing children’s shows there, and when I got older I saw bands like Aerosmith and Van Halen there.

"Funnily enough, my mother saw Alice Cooper at the Hollywood Bowl in the ‘70s, so the thought of her coming to see me playing with Alice at that same venue was mind-boggling. I was thrilled to get my parents a box for the show.

“I wanted to savor every moment of the gig that I could. I walked around before soundcheck and took everything in. It was an incredible feeling to think that I was going to add my own little footnote to the Hollywood Bowl’s history.

“The soundcheck itself was surreal. That line from the movie Rock Star went through my head: ‘If you work hard enough and you want it bad enough, dreams come true.’ I remember standing on that stage and looking out at the lawn. I could see the very seats I once sat in for so many legendary shows. I thought to myself, Okay, now it’s my turn. Let’s do this!

“Before the show, the band does a little huddle. Everybody gets a chance to say anything they want. I got a chance to tell everybody how I grew up seeing shows at the Bowl and what it meant to me to add my little chapter to venue’s story.

“What’s funny is, as pumped as I was to play, I was in kind of a meditative state during the show. As soon as the intro track started, I was in another place where I connected with my instrument, the other band members and the audience. The sound was incredible, and the view was gorgeous. It was one of those shows you dream about, and while it’s happening, you’re thinking, ‘Can this be real?’

“After the show, there were so many friends and family members to see. It was so nice to share the moment of elation with my parents. Not to be braggy, but the Alice band is really good. We always deliver, but when the pressure is on — you know, if it’s Madison Square Garden or the Hollywood Bowl — we seem to take it to the next level. I can proudly say that we gave it our all that night. For me, it was a big item on my bucket list checked off.”

You can see Strauss performing "Eighteen" with Alice at that Hollywood Bowl gig below.

THE WORST

“I was fortunate to have played the worst gig of my life early on. When I was 12 or 13, I joined my first band, ODA. I have no idea what the initials stood for, but I guess they meant something. I was still in middle school, and everybody else in the band was in high school. There was this tiny metal club in San Fernando called the Cobalt Café that held Battle of the Bands nights. We decided that we wanted to enter, but you had to sell 10 tickets for $10 each to get onstage.

“We didn't have a big circle of friends, so we sold a grand total of four tickets to the drummer’s girlfriend and someone’s brother. After that, we were stuck. Who’s got 60 bucks? Well, my dad came to the rescue. He was a touring musician and he knew the deal, so he came to the soundcheck and bought our last six tickets so we could get on stage and play.

“We were so excited — a real show in front of real people! It was going to be amazing. We only knew three songs — two originals and a cover of Metallica’s ‘For Whom the Bell Tolls.’

“We came out and started rocking, and for some reason, almost everybody in the club walked out — including one of the other bands and the judges! My dad stuck around, and the four other people who bought our tickets were there. But that was about it.

“Looking back on it now, I can say it was the crappiest gig I’ve ever played, but at the time, I was elated. I was so fully immersed and happy in that moment to be onstage, wearing my boots and playing in front of a few people. The whole band was pumped. We didn’t care that everybody left. We didn’t even care that the judges left.

“I don’t know who won, or if they announced a winner. We were just like, ‘Yeah, we’re doing it! No matter the obstacles, no matter what happens, we're out here kicking ass!’ Of course, we didn't really kick any ass, but in our minds, in that moment, we kicked ass.

“My dad was awesome about the whole thing. He said I was great and that I shouldn’t let the lack of people bother me. Both of my parents were incredibly supportive, but they didn’t bullshit me or sugarcoat anything. If I played well, they would tell me, but they were always honest. That’s so important, especially when you’re young and you’re learning.”

Strauss also learned the importance of performing in front of people and included it among her top tips for guitarists when she spoke with Guitar Player in February 2023. “It can be daunting at first, but I think you just have to jump in,” she told us. You’ll see that the water is fine.”

It’s certainly worked out fine for Strauss, who recently revealed that she’s earned a fan in Steve Vai, who was one of her big guitar inspirations. “When I was 13 years old, I saw Steve Vai in Crossroads. He was so cool and charismatic,” she recalls. “At the time, I had a guitar, but I hadn’t fallen in love with it yet. I remember watching Steve Vai and thinking, Why didn’t anybody tell me that you could do that with a guitar? That is so cool!”

Steve Vai says he had underrated Adrian Belew’s “brilliance” before teaming up with him in Beat, the prog-rock supergroup devoted to performing King Crimson's 1980s output.

Crimson’s music has always been defined by intricate guitar partnerships between Robert Fripp and whoever his counterpart happened to be. Vai knew that to make the Beat tour a success, he needed a sizzling chemistry with co-guitarist Adrian Belew.

It was never going to be an easy task, thanks to the sheer complexity of the music at hand. Belew himself has admitted he struggled to lock in with Fripp when he joined in 1981 while Jakko Jakszyk has spoken of how their knotted polyrhythms could quickly turn into a “car crash,” if someone slipped up.

However, Vai is full of praise of Belew, telling Music Radar that he “can't say enough about Adrian,” who gave him a small dose of inferiority.

“I knew about his work with Zappa, but that didn’t show me all of his brilliance,” he waxes lyrical. “You need to hear him flexing his muscles in different situations to discover the breadth of the man’s abilities.

“There are his contributions to David Bowie and Talking Heads,” he adds, “but what he did on those ’80s King Crimson records was monumental.”

“I would say Adrian is underrated in the echelons of guitar. Nobody plays like anybody else, nobody can play like me, but they can get sort of close. Honestly, there’s no one close to Adrian.

“There’s a special way he’s crafted his own dimension of sounds,” he maintains. “To see him play this complex polymetric music while singing at 75 is unbelievable. He still hits the notes with that silky voice. He’ll talk and joke around while I have to keep my head down. The man is a marvel!”

He’s also spoken fondly of the partnership they have forged, stating: “Together we’ve merged our sounds in a way that creates a really dynamic show.”

The Beat tour hasn’t been without its teething problems, though. In the much-covered build-up to the tour, Vai admitted that, in the wake of shoulder surgery, playing “Frame by Frame” had proved particularly challenging.

Then, several nights into the tour, he received an email from Robert Fripp, offering him some sage bits of advice to improve his playing on that song, and it made all the difference.

Having trailed across North America last year, Beat will tour South America in April as the King Crimson love-in continues, with Vai still in awe of his bandmate.

Vai is also set to tour with Joe Satriani as part of the SatchVai Band, having tapped up Pete Thorn as a rhythm guitarist.

Despite fears that drum machines and synthesizers would eclipse the guitar in pop music, the 1980s were an incredibly fertile time for electric guitar. Virtuoso soloists like Joe Satriani and Eric Johnson landed instrumental tunes on mainstream rock radio. Steve Val was in heavy rotation on MTV playing with former Van Haien mouthpiece David Lee Roth, and even had a role in the hit film Crossroads.

Then there was Eddie Van Haien, who — after raising the rock world's collective eyebrows with his solos on 1978's Van Halen and '79s Van Halen II — kept the heat up throughout the '80s with a slew of crowd-pleasing albums. Van Halen's celebrity extended beyond guitar culture. He could be seen regularly on MTV and had a cameo on Michael Jackson's mega-single "Beat It."

But virtuoso shred wasn't the only game in town. Many bands — including the Smiths, Bauhaus and U2 — featured guitarists who consciously avoided six-string histrionics. These players were texturalists who used broad palettes of effects to color and shade their music. Their approach grew in popularity, and by the mid '80s, no serious working guitarist could show up at a gig or recording session without the requisite chorus, delay and flanger pedals, or a rack full of digital processors and multieffects.

With the 1980s several decades behind us, we decided to look at the players who molded the sound of guitar back then. We didn't do it for nostalgia's sake. After all, there's loads of inspiration to be found in the tones and ideas these players hatched back in the day. Fire up Metallica's Kill 'Em All and hear just how devastating power chords can be. Spin a Michael Hedges disc and you'll never again think of acoustic guitar as the electric's folky cousin. Throw on a Police album and you're bound to get some new tonal inspiration. Step into the Guitar Player time machine, and you'll see what we mean as we present the decade's most innovative guitarists. They launched a revolution that continues to this day.

Daniel Ash

The goth-influenced soundscapes of English art-rockers Bauhaus and subsequent splinter group Tones on Tail (basically Bauhaus, sans lead singer Peter Murphy) spotlighted Ash's edgy-but-atmospheric tones and creative use of noise. And even when TOT later changed their name to Love and Rockets, and ventured in a more song-oriented direction, Ash never strayed from his ideal of texture over flash. "I love the idea of music that sounds like it comes from another world, but you can still tap your foot to it," he told GP in 1994. "I always found the notion of solos comical — just ego wanking."

Though the EBow was an essential part of Ash's razory sound since the beginning (often pressed directly against the neck pickup), he also relied on delay, flange and tremolo pedals, and employed such tricks as banging on a reverb-equipped amp to coax guitar sounds that were indistinguishable from synths, samples or industrial machinery.

KEY TRACKS "Bela Lugosi's Dead," "Terror Couple Kill Colonel," "Stigmata Martyr," "Hot Trip to Heaven"

1980s GEAR Burns guitars, H&H IC100S amp, Heet Sound EBow, DOD chorus and tremolo pedals, Watkins Copicat tape echo — AT

Adrian Belew

In an era when many guitarists felt threatened by the expansive sonic possibilities of synthesizers, Belew single-handedly proved the guitar to be a limitless tool for unheard-of sounds that no synth could match — from beautiful whale moans to jarring electronic screams. His mind-blowing sonic assaults made him one of the preeminent experimental rock guitarists of the 1980s, and landed him work with King Crimson, Laurie Anderson and David Bowie (on 1979's Lodger, then as Bowie's musical director for the '86 Sound and Vision tour). And Belew's not just a "noise" guy — he's also a master of subtlety. Listen to the Tom Tom Club's hit "Genius of Love." What sounds like a steel drum is actually Belew tapping the strings with one hand while manipulating the resonance control of an ADA flanger.

Belew's contributions to Talking Heads' 1980 release, Remain in Light, still stand as some of rock guitar's most monumentally creative offerings. "Talking Head's music at the time was very funk driven, one-chord stuff — a huge canvas for a guitarist to go wild," Belew told GP in 1990.

KEY TRACKS "The Great Curve" (with Talking Heads). "Elephant Talk" (with King Crimson). "Big Electric Cat," "Twang Bar King" (solo)

1980s GEAR Fender Strat, two modified Fender Mustangs, Roland JC-120 amplifiers, Foxx Tone Machine, various Electro-Harmonix and MXR effects units — DF

Warren Cuccurullo

To legions of pop fans, Missing Persons was all about Dale Bozzio. But as self-conscious and tragically trendy as the L.A. band's image may have been, the "guys" (bassist Patrick O'Hearn, drummer Terry Bozzio, and guitarist Warren Cuccurullo) were absolutely murderous players. All were alumni of Frank Zappa bands, and Cuccurullo's obsession with electronics would help forge Missing Persons into one of the '80s most modern-sounding acts. His massively processed textures, lush distortion washes and soaring, synth-like lines added mystery and excitement to what were, for the most part, merely clever pop songs. And, like Missing Persons' costuming and staging, Cuccurullo's contribution to guitarcraft was scrupulously calculated.

"I want to cut my own niche in rock guitar playing," he said in a February 1985 GP interview. "I want to be easily identifiable and known as a little wiz."

KEY TRACKS "Destination Unknown," "Give," "Mental Hopscotch," "Walking in LA.," "Words"

1980s GEAR Gibson SG and ES-335, self-designed "Missing Link" solidbody (with two necks joined by a loop), custom Performance guitar, custom Vox (assembled from a Vox wah, a Vox neck, and Vox pickups), 100-watt Marshall head and 4x12 cabinet, Garvin X-100B head, Mesa/Boogie head, ADA Flanger, Foxx Tone Machine, Heet Sound EBow, Lexicon Prime Tune, Maestro Super Fuzz, Morley Echo/ Volume, Mu-Tron III, MXR Pitch Transposer — MM

Elliot Easton

With a sound that was as far from macho '70s rock as possible, the Cars were possibly the quintessential '80s band. Looking back on his days in the group, Elliot Easton feels it was no accident that they forged one of rock's most individual and identifiable sounds. "Our different influences made us sound the way we did," he says. "Certain factions of the band were into the technological advances — keyboards and things — while my influences were Moby Grape, the Grateful Dead, and a lot of Memphis soul and New Orleans R&B. There was always a creative rub in the band that made the Cars unique."

On the group's pre-'85 records — The Cars and Candy-O — Easton managed to sneak hot country guitar ("My Best Friend's Girl") and clever bluesy solos ("Bye Bye Love") into the band's poppy tunes. "I never related to the 'skinny-tie' scene," Easton says. “And I was never impressed with the punk-guitar ethic. That whole primitive style of guitar playing is just not what I'm about." What Easton is about is simple. "I think I have a knack for making a song happen," he told GP in '86. "And that's a big get-off for me."

KEY TRACKS "Cruiser," "Magic," "Shake It Up," "Since You're Gone"

1980s GEAR Fender Strat and Telecaster ("I'm a twanger at heart" he says), mono Gibson ES-355, Guild Nightbird and Flyer, Rickenbacker 12-string electric, custom-made Kramer solidbody, assorted Dean solidbodies, assorted amps (including Lab Series, Pearce, Marshall JCM 800, various Fenders and Mesa/Boogies), Boss delay and chorus, Pro Co Rat, Scholz Rockman — DF

The Edge

When the relentless, echo washed lines of "I Will Follow" hit the airwaves in 1980, it was immediately obvious that the world had changed. The cutting-yet-ambient guitar soundscapes were so different from anything else heard at the time that The Edge became an instant guitar hero. However, due to the band's youth — The Edge was only 19 when U2's debut was released — more than a few guitarists assumed that a non-technical player had simply stumbled onto a few glib tricks. Not so.

"I was struck by the fact that groups such as Television had a well-defined sound that was like no one else’s,” The Edge said in the June '85 issue of Guitar Player. "So when we started putting material together, it was always in my mind that we had to find what we could do that was different. The most important thing is that we maintain a certain originality in everything we do."

The Edge remained true to his quest for individuality throughout the '80s, providing fans with thrilling, almost cinematic textures, and challenging other guitarists to re-evaluate their relationship with their instrument "There's no reason on earth why guitar players should copy one another and end up sounding the same," he declared.

KEY TRACKS "Gloria," "I Will Follow," "Sunday Bloody Sunday," "Where the Streets Have No Name," "With or Without You"

1980s GEAR Gibson Explorer, Fender Strat and Tele, Vox AC30, Mesa/Boogie MK-IIC, Boss SCC-700 Effects Center, Electro-Harmonix Memory Man, Korg SDD-3000 digital delay, Yamaha D1500 digital delay and R1000 digital reverb, MXR Pitch Transposer — MM

Billy Gibbons

ZZ Top was already a huge concert act when the advent of MTV in the early '80s gave the "little ol' band from Texas" an opportunity to boogie its way to unprecedented heights. Video images of the bearded mysteriosos with their custom coupe accompanied hit after hit from the 1983 release Eliminator, and behind it all was Top's enigmatic guitarist, Billy Gibbons.

The trademark pick harmonics, stubby solos and grinding riffs that fueled Eliminator and the subsequent Afterburner were old tricks for Gibbons, but his streamlined approach to playing over sequenced grooves made it easy to forget that blues was still the magma at ZZ's core.

As Gibbons explained to GP in 1986, "Try as we might to spice up our sound with synthesizers and this and that, it basically comes down to a few moments of bluesiness that we want to hold onto. That's where we came from, and that's pretty much what we'd like to keep stabbing at."

KEY TRACKS "Dipping Low (In the Lap of Luxury)," "Planet of Women," "Sleeping Bag," "Velcro Fly," "Under Pressure"

1980s GEAR Dean Z, Tom Holmes customs, Strings & Things St. Blues (Strat-style guitar), Roland GR-700 synth, Fairlight digital workstation, Fender and Marshall amps, Scholz Rockman, Roland Dimension D, Ibanez rack effects — AT

Michael Hedges

While the electric guitar was everywhere in the 1980s, the decade also ushered in a rising interest in virtuoso solo acoustic guitar players. The Windham Hill label was the launching pad for many of these guitarists, including William Ackerman (who headed the label) and Alex de Grassi.

Then along came Michael Hedges — with a style that encompassed some of the lyrical, contrapuntal approaches of his labelmates, and also incorporated funky rhythms, minimalist song structures and jazz-inspired chord voicings. As Hedges said in the February '85 Guitar Player, “Ackerman and de Grassi have good rhythm. It's just not as kinetic as mine. They're great impressionists and romantic players, but that doesn't come naturally to me."

Hedges showcased his composing and performing chops on his '81 debut, Breakfast in the Field and the '84 followup, Aerial Boundaries. The latter album featured Hedges' stupefying, one-man-band arrangements, with percussive two-handed tapping and a host of extended-range tunings. Hedges had, in effect, broken the four-minute mile, forever expanding the boundaries of what players and listeners thought was possible in the solo-acoustic realm.

KEY TRACKS "Aerial Boundaries," "The Happy Couple," "Hot Type," "Rickover's Dream," "Spare Change"

1980s GEAR Martin D-28 and00-18, Dyer harp-guitar — AL

James Hetfield

"There was the real glammy stuff when we were starting out playing the clubs in L.A. — the Mötley Crües and the Ratts," James Hetfield said in the April '89 GP. "Music was based around the singer, and no one was really riffing."

With Metallica's first three records, Kill ‘Em All, Ride the Lightning, and Master of Puppets, Hetfield single-handedly changed that, and metal was never the same. Performed with Gibson Flying V or ESP Explorer-style guitars and Mesa/Boogie Mark II heads, Hetfield's punishing lock-step riffs spawned several copy-cat bands, as well as a legion of young, denim jacket-clad guitarists hell-bent on learning Metallica tunes — not the solos, but Hetfield's speedy power-chord riffs, performed almost solely on heavy downstrokes. "That's key!” he said. “It's tighter sounding and a lot chunkier.”

KEY TRACKS "Creeping Death," "Eye of the Beholder," "For Whom the Bell Tolls," "Four Horsemen," "Whiplash"

1980s GEAR Gibson Flying V, ESP Explorer-style solidbody (loaded with EMG pickups), Mesa/Boogie Mark II heads — DF

Allan Holdsworth

In 1980, Allan Holdsworth — a veteran of U.K., Bill Bruford, Tony Williams and Jean-Luc Ponty — formed his groundbreaking quartet, I.O.U. He described the band's music in the December '80 Guitar Player as having "some elements of jazz and rock, but we try not to be overly tricky."

Compared to what? The music on the band's '82 debut, I.O.U., was teeming with modulating time signatures and circuitous chord progressions — in other words, tricky. Holdsworth's unique style featured clarion-toned, legato solos and a unique chordal approach. Only guitarists with brave hearts and pliant hands worked their way through Holdsworth's '85 book of compositions Reaching for the Uncommon Chord.

Holdsworth began looking to guitar synths for new sounds around '85, but because he was prone to playing blazingly fast, synth controllers could barely make sense of what his hands were doing. He eventually found that the Synth-Axe could keep up, and he featured the instrument prominently on his '86 album, Atavachron.

KEY TRACKS "Devil Take the Hindmost," "Panic Station," "Road Games," "Three Sheets to the Wind," "Where Is One"

1980s GEAR Custom Charvel single-humbucker electrics, Ibanez AH-10, SynthAxe, various amps (including Hartley-Thompson, Pearce, Fender and Sundown), Steelmaster volume pedal, Yamaha E-1010 analog delay, two ADA STD-1 stereo tapped delays (one for clean tones, one for dirty). — AL

Eric Johnson

Like Roy Buchanan and Danny Gatton, Eric Johnson initially gained prominence as a result of other guitarists singing his praises. Steve Morse, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Johnny Wffiter and Billy Gibbons were among those who raved about Johnson in interviews. Not a prolific recording artist, Johnson developed his legendary rep based on a radical '84 Austin City Limits performance and the 1986 album Tones, his only release of the decade.

With a rocker's ears, a cellist's hands and an alchemist's curiosity, Johnson forged a signature sound from fluid, multi-octave arpeggios, buttery bends, cascading pentatonic runs, and chimey, close-voiced harmonies. He proved that one could coax sweet, violin-like sustain from a Strat while cruising up and down its fretboard with flawless intonation. It was Johnson who got guitarists thinking about cable impedance and directionality, the timbral differences between germanium and silicon transistors, and carbon-zinc and alkaline batteries. While the rest of the planet was exploring the multichannel amp, he perfected the triple-amp rig. By making us aware of each element in the signal chain, Johnson elevated electric guitar tone to a science.

KEY TRACKS "Cliffs of Dover," "Soulful Terrain," "Rail of Tears"

1980s GEAR '54 Fender Shut, two Fender Twin Reverbs (driving an open-back Marshall 4x12 cab), Dumble Steel String Singer, Dumble Overdrive Special, 100-watt Marshall heads driving Marshall 4x12 cabs, Ibanez TS-9 Tube Screamer, Paul C's Tube Driver, TC Electronic Sustainer, Electro-Harmonix Deluxe Memory Man, Echoplex — AE

Mark Knopfler

Using phasoidal Strat tones, poignant bends and snarky double-stops, Mark Knopfler established himself in the late '70s as a soulful and melodic player — and one who preferred to pick with his fingers! But in '85, with the release of Brothers in Arms, Knopfler and his band Dire Straits hit the musical jackpot. In addition to scoring massive worldwide sales, the album provided Knopfler an opportunity to stretch out as an arranger, songwriter and ensemble leader. His guitar tones expanded to include throaty Les Paul riffs and darker, distorted Strat lines, and he began to explore extended themes involving guitar, keyboards and woodwinds. Released when many listeners were buying their first CDs, Brothers in Arms also became an audio benchmark.

Even today, many engineers use tracks from this beautifully focused recording to fine-tune stage and studio sound systems. Many of Knopfler's new musical ideas emerged from his film scoring experiences, which began in '83 with the magical soundtrack to Local Hero. Cal, The Princess Bride, and Last Exit to Brooklyn followed.

No other guitarist has so successfully combined the twin careers of solo artist and film composer. For Knopfler, each discipline strengthens the other: His albums have become timbrally richer and more thematically complex, and his scores have benefited from his soaring solos and tinkling resonator guitar work.

KEY TRACKS "Brothers in Arms," "Going Home," "Money for Nothing," "Walk of Life"

1980s GEAR Strat-style Schecter with Seymour Duncan pickups, Strat-style Pensa-Suhr with EMG pickups, '53 Gibson Super 400, '58 Gibson Les Paul, '36 Style "0" National, Ovation Adamas, Gibson Chet Atkins solidbody classical, twin 100-watt Soldano heads driving two EV-loaded 4x12 Marshall cabs, rackmounted CryBaby wah, Ernie Ball volume pedal — AE

Steve Lukather

In every decade there's an elite group of studio guitarists who seem to get all the top sessions. In the '70s, it was Larry Carlton and Louie Shelton. In the '90s, Michael Landau, Tim Pierce and Brent Mason ruled the roost.

But in the '80s, it was Steve Lukather. His Reagan-era credits include albums by Eric Clapton, Stevie Nicks, Aretha Franklin, Michael Jackson, Don Henley, the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Joni Mitchell, Manhattan Transfer, Paul McCartney, Chet Atkins and many others. His tight chord work and tasty-yet-muscular solos helped sell literally hundreds of millions of records.

Lukather also had success with his own band Toto — particularly with the 1982 release Toto IV, which enjoyed multi-Platinum sales, hit singles and a sweep of that year's Grammy awards. Through it all, Luke has remained a regular guy who is just happy to play guitar. "I know I'm very lucky," he told GP in June 2000. "I've had the chance to work with all my heroes. My career is a dream come true."

KEY TRACKS 'Africa," "Rosanna" (with Toto). "Dirty Laundry" (with Don Henley). "Running with the Night" (with Lionel Ritchie). "She's a Beauty" (with the Tubes)

1980s GEAR '63 Fender Strat, '59 Gibson Les Paul, Gibson 15, custom Ibanez electrics, Paul Rivera–modified 100-watt Marshalls and Fender Deluxes, Fender Concert Lexicon Prime Time delay, Eventide H910 Harmonizer, Roland SRE-555 Chorus/Echo, various Ibanez multi-effectors — MB

George Lynch

One of the original hot-shot LA metal players, Dokken guitarist George Lynch had chops to burn but always kept them in check with a tasty vibrato and keen sense of melody. When Randy Rhoads left his guitar teaching job for the Ozzy Osbourne gig, he insisted Lynch fill his shoes and take over his students. Not a bad referral.

The majority of Lynch's Aqua Net–glazed fury can be found in his super-charged solos. "I think a typical George Lynch solo should have melody and build to a climax," he told GP in 1986. "Speed is also important. People may get down on that, but it's impressive and it gives the solo energy" Aside from his stellar lead work, Lynch's wicked, tritone-laced riffing absolutely defined the hard rock "hair band" sound for the next several years.

KEY TRACKS "It's Not Love," "Lightning Strikes," "Mr. Scary," "Paris Is Burning"

1980s GEAR Various custom guitars (including Charvel, ESP, and Kramer solidbodies), Aria acoustic, vintage Marshall heads and cabs, Randall amplifiers — DF

Yngwie Malmsteen

The Swedish shred king first hit our pages in Mike Varney's February 1983 Spotlight column. Soon after, Malmsteen came to the States and joined Hollywood metal-rockers Steeler. After working on their '83 album, Steeler, he quickly outgrew the band's limited scope and left to join Alcatrazz. His tenure didn't last long — after recording just one studio album, No Parole from Rock 'n' Roll, he left Alcatrazz to concentrate on his own band, Rising Force, where Malmsteen was finally able to realize his artistic vision.

With intricate original compositions — inspired by classical composers J.S. Bach and Nicolo Paganini — and extended-play solos, Malmsteen tolled the bell for all who had ears to hear: He was the new king of Shred Hill.

KEY TRACKS "Black Star," "Evil Eye," "Far Beyond the Sun" "Icarus' Dream Suite," "Marching Out."

1980s GEAR 1969 Fender Stratocaster (and other Strats of similar vintage, all with scalloped fingerboards), modified 1971 Marshall 50-watt heads, Marshall 4x12 cabinets (with Celestion G-65 speakers), DOD Overdrive Preamp 250, Korg SDD-1000 rackmount digital delay, Fender extra-heavy picks ("I couldn't play with anything else,' he said in the May '85 GP) — AL

Johnny Marr

Armed with a huge palette of tones and a savvy sense for turning oddball chord sequences into hit

songs, the Smith's Johnny Marr forged a guitar style that incorporated '60s primitivism, '70s funkiness

and gobs of Byrds-style chime. Two of the many things that set him apart from his '80s-era contemporaries were his disdain for guitar solos ("I like improvisation in the right place, but I find most solos corny") and his natural ability to create unique clashes by superimposing major and minor modes. "I use a thumbpick,” he told us, “because when you have all five fingers going, your fingers go to progressions you don't even know you're doing.”

Marr's bright, jangly tones always sounded huge without the benefit of distortion, and his spine-chilling slide intro on the pulsating "How Soon Is Now" remains one of the most distinctive guitar sounds ever recorded. Following the breakup of the Smiths in 1987, Marr appeared on albums by the Talking Heads, the Pretenders, Electronic, The The, Paul McCartney, Kirsty MacColl, Bryan Ferry and others.

KEY TRACKS "How Soon Is Now?,” "This Charming Man," "What Difference Does It Make?,” “The Headmaster Ritual," "The Violence of Truth"

1980s GEAR Epiphone Casino, Fender Strat, Gibson ES-335, Gibson Les Paul, Martin D-28, Rickenbacker 330, Fender Bassman, Fender Showman, Fender Twin Reverb, Mesa/Boogie Quad Preamp, Roland JC-120, Dunlop Cry Baby wah, Eventide Harmonizer, Roland GP-8, T.C. Electronic 2290, Yamaha GEP50 — AT

Prince

It's difficult to find an '80s artist more prolific or cutting-edge than Prince, who ushered in the decade with the release of Dirty Mind. On this record of slamming funk rhythms and catchy melodies, Prince was credited as playing guitar, bass, drums and keyboards — as well as singing, producing, arranging and writing all the tunes.

Controversy followed in '81, but it was his '83 album, 1999, that gave him his first taste of superstardom. The infectious title track, with its sinewy chord stabs and slippery wah figures, became an instant classic. Prince's dry, in-your-face rhythm parts set the standard for funk rock in the '80s. Purple Rain took things higher still, with strong tunes and even bolder guitar work. His trademark funk rhythms abound on Purple Rain, but it was the blazing solos on tunes such as "When Doves Cry" and "Let's Go Crazy" that turned guitarists' heads. With over-the top distortion, squealing feedback, and a flamboyant persona (that drew on Hendrix, Little Richard and James Brown influences), Prince the Guitar Hero had arrived.

Prince would go on to release six more albums in the '80s, changing stylistic gears with each record. This incessant self-reinvention confused and alienated some fans, but many of them were brought back into the fold with 1987's Sign O’ the Times, which showed Prince's heavier side (on the title track), as well as his pop stylings ("I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man" and "U Got the Look").

KEY TRACKS "Baby I'm a Star," "Sign O’ the Times," "When Doves Cry" "I Would Die 4 U," "1999"

1980s GEAR Fender Telecaster, Hohner Tele copy, Mesa/Boogie amps, Boss pedals — MB

Trevor Rabin

Seminal prog-rock band Yes had apparently seen the rising and setting of its sun in the 1970s, with nine albums and several hits (including "Roundabout," "Long Distance Runaround" and "Yours Is No Disgrace"). Then, just as 1983 was winding up, South African guitarist/vocalist/producer Trevor Rabin brought his cache of songs to founding members Chris Squire (bass) and Jon Anderson (vocals), and resurrected Yes with the smash 90125, an album rife with slick production, radio-friendly hooks and tactile, layered guitars. Although Rabin's harmonized leads are arguably the most memorable color of his tonal spectrum, his inventive use of modern gear proffered a wealth of tones — from super-compressed clean to crunchy to sweetly sustaining. Even his acoustic guitar tones were amazingly distinctive. In short, Rabin's command of tonal shades proved him to be both a brilliant texturalist and a fiery lead player.

KEY TRACKS "Changes," "Hearts" and ”Owner of a Lonely Heart" (with Yes). "Can't Look Away," "Etoile Noir" (solo)

1980s GEAR '62 Fender Stratocaster (with Seymour Duncan stacked humbuckers and Schaller tuners), two Ernie Ball volume pedals (one for regular volume, one for echo volume), and various MXR pedals (including a Pitch Transposer, a Dyna Comp, a 10-Band graphic EQ, an analog delay, a Distortion+, a flanger and an envelope filter), MXR 15-band EQ and digital reverb rack units, Roland SRE-555 Chorus/Echo — SH

Vernon Reid

Besides blurring color lines as one of the few all-black hard rock bands on the scene, Living Colour launched a whole new sound with their ingenious blend of funk, avant-garde jazz and metal. Guitarist Vernon Reid's massive, Zeppelin-influenced rifling, grinding dissonance, and furiously chromatic solos were masterfully balanced with slithering dance grooves, complex chording and adventurous use of new technology, including samplers and guitar synths, that he combined with his ESP and Hamer Superstrats.

KEY TRACKS "Cult of Personality," "Glamour Boys," "Middle Man," "Open Letter to a Landlord"

1980s GEAR Hamer Chapparal and ESP Strat-style guitars with Floyd Rose tremolos and EMG pickups (two single-coils and a humbucker), Cry Baby wah, Korg volume pedal, Roland GP-8, DigiTech DSP-128, Dean Markley CD-120 1x12 combo and Fender Dual Showman head driving Fender 4x12s, Mesa/Boogie Quad Preamp and Strategy 400 power amp, ADA MP-1, Boogie 4x12 cabinets — SH

Randy Rhoads

Many thought Ozzy Osboume's career was finished when he was fired from the pioneering heavy metal band Black Sabbath in 1978. However, thanks to his discovery of the brilliant, classically trained guitarist Randy Rhoads, Osbourne emerged triumphant in 1980 with Blizzard of Ozz — an album that is still regarded as one of metal's finest. As one of the few hard rock guitarists of the early '80s who didn't jump on the Van Haien bandwagon, 22-year-old Rhoads introduced the world to a distinctive tone and unmistakable style that bristled with blinding pull-off licks, staccato rhythms, and chromatic solo flurries. Despite a sparse discography, Rhoads has gone down in history as one of heavy metal's most original guitarists.

KEY TRACKS "Crazy Train," "Dee," "Flying High Again," "I Don't Know"

1980s GEAR Gibson Les Paul, custom V-shaped electric with DiMarzio pickups, Grover Jackson–designed shark’s-fin guitars equipped with Seymour Duncan pickups, Dunlop Cry Baby, Korg delay, 100- watt Marshall heads through Marshall 4x12 cabinets with Altec speakers, MXR Distortion+, EQ, chorus, and flanger pedals — SH

joe Satriani

In the early '80s, Joe Satiani was a guitar teacher in Berkeley, California, with a couple of band projects and some sessions under his belt. By 1987, he was on the cover of every guitar magazine in the world, thanks to Surfing with the Alien.

With dazzling technique, high-energy tunes and extreme guitar tones, Satch proved that all the rumors of his greatness (some of which were started by his former student, Steve Vai) were true. And he did something that very few guitar heroes have done — sell records.

Surfing was a smash hit with guitarists and non-guitarists alike, and Satriani would enjoy further success with his subsequent releases and tours. He was also picked by Mick Jagger to go on the road and cover parts originally played by Keith Richards and Jeff Beck.

Looking back on his debutante decade, Satch told us, "Making the transition from giving lessons in the back of a store to being the Surfing with the Alien guy and Mick's lead guitarist was a completely mind- and life-altering experience."

KEY TRACKS "Circles," "Hordes of Locusts," "Ice 9," "Mystical Potato Head Groove Thing," "Satch Boogie"

1980s GEAR Homemade Strat-style guitars, Ibanez solidbodies, 100-watt Marshall amps, Scholz Rockman, Echoplexes, Boss CE-1 chorus — MB

Neal Schon

As a teenager in 1970, Neal Schon achieved Northern California royalty status by joining Carlos Santana's band. A couple of years later, Schon formed his own group, Journey, which became increasingly popular with its Santana-esque brand of jam rock. At the close of the '70s, however, Journey found their winningest formula when they added vocalist Steve Perry and moved in a more pop-rock direction. When the '80s rolled in, Schon was the guitarist — and one of the chief songwriters — of a veritable hit machine.

What set him apart from most other popsters of the decade, however, was his stellar guitar work. Schon's punchy, intricate rhythm parts — and his soaring leads that blended melodicism, dynamics and fiery chops — earned him unshakeable street cred among guitar freaks. His two albums with keyboard god Jan Hammer further cemented his rep as a player, making him the first choice as a jam partner when guitarists such as Gary Moore, Eddie Van Haien and Jeff Beck came to town.

KEY TRACKS "Walks Like a Lady" "Stone in Love," "Girl Can't Help It" (with Journey). "I'm Down," "No More Lies" (with Jan Hammer)

1980s GEAR 1963 Fender Strat, Gibson Les Pauls, Aria Pro II, various amps (including Peavey Mace, Fender, Marshall and Mesa/Boogies), Electro-Harmonix Hot Tubes — MB

John Scofield

Celebrating his blues and funk influences — and attacking the electric guitar as a truly electric instrument,

with bluesy bends and chorus-tweaked tones — John Scofield brought an earthy vibe to jazz's heady mindset. He was also one of the '80s most versatile jazz guitarists, performing with Miles Davis, pianist McCoy Tyner and the French National Orchestra.

"One thing I learned from Miles Davis," Scofield said in '84, "is not to be afraid to play what you hear. In other words, just play what you feel. Miles was a master of the fine art of letting things happen naturally"

Scofield spent much of the '80s expanding the progressive ideology that began with his Davis tenure by working with contemporary jazz-funk rhythm sections. Then in 1989, he bid the decade farewell with Time on My Hands, a stinting return to the acoustic jazz realm.

KEY TRACKS 'All the Things You Are," "Pick Hits," "Techno," "Who's Who" (solo). "What It Is" (with Miles Davis)

1980s GEAR Gibson ES-335 and ES-175, Ibanez Artist AS-200, Polytone Mini-Brute IV, Music Man 410-HD, Sundown amps, Ibanez stereo chorus and stereo reverb, Pro Co Rat, Boss Octaver — MM

Brian Setzer

They had the look, the attitude and the wild-boy flash of rockabilly rebels, but while MTV pumped up the fashion factor for video fanatics, the Stray Cats were more than mere cartoons. Credibility came howling from Brian Setzer's Gretsch 6120, with a lead style that honored the genre's heroes while simultaneously nudging rockabilly into uptown duds. Setzer was channeling Django Reinhardt and other jazz greats along with hellraisers such as Carl Perkins, Cliff Gallup and Paul Burlison.

"When I first heard Cliff Gallup," said Setzer in the September '83 Guitar Player, "he was kind of what I wanted to be — a jazzy rockabilly player. He really sent me."

But while Setzer's head was sometimes transcending rockabilly conventions, his tones were totally true blue. "I use the middle-pickup position on my Gretsch," he explained in '83. "I usually turn the presence up full on my Bassman, and the volume to about four or five — just to the point where it's about to distort. The volume is so low, I could play in my bedroom and it would be fine. I usually put the bass around five, and the treble up to eight. I set the echo for one repeat almost directly after the original note — bop, bop. It's pretty tight."

Shooting the Cats beyond the tattoos and haircuts of lesser rockabilly contenders was the fact that Setzer was absolutely immersed in the style. He got it. "The early rockabilly stuff is basically a country guitarist trying to play rock and roll guitar — which is a mixture of black blues and white country" he said. "It's a feel. A lot of people put the cart before the horse. They think they've got to buy a '58 Gretsch and an old Fender amp. That stuff is great, but you've got to have the feel."

KEY TRACKS "18 Miles to Memphis," "Double Talkin Baby" "Rock this Town," "(She's) Sexy & 17," "Stray Cat Strut"

1980s GEAR 1959 Gretsch 6120 Chet Atkins, '60s blond Fender Bassman, NCR Analog Delay, Dean Markley strings (.010 or .011 set) — MM

Robert Smith

As main guitarist and visionary for what has been called "the world's biggest cult band," Smith graced the nine Cure albums released during the '80s with moody, multicolored guitar. Listen to what lurks behind any of the Cure's hooky vocal melodies and you'll likely find complex patterns of intersecting guitar parts that swirl around the main line to create an energetic and enticing backdrop.

Able to visualize the entire song during the recording process, Smith typically recorded all the guitars himself, adding depth and color to his six-string tapestries by incorporating open tunings and tracking each part with varying degrees of distortion and/or effects.

Alternative instruments also factored heavily into Smith's sonic sculpting. As he told GP in 1992, "The whole Faith album [released in '81] has six-string bass. I think when people talk about the 'Cure sound,' they mean songs based on six-string bass guitar, acoustic guitar and the Solina (a.k.a. the ARP String Ensemble)." One of Smith's more oddball studio tricks involved detuning each of his guitars' high E strings a few cents apart to create natural chorusing effects when the individual tracks were mixed together.

KEY TRACKS "The Blood," "Fascination Street," "Love Cats," "Other Voices "

1980s GEAR Fender Jazzmaster, Gibson Chet Atkins, Ovation six- and 12-string acoustics, '62 Fender Bass VI, Peavey amps, Dunlop Cry Baby, Boss pedals (chorus, delay, flange, phase, and overdrive) — AT

Steve Stevens

A central figure in Billy Idol's aggressive mix of punk, new wave, heavy metal and dance music, Steve Stevens wrote the book on balancing texture and technique. “I try to avoid the lead guitar-solo syndrome," he told GP in 1984. "My approach is more sonic than actual notes — if you have a really brilliant sound together, you don't have to play all that many notes."

Stevens elevated the songs he and Idol wrote into a realm that blurred the line between Ozzy-approved pyrotechnics and Bauhaus-style noise-art. Wielding short, fierce solos, feedback assaults, trem-bar antics and sci-fl-style sound effects, he furnished Idol's Rebel Yell with wall-to-wall guitar. But when the following release, Whiplash Smile, took a more techo-oriented turn, the guitarist decided it was time to get his own band together.

Stevens' inventive guitar playing resurfaced in full force on his 1989 solo debut Atomic Playboys, a release that gave Stevens the opportunity to indulge his hard-rock side, as well as his interests in R&B, pop-jazz, and John McLaughlin–style acoustic work. "I never wanted to lose the acoustic part of my playing," Stevens said. "I always loved the way that people like Robert Fripp, Steve Howe and Steve Hackett could be acoustic players, but also utilize effects."

KEY TRACKS: "Atomic Playboys" (solo). "Eyes Without A Face," "Flesh For Fantasy" "Rebel Yell," "White Wedding" (with Billy Idol)

1980s GEAR '53 Gibson Les Paul, Hamer Steve Stevens Signature, custom Suhr Strat-style, custom Jackson, Guild acoustics, Roland GR-700 synth, Marshall IMP and KM 800 heads, Vox AC30, Boss effects (CS-2 compressor, 0C-2 Octaver, CE-2 chorus), Vox Clyde McCoy and Cry Baby wahs, Pro Co Rat, Eventide 999 Harmonizer, Lexicon PCM-41 multi-effector, Maestro Echoplex, Roland rack effects (SDE-3000, SRE-555, Dimension D), Scholz Rockman — AT

Andy Summers

The Police launched in 1978 with the release of Outlandos d'Amour, and the band hit their stride in the early '80s with Zenyatta Mondatta and Ghost in the Machine. Vocalist/bassist Sting was the Police's chief songwriter, but Andy Summers had a more vital role in shaping the band's sound. His novel chord voicings, off-beat (in both senses) rhythm grooves, and shimmering chorus and delay-laden tones were essential to Police hits such as "De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da."

In the January 2001 issue of Guitar Player, Summers revealed that "procedure by negation" was the key to sculpting his unique guitar voice. "Back in my Police days," he said, "I thought, Everyone's still jamming on power chords. I don't want to do what everyone else is doing, so what am I left with?"

One thing Summers did to outstrip the Joneses was to avoid distortion or overdrive — except as a last resort. (The solo on "Driven to Tears" showcases his dirty side.) Another Summers-ism was to use add9 chords in place of standard barres and power chords. ("Every Breath You Take" is built almost entirely around major and minor add9 chords.) He also avoided the cliché of extended solos, favoring brief, personal anti-solos. (Check out his synthed-out breakdown on "Don't Stand So Close to Me.")

Ironically, Summers' innovations were embraced by legions of post-Police guitarists, rendering his specialties nearly as common as the generic affectations he sought to avoid.

KEY TRACKS "Driven To Tears," "Every Breath You Take," "Message in a Bottle," "One World," "Walking on the Moon"

1980s GEAR 1963 Fender Telecaster Custom (with Gibson humbucker in the neck position), Roland guitar synths (G-303 or G-707 controller guitar with GR-300 or GR-700 synth module), various amps (including Mesa/Boogies and Marshalls), Electro-Harmonix Electric Mistress flanger, Musitronics Mu-Tron III envelope filter, Roland RE-301 Chorus Echo, Echoplec, MXR pedals (Distortion+, Phase 90, analog delay and Dyna Comp) — AL

Steve Vai

The first murmurings of Steve Vai's talent began when he was credited with "impossible guitar parts" on Frank Zappa's Man from Utopia. His first solo album, Flex-Able, showed what Vai could do when left to his own devices — namely, creating wacky tunes that proudly displayed his Zappa influence and his stunning chops. Filling the shoes vacated by Yngwie Malmsteen, Vai joined Alcatrazz for one incredible album, Disturbing the Peace. Criminally under-promoted and underappreciated, the album features songwriting, tones and arrangements that can hang with Vai's most celebrated work.

His next move, to David Lee Roth's band, brought Val squarely into the spotlight with one of the most high-profile rock gigs of the decade. He also recorded and/or toured with Whitesnake and PIL in a decade where it seemed as if there was nothing he couldn't do.

KEY TRACKS "The Attitude Song," "Viv Woman" (solo). "Jazz Discharge Party Hats" (with Frank Zappa). "Painted Lover" (with Alcatrazz). "Shy Boy," "Skyscraper" (with David Lee Roth)

1980s GEAR: '78 Fender Strat with DiMarzio X2N bridge pickup, custom Charvels, various Ibanez JEM models, Carvin X-100B amp, 100-watt Marshall, Roland SDE-3000 delay, Boss SD-1 Super OverDrive. — MB

Eddie Van Haien

Van Halen's 1978 debut — and Eddie Van Halen's "Eruption" solo, in particular — breathed new life into rock and sent hordes of guitarists scrambling to the woodshed. However, Van Halen continued to leave jaws agape throughout the '80s. Though two-handed tapping, whammy-bar abuse and raging staccato licks are the most conspicuous marks of his signature sound, Van Haien also surprised the guitar galaxy with deft slide work, intricate classical-flavored pieces and impeccable rhythm playing. His influence on subsequent generations simply can't be overstated. Eddie Van Halen stands as one of guitar's most far-reaching and important innovators.

KEY TRACKS "Cathedral," “Could This Be Magic," "Hot for Teacher," "Little Guitars" and "Mean Street"

1980s GEAR Charvel Strat-style guitar (with a '58 Strat bridge — later exchanged for a Floyd Rose — and a Gibson PAF humbucker), custom Kramers (with PAFs or Seymour Duncans and Floyd Roses), MXR Phase 90 and Flanger pedals, Echoplex, Lexicon PCM-70, Eventide 949 Harmonizer, Roland SDE-3000 delay, Variac-equipped 100-watt Marshall plead heads with Marshall 4x12s — SH

Stevie Ray Vaughan

At a time when drum machines ruled and it was hipper to own a Roland G-707 synth guitar than a '62 Strat, Stevie Ray Vaughan pushed bare-knuckle blues back onto the airwaves. Ironically, most listeners first heard Vaughan as a sideman on David Bowie's club-oriented Let's Dance. In '83, pop radio was dominated by new wave and synth bands, so Vaughan's stinging Strat tones and Albert King–inspired bends in "China Girl" and "Let's Dance" sounded downright revolutionary. That same year, Vaughan's bluesy debut, Texas Flood, hit the Top 40 and established the 29-year-old as a bona fide guitar hero. For the first time in more than a decade, it was cool to play blues.

For the next seven years, Vaughan never strayed from his roots, recording taut, guitar-driven R&B with his Lone Star confederates, Double Trouble. Whether reinterpreting Hendrix and Howlin' Wolf, or pounding out an original R&B shuffle, Vaughan infused each note with palpable tension. You can witness his blend of feral energy and superb technique in Live at the El Mocambo, a video shot in a sweaty Toronto nightclub in '83. Because of its unwavering honesty, Vaughan's music remains as popular as ever.

KEY TRACKS "Lenny," "Love Struck Baby," "Pride and Joy," "Texas Flood," "Voodoo Chile (Slight Return)"

1980s GEAR '59 sunburst Fender Strat, a pair of sequentially serial-numbered '63 Fender Vibroverb 1x15 combos, Fender Vibratone, Ibanez TS-9 Tube Screamer — AE

Jamie West-Oram

Punctuating the Fixx's radio hits with his chorused, squeaky-clean Strat tones, Jamie West-Oram was one of the most identifiable guitarists on the '80s new wave front. Though his restrained funk rhythms, shimmering harmonics, palm-muted syncopations, and echo-drenched chordal washes marked him as mainly a texturalist, West-Oram also peppered his work with quirky whammy warbles, feedback-soaked squeals, and brief-but-cathartic solos. His unique sound earned him sideman gigs with many notable artists, including Tina Turner, Depeche Mode, Stevie Nicks and Brian Eno.

KEY TRACKS "One Thing Leads to Another," "Red Skies," "Saved by Zero," "Stand or Fall"

1980s GEAR Charvel Strat-style guitar (with Schecter neck, EMG single-coils, and a Floyd Rose tremolo), Marshall 50-watt heads with JBL-loaded 2x12s, Korg digital delay, Yamaha SPX-90, MXR stereo chorus, Pro Co Rat — SH

“You’d be surprised how hard it is to find a big rock electric guitarist playing rhythm in tune,” Steve Vai says.

He would know. As Vai and Joe Satriani set out to create their new SatchVai band, they had to — for the first time together — choose bandmates to provide support for their lead guitar antics. And the rhythm guitarist who most impressed Vai was Pete Thorn. In addition to working with numerous artists ranging from Melissa Etheridge to Don Henley, the session veteran is a YouTube influencer who’s well known for his gear reviews.

“Pete Thorn, I’ve admired him for quite a while,” Vai tells Cassius Morris in a new interview. “He’s like a soldier, you know? He’s like a guitar soldier.”

As Vai tells Morris, he has special praise for the electric guitar player’s ability to perform his rhythm parts “in tune."

“There’s a way that some people hit the strings,” Vai explains. “They just explode and resonate beautifully, like Angus, or even – oddly enough – Kurt Cobain.”

Notably, Angus Young told Guitar Player about the importance of rhythm guitar playing, and Joe Satriani recently commented on Cobain’s talents as a guitar player that he feels are often overlooked.

“When you add more gain, it’s harder to make chords and playing sound really good,” Vai continues. “And Pete – he’s just a master at it.”

Thorn originally came to Vai’s attention through his YouTube channel, which he launched 11 years ago.

“I first started hearing him when he was demoing gear, and I’m like, ‘Wow, that’s a great tone,” Vai says. “I’m checking the boxes, you know?

“And his lead playing is beautiful. His intonation is great. He’s just like a real soldier,” says Vai. “And so, it’s gotta be nice to have that underneath everything.”

As Thorn himself recently pointed out, Vai made an impression on him not only with his own guitar playing but also with his humanity following the death of Chris Cornell on May 18, 2017. Thorn was Cornell's friend and touring guitarist, and was still reeling from his passing when a friend invited him to attend the 2017 Malibu Guitar Festival to help distract him from his sorrow.

“It was two days after Chris Cornell had passed,” Thorn tells Guitar World. “A friend who did some work for Steve invited me to get me out of the house.” Despite his funk, Thorn went to the show. Afterward, he was summoned to the backstage area to see Vai.

“Steve motioned for me to come over, then sat with me and proceeded to say — and I'm paraphrasing a bit — ‘I know you lost your friend, and I just want you to know that you can still have a relationship with him. It's too soon now, but the time will come where you think of them, and it'll be good thoughts — happy, good memories.’

“I will never forget that,” Thorn continues. “Here, I'd lost a close friend and collaborator, and a hero of mine, from the time I was 11 years old or so, took the time to console me… And that's Steve.”

Thorn joins an elite group of guitarists who have won praises from Vai. In recent years, the virtuoso has raved about Matteo Mancuso as a great new young guitarist who is blazing a trail with his virtuoso fingerstyle playing.

Nita Strauss also revealed recently that Vai — who was one of her big guitar heroes as a young player — has been super supportive of her career since their friendship began a few years ago. “Actually, he sends me emails every once in a while,” she told Rock Antenne, “and he'll be like, 'Look! What a great article about you in Guitar World.'

The SatchVai tour launches in England on June 13. Vai says he and Satriani have been “feverishly writing” new music together, which is a new skill set for him.

“That’s just so great because I’m not usually a collaborator, you know, when it comes to my catalog in my solo work,” he says. “But I am a very good collaborator when I know the project and I know the people and I know what’s expected of me, so with Joe it’s just like heaven in a cup. Because he’s just a great collaborator that way too.”

Nita Strauss’ stock has elevated to great heights in recent years, with many considering her the cream of the crop for female shredders. But despite her rising star, she still gets “nervous about” her guitar hero, Steve Vai.

They’ve forged a friendship over the years. and have even shared stages. Vai represents something of a father figure for her in the guitar world, and the Alice Cooper guitarist has earned more and more column space in guitar magazines as time has passed.

“He is so nice,” she says, speaking to Rock Antenne at Guitar Summit 2024. “Actually, he sends me emails every once in a while, and he'll be like, 'Look! What a great article about you in Guitar World.'

“So it's very surreal. But he's always been so, so complimentary, and so kind to me as a young artist sort of following in his footsteps. That's always been really, really cool.”

Strauss has previously revealed to Guitar Player that Steve Vai, and his iconic Crossroads performance, in particular, had cemented her infatuation with the electric guitar. That saw her “devour,” educational material as she set out on her path to stardom.

“When I was 13 years old, I saw Steve Vai in Crossroads. He was so cool and charismatic,” she recalls. “At the time, I had a guitar, but I hadn’t fallen in love with it yet. I remember watching Steve Vai and thinking, Why didn’t anybody tell me that you could do that with a guitar? That is so cool!”

Having Vai in her contacts book, then, and a supportive one at that, must be quite a shock to the system for the guitarist.

However, while Vai’s playing resonated with her, naturally she craved a guitarist to look up to that represented her. For the 38-year-old, hot-shot female players were hard to come by.

“It's important to act as a role model, even if you aren't one on a grand scale,” she expands during her chat at Guitar Summit. “But when I was growing up, there were not a lot of female guitar players in the scene, and it was hard to find somebody that sort of checked the boxes for me. For me, that person was Jennifer Batten.”

Batten is best known for having played on three world tours with Michael Jackson during the late ‘80s and ‘90s. She also starred on two Jeff Beck albums, 1999’s Who Else!, and its 2001 follow-up, You Had It Coming.

“Watching Jen on the biggest stage in the world, with the biggest star in the world, Michael Jackson, shredding, playing the Super Bowl, blazing solos faster than anybody that I'd ever seen,” Strauss reflects. “It was just amazing to see a girl up there doing that, and I think ‘If I can create that moment for some girls of the next generation, that's really special’.”

She’s quick to brush off the "female guitar player" tag too, believing there “are more important things to get offended about.”

“To be honest with you, that doesn't really bother me. I hear some people get offended by that saying, 'Oh, you should not be called the best female player. You should just be the best player.' I'm just happy to be in that conversation because I don't think I'm the best. I don't think I'm faster or more technical than anyone.”

Meanwhile, Strauss accidentally caused a guitarist merry-go-round in the Alice Cooper camp. She was forced to pull out of his ongoing U.S. tour due to solo touring commitments.

That made it possible for her predecessor, Orianthi, to return to Cooper's band, only for a freak injury to force her to pull out. The Godfather of shock rock then turned to former Guns N’ Roses guitarist Gilby Clarke, just days ahead of the tour.

It's not the first time that Strauss has stepped away for other commitments. She did so in 2022 to shred stages with pop singer-turned-rock star Demi Lovato, a move that Cooper wholly supported.

Speaking to GP about his “revolving door” of guitar players, he said he feels “lucky to have played with so many great ones”.

Strauss is expected to return to the fold ahead of the next tour.

By 1984, David Lee Roth had tired of having to share Van Halen’s limelight with its all-star super shredder, Eddie Van Halen. So he flew the nest with the intention of not only establishing himself as a solo artist but going one better than the band with whom he’d made his name.

According to Alex Van Halen, Eddie’s decision to record the solo for Michael Jackson’s "Beat It" solo in secret proved the final straw for the singer. David Lee Roth saw red and headed for the exit.

But if the attention-craved singer was to take Van Halen’s throne, he needed the personnel to take him to the next level. After releasing his debut EP, Crazy From the Heat in January 1985 — 40 years ago this month — he set about assembling a supergroup worthy of the cause. Over the next decade and a half, Roth would welcome three huge guitar playing talents into his world as he vied to cast the limelight-soaked Eddie Van Halen in shadow.

First, he secured the virtuosic services of Steve Vai, who had left Frank Zappa’s band two years prior. Alongside bass player Billy Sheehan and drummer Gregg Bissonette, Roth showed his first major hand and demonstrated an astute eye for talent.

Vai’s post-Zappa career saw him release his first solo album, Flex-Able in 1984 and join Alcatrazz. Then he found himself helping shape the solo career of Van Halen’s outspoken frontman.

“My ideas were being depended on, because I was the guitar player and it was very cool,” the guitarist remembers of his time in the band [via VRP Rocks]. “Throughout my teenage years, I was really into Led Zeppelin, Queen, Deep Purple. So I had the rock and roll thing in my soul.

“When Dave came along, it was an opportunity to stretch that muscle and it resonated well because he has a bizarre sense of humor, and so do I. It worked. Something like 'Yankee Rose' with the talking guitars? Sophisticated rock stars don't do stuff like that!

“The energy that the whole band created was indestructible,” Vai continues. “He depended on us to write the music, to write lyrics and melodies too. Not only did I have the freedom to write what I wanted, I had to push myself to go beyond my own vision.”

Roth's debut LP, Eat ‘Em and Smile was released in 1986. The landmark success of its lead single, "Yankee Rose" — talking guitars and all — was a strong showing, and it proved to any doubters that Roth meant business.

Many were quick to compare Vai to Eddie Van Halen ± just as Jake E. Lee was fielding comparisons between him and Randy Rhoads around the same time — but Vai didn’t see it like that.

“Having the shadow of Edward looming over me… to feel the pressure would mean I was competing with him,” he says. “You can't do that.”

Vai left the band for new pastures after 1988’s Skyscraper. Roth again showed his shrewd eye for guitarists by hiring Jason Becker, who had blazed a trail alongside Marty Friedman in Cacophony.

“It was very exciting,” Becker remembers about his entrance into DLR's world. “At that time, I was pretty confident about my guitar playing. Once I met Dave and all the guys in the band, I was totally comfortable. They all made me feel so appreciated and welcomed me and my youthful energy. At a fancy dinner at Dave's house, he made a toast to 'the new gunslinger in town.' ”

However, Roth’s best-laid plans, which revolved around his new hot-shit gunslinger, began to unravel. While working on Roth’s third solo album, A Little Ain't Enough, Becker was plagued by a nagging pain in his left leg.

A year later, having barely left his teenage years behind him, he was diagnosed with ALS, a.k.a. Lou Gehrig’s Disease. It was predicted he had less than five years to live and was losing his strength rapidly.

Becker was able to complete his parts but his playing style suffered. Unable to rely on speed, he looked to one of his earliest influences for help.

“I think Eric Clapton's playing was a great building block for me,” he told Guitar Player in 2012. “You definitely wouldn’t hear his influence on my style in my earlier recordings, like Perpetual Burn, unless you dig deep.

“On the Roth album and as my hands got weaker, you can hear a little more Clapton in my notes.”

Ozzy Osbourne touring guitarist Joe Holmes was drafted in for the live shows, but with the rise of grunge, Roth's brand of brazen glam metal was falling out of favor.

Steve Hunter featured on Roth's Nile Rodgers–produced fourth LP, Your Filthy Little Mouth, in 1994, before the singer found another legend-in-making: John Lowery, who would eventually become popular as John 5,

Guesting on Machine Head frontman Robb Flynn’s No F’n Regrets podcast in 2021, John 5 revealed he got the gig in the strangest of circumstances.

“I remember sitting on the couch — and I loved Van Halen, loved David Lee Roth — and I’m going, ‘I wonder what Dave’s doing…’” he recalls.

John 5 managed to get three songs before his idol after calling a phone number he found in a promo book for Crazy From the Heat. Among his demos was "Slam Dunk!," a song he describes as “my best Van Halen song impression.”

Before he knew it, he was a part of the band, tracking and mixing an album across a warp-speed 11 days. "He goes, ‘We’re going to make a record, just like the old Van Halen days, we’re going to do everything live,’" John 5 recalled.

“He would have palm trees in the studio; he would have sand in a studio; he’d have drinks set up, and it was just the greatest. He knows everything — he knows every beat, he knows every chord. He’s very, very tuned in.”

John 5 was on double duty handling electric guitars and bass for 1998's DLR Band, the group's first self-titled album. The lineup also included an unknown drummer called Ray Luzier who would later join Korn, one of the grunge bands that nearly killed Roth's solo career.

John 5 didn’t stick around for another record, ultimately joining Marilyn Manson, and then Rob Zombie. However, his trajectory, like Vai's, has continued to rise since their DLR days.

While Roth's solo career never got close to reaching Van Halen’s dizzying heights, he at least showed a knack for promoting young talents and it could be argued neither Vai nor John 5 would have enjoyed the level of success they’ve without their brief moments beside the singer.

Comments from two very different types of guitar heroes, Steve Vai and Marty Friedman, show how impactful the late John Sykes’ playing personality was on his peers.

The British guitarist, who enjoyed stints in Thin Lizzy and Whitesnake, passed away last year after a lengthy battle with cancer, it was revealed on January 20. Having earned his stripes in Tygers of Pan Tang, Sykes joined Phil Lynott's Irish heavyweights for their final record, 1982's Thunder and Lightning, replacing Snowy White. He then moved to Whitesnake, where he elevated the band from pub rockers to arena-fillers, starting with the 1984 double Platinum–selling Slide It In.

Issues with frontman David Coverdale saw him leave the band shortly before the release of their 1987 self-titled LP, which paved the way for Steve Vai's trailblazing cameo on '89's Slip of the Tongue. Vai has nothing but respect for his predecessor.

“Whitesnake had gone through different permutations of guitar sounds throughout the years, [but] Sykes didn’t sound like any other previous Whitesnake guitarist,” he says. “His thumbprint is an indelible part of the Whitesnake record he did. The fatness of that record and the rock integrity it had was all Sykes. So I knew I wasn’t going to sound like Sykes and I wasn’t going to try to.

“You cheat yourself when you try to do that and play like someone else, and the audience is a lot smarter than you think,” he extends.

Speaking in the wake of his passing as a guest on the SiriusXM's Trunk Nation With Eddie Trunk, Friedman echoed Vai's sentiments.

“John Sykes was a big influence to me when I was developing,” he offers. “I just wanna say I'm just really bummed out about it, because when I heard Tygers of Pan Tang, I was really into the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, and it was very innovative as far as heavy metal and rock rhythm guitar went, and that was kind of the big signature of it.

“I think that John Sykes was the first guy, as a lead guitarist, just playing mind-boggling guitar in that context. At that time it was really cool rhythms, and the solos were just kind of your basic regular solos. But when John Sykes came out on Tygers’ Spellbound album, it was a game changer for me. So he was the first guy in that genre that I heard that was, like, 'Wow, these lead guys can really take an exciting part of the band's sound.'”

Friedman is known for his lead chops, having first broken into the scene in Cacophony alongside another hot-shot virtuoso, Jason Becker. That earned him a spot in Megadeth, where he played a key role in some of their biggest records, including 1990’s blisteringly technical Rust In Peace and its double Platinum–selling follow-up, Countdown to Extinction.

“It was an extremely important influence to myself and a lot of the people that I've met over the years playing metal,” Friedman says.

Friedman says he was also impressed by the simplicity of Sykes' approach.

“He's not a dude that lives and dies by effects and strange sound textures,” he establishes. “There's absolutely nothing wrong with that, but I think one thing that I was influenced by him is [the realization that tone] is in the hands — the sound, the touch and the intention.

“He wasn't a guy who relied on tricks. He was a real player's player. As soon as you heard his solo, the level of the song all of a sudden went up. And at the time, I was very, very smitten with that. I loved New Wave of British Heavy Metal, [but] the lead guitar parts were always, for lack of a better word, 'pedestrian.' They weren't at the level of John Sykes. You had to really be a player to be like that.

“So when I heard him, it opened up a lot of things for me, mentally, to try to be more like that, and when the solo comes to make it an exciting part of the song. That was something he was doing way, way back, before heavy metal was popular. So I think he left a big mark on a lot of people, not just myself.”

After leaving Whitesnake, Sykes joined up with drummer Carmine Appice and bass player Tony Franklin in the power trio Blue Murder before forging a solo career, releasing five albums.

He was, at varying points, in the running to join Def Leppard, Guns N’ Roses, and the Winery Dogs, and was planning to release his solo album Sy-Ops in 2025.

Two dates into 2024’s headline-grabbing Beat tour, Steve Vai received some helpful advice on how to play a King Crimson song. It came from a reliable source: Robert Fripp.

Vai has of course made no bones about the size of the task he accepted when he signed up to play Fripp's parts in Beat, the all-star King Crimson tribute band featuring Adrian Belew, bassist Tony Levin and drummer Danny Carey. The “relentlessness” of Fripp’s picking style was the biggest mountain he had to climb as he prepared for last year’s 65-date tour.

Belew, who joined King Crimson in 1981 and recorded six albums with the group, was sympathetic to Vai's woes, having experienced similar struggles himself.

“It took me quite a while to be able to lock in with him,” he's said of working with Fripp. “Robert told me I don’t hold my pick correctly. Which is true. I never concentrated on that. There are other things about the instrument that I preferred.”

While Belew was forthcoming with tips and tricks for his new guitar partner, Fripp had left him to his own devices. Until two nights into the tour, that is.

“We get to our second show and I get an email from Robert,” Vai says in a newly released mini-film made by Sweetwater to document the tour. “He was commenting on some of the clips he saw, which was very nice and constructive. And then he said at the end, 'Can I make a suggestion for 'Frame by Frame'?’”

"Frame by Frame" is one of two songs Vai described as the biggest challenges in the set ("Elephant Talk" is the other). It proved especially difficult for Vai due to shoulder surgery he had in 2021, and Fripp had seen something in a video of the show that he didn't like.

"He said, ‘Why don’t you hammer 'Frame by Frame'? Grab the initial notes and then improvise on it. Then go to the next chord and do that.’

“This was something I kind of thought of in the beginning, but I thought it would be so far from the original that it was maybe crossing a line,” Vai explains. “But here it is; he's recommending it.”

The suggestion was spot on. “I did it that night at the show, and it worked beautifully," he told Guitar World. "It’s unique to me — yet it was birthed by Robert and Adrian.”

Vai will reprise his Beat role at a show in Chile this May before embarking on a tour with the SatchVai band.

There are few contemporary players with a reputation as weighty as Tosin Abasi. The Animals As Leaders guitarist, and the man behind gear firm Abasi Concepts, has revolutionized the instrument through selective picking and by bringing thumping — a technique previously reserved for bass guitars — to the fore, all while showcasing the magic of heavy riffs with low gain tones.

Abasi recently fielded fan-written questions with Guitar World, and his answers serve as a reminder that our guitar heroes so often have very humble beginnings.

Animals As Leaders’s self-titled debut arrived in 2009, but it wasn’t until years later, when Steve Vai confessed his love for his music, that he felt he’d made it as a musician.

“Meeting Steve Vai and having him express liking my music. That was pretty… I mean, I used to play his signature guitar,” he remembers. “This is a guy that basically spearheaded the genre that I’m participating in.”

Vai has always kept his ear to the ground, paying attention to the latest talents to break onto the scene. As a result, many players, from Abasi to modern acoustic wildcard Marcin, have benefitted from his support and tutelage.

“Just as a person, he’s got this guru vibe,” Abasi says. “The Guitar World cover that I was on with Steve [in September 2012] was a big deal, too. And getting a signature Ibanez guitar is ridiculous. Those three instances have been, like, ‘Oh, this is a real thing!’”

Today, Abasi is a full-time musician and luthier, but it didn’t always use to be like that. As streaming services have changed the music industry landscape, it’s a lot more difficult for musicians to make a living wage from their bands alone. But little is often said about how many musicians make ends meet while chasing their musical dreams.

Asked by one reader what he did for work before launching Animals As Leaders, Abasi had a surprising reply.

“Dude, when I was going to the Atlanta Institute of Music, I worked at a dog kennel,” he reveals. “It was a boarding facility, and I was cleaning up shit and piss in a concrete room with 40 dogs barking at me at the top of their lungs.

“I also worked at a fish cannery in Alaska, where I processed salmon for, like, 16 hours a day. That’s actually how I saved up to buy my Steve Vai guitar.”

Abasi had already moved onto eight-string guitars by the time Animals As Leaders turned heads, but it underscores Vai's influence on his development as a player.

In 2016, he shared stages across North America and Asia with Vai as part of the all-star Generation Axe. That also saw him locking horns with Zakk Wylde, Yngwie Malmsteen and Nuno Bettencourt as he went from looking up to his heroes to keeping up with them.

The tour was Vai's chance to unite his favorite guitarists, and in 2019 Abasi admitted to Guitar World that he didn’t think he belonged in that bracket when he got the call off Vai.

“It's beyond an honor,” he said. “Steve is a huge influence on me as a player, but beyond his music, he innovated in the guitar space as well. There's tons of products that he's at the center of. The idea that you could have more than six strings on a guitar, you could credit Steve with bringing that to the mainstream.

"And so to be selected — I remember when I got the call, I didn't think it was real. These dudes are the guys who I learned to play guitar watching. It's a dream come true.”

Abasi has since built on Vai’s extended-range legacy, helping make eight-string guitars more popular than ever. But he doesn't suggest six-stringers make the leap to eight strings all at once.

“I recommend getting a seven-string first and working on things like octave identification and recognizing patterns on the fretboard,” he advises. “This will help you better integrate the extra string.

“Another cool thing is to practice six-string material while avoiding the seventh string; then, once you’re comfortable, start writing material that incorporates the seventh string.

“You should also learn seven-string music by other musicians and take chord voicings for six-strings and translate and revoice them on the seven-string.”

In related news, Joe Satriani has spoken about how the next generation of players are keeping the electric guitar alive, with Abasi a prime example.

Joe Satriani doesn’t want to be the world’s best electric guitar player. When he sees a young shredder more talented than him, he cracks a smile.

His second solo album, Surfing With the Alien, sounded like guitar music from the future when it was released in 1987. The record put him at the cutting edge of the guitar scene, and his reputation has only grown as some of his students — including Steve Vai, Alex Skolnick and Kirk Hammett — have become regarded as some of the best players around.

Satch's lofty status in the guitar world was emphasized over the past year with the reformation of the classic G3 lineup and his role performing Eddie Van Halen's parts in Sammy Hagar's Best of All Worlds tour. But with that said, he says he wants to see the next generation of guitarists go one better than him.

Speaking in the latest issue of Classic Rock, Satch says he’s already been usurped by today’s social media-savvy crop of players who are taking technical excellence to new heights.

“It's already happened,” he says when asked about discovering younger players who are better than him. “There's a couple of things to address here. Number one, if it doesn’t happen, the world is in deep trouble. We need newer, smarter people to solve the human condition in every field — scientists, doctors, writers. We need better, smarter, every single day. That's the whole point.

“We have children, and we raise better human beings to help us, so we don’t become extinct,” he expands. “And, if you're not excited about new players, then that's pretty sad. I'm excited about just about every player I see. I champion it, I always have.”

It turns out that, even at the height of his powers, he knew his days were numbered. He looked at his most famous apprentice and saw the future.

“I started out teaching, and I got used to the idea that Steve Vai was gonna walk in my door and blow my mind,” he says.

Of course, it’s only natural that the standard of guitar playing continues to rise. When Eddie Van Halen brought tapping techniques and whammy-bar dive bombs to the masses, it was revolutionary. For the modern-day player, those are often no more than key foundational skills. The more players that can execute those techniques, the more likely it is that some will build upon it, and take it further.

Satriani's apprentice-turned-master Steve Vai clearly shares the same sentiment. He's been tapping up the next generation of superstars for his annual Vai Academy event for years. Tim Henson, Yvette Young, Ichika Nito, and Mateus Asato all featured at the 2024 event.

He says he's “fascinated by their talent, technique, and creativity,” and it comes from a place of genuine joy. There is no ego to be bruised.

Satriani’s efforts to champion his fellow shredding superstars led to the formation of the G3 tour. While he has been the mainstay, the tour has played host to mega names like Yngwie Malmsteen, John Petrucci, and Robert Fripp, and fresh-faced talents like Guthrie Govan, Tosin Abasi, and a 19-year-old Kenny Wayne Shepherd.

Yet, he tells Classic Rock that not everyone thought the tour was a good idea. The powers that be didn’t want Satch in such close quarters as his competitors. But he says, “When I was fourteen, if I had a chance to see Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Page, and Jeff Beck together on the same stage, I'd think that was the greatest thing ever.”

Meanwhile, Satriani has defended Kurt Cobain, whose critics have branded him a sub-par guitar player. Satch has explained why he thinks Cobain's skillset shouldn't be so readily dismissed.

The rise of grunge in the early 1990s killed the popularity of guitar virtuosity and technical wankery. Even so, it didn’t stop Joe Satriani from launching his annual G3 tour in 1996 with Steve Vai and Eric Johnson. Over the next decade, the shredfest became celebrated for presenting ever-changing lineups that featured some of the day’s most technically proficient players, like John Petrucci, Yngwie Malmsteen and Robert Fripp.

But as Satriani tells Classic Rock, accommodating the players’ varying musical styles and idiosyncratic requests could be a chore at times. Take Fripp, who insisted on being an unlisted show opener and performing out of sight as attendees entered the venue during G3’s 2004 run.

“You have two extremes,” Satriani tells Classic Rock. “Like, Robert Fripp, who said, ‘No lights on me, I want to sit down and I want to be behind everybody.’ So it was sort of an ‘un-demand’, y’know?”

And then there’s Fripp’s polar opposite, the irrepressible Yngwie Malmsteen, who appeared on the 2003 tour, where he, Satch and Vai jammed on Jimi Hendrix's "Little Wing."

“I mean, if you invite him, you have to just say, 'I know what I’m inviting,' ” Satch concedes. “To Yngwie’s credit, he always plays so great and always puts on the Yngwie Malmsteen show.

“The only problem that I would have is that sometimes he wouldn’t pay attention to other things happening onstage when his bit was done, because he’s just not used to not being the focus of the show. I’d say, ‘When Steve [Vai] is soloing, don’t throw your guitar up in the air right next to him, because he’s got his eyes closed. I don’t want him to get hit in the head.’”

Satch says launching G3 proved problematic simply because no one had ever done something like it before. Some guitarists’ managers saw it as a competition rather than a celebratory jaunt.

“The vibe back then was to keep the gunslinger guitar players away from each other,” he explains. “The record companies, the management — everyone was like, ‘Don’t stand next to that guy, because he’s your competitor.’

“So we had nice little arguments with them, saying, ‘This is different.’ This was something I felt the audience really wanted to see, because I wanted to see it. When I was 14, if I had a chance to see Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck together on the same stage, I’d think that was the greatest thing ever. I wouldn’t be thinking like a promoter, I’d be thinking like a fan.“

Considering that grunge essentially killed the whammy-bar wrangling, double-tapping guitar acrobatics that G3 would go on to celebrate, Satch he has no animosity. “I didn’t pay any attention to that, I guess,” he says, noting that his 1992 album, The Extremist, “came out as my love letter to the classic rock era, so it was a throwback record anyway. But when I emerged from the studio I realized, ‘Oh, it’s all Nirvana and Soundgarden.’ ”

And while many technically proficient guitarists love to slag Kurt Cobain’s rudimentary axe-handling skills, Satriani has nothing but praise for the way Nirvana’s frontman used his talents in service of his songs.

“He was a great guitar player,” Satch says. “You go back and look at Nirvana clips, and you realize this guy is playing everything he’s supposed to play. He’s not looking at what he’s playing, so obviously he really knows the instrument. And he’s playing with one of the greatest drummers of all time [Dave Grohl], so that wouldn’t have worked if he was not a good guitarist.”

Satch's appreciation for Cobain shouldn't come as a surprise to those who know him. After all, he, Vai and Guthrie Govan picked Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" as one of their show-closing jams on the 2016 G3 tour.

Satriani is coming off a busy year that saw him revive G3 with Vai and Johnson for a limited run of shows, perform Van Halen–era songs with Sammy Hagar on his Best of all Worlds tour, and tour with Vai. The new year looks like it will be just as busy. Last month he and Vai announced they’ll hit the road in June as the SatchVai Band for the Surfing with the Hydra tour. The road stint will be the first time in their nearly 50-year musical careers that the two electric guitar virtuosos have performed as band members. Their tour begins June 13, 2025 in Europe, with more dates to be announced.

In addition, Satch and Vai have been writing new music together, which means a SatchVai Band album can’t be far behind. Stay tuned.

Joe Satriani and Steve Vai have been writing new music together and will take it on tour next summer as the SatchVai Band, the duo announced in a joint video released today.

Dubbed the Surfing with the Hydra tour, the road stint will be the first time in their nearly 50-year musical careers that the two electric guitar virtuosos have performed as band members. Their tour begins June 13, 2025 in Europe, with more dates to be announced.

This past spring, the guitarists and their respective bands played their first tour together — outside of their G3 dates — where they performed across select U.S. cities. Since then they've merged their creative talents for the time first to create new songs.

“We’ve been writing new music and we want to go back out on tour together,” Vai says in the newly released video, “but this time with a little bit of a twist."

Adds Satriani, “The Satch-Vai tour was such a blast that Steve and I thought, Hey, we haven't had enough. We want more!”

The news comes at the end of a busy stretch for the two guitarists. Both played in 2024 on an abbreviated G3 tour and on the Satch-Vai tour. Afterward, Satriani took part in Sammy Hagar's Best of all Worlds tour, where he performed Van Halen–era music.

Vai, meanwhile, has been performing 1980s King Crimson music in the group Beat, featuring Adrian Belew, Tony Levin and Danny Carey.

The SatchVai Band's road show will run through July and include stops in major cities, including London, Paris, Copenhagen and Amsterdam. It will also include performances at major European summer festivals, such as Hellfest, Umbria Jazz Festival and Guitares en Scene Fest.

Pre-sale tickets for the tour will be available starting December 11 and 12, with general sales opening on Friday, December 13. More information is available at SATCHVAIBAND.

Matteo Mancuso says modern guitar players reach fluency on the instrument faster, thanks to online resources. But that has also made many players focus less on musicality and more on shredding to grow and maintain their social media following.

The 28-year-old virtuoso discussed the benefits and pitfalls of social media In a new interview with Guitar World. In particular, he says guitarists tend to shred because it gets a positive response from their followers.

"That’s why people on Instagram tend to focus on that," he says. For that matter, he says, "They tend to focus more on Instagram reels rather than actual music."

Indeed, due to the fast-paced nature of social media, many users swipe away from a reel after a few seconds if it doesn’t grab their attention. If players pulling out their biggest and boldest tricks tend to outperform those performing with subtlety and nuance, others will feel they need to do likewise.

“I always say, 'Never judge a guitar player by a short reel',” Mancuso continues. “But to make it work, you have to do really short videos with a lot of 'Wow.' People tend to concentrate too much on the 'Wow.'”

Mancuso already had admirers in Steve Vai, Joe Bonamassa, and Al Di Meola by the time he launched his debut album, The Journey, last year. However, while he can shred circles around most of his peers, his dynamism with the electric guitar, more than his acrobatics, has seen his reputation flourish.

He points to guidance he received from Vai as being key to his outlook. "Steve gave me some good advice: ‘Concentrate on music and not too much on guitar.’ You can open up a lot of new ideas with that mindset.”

While Mancuso occasionally uploads short eye-catching videos to his Instagram, "they’re not to be associated with my musical offerings," he says. "They’re separate things."

Mancuso's comments harmonize with recent points made by Oasis guitarist Noel Gallagher about how the current crop of players have an easier entry into learning the instrument. But he too feels too many over-shred simply because they can.

“There's a lot more information out there now when you're starting, for equipment, what it does and what you should be doing,” he says. “Tips for this, videos for that. They'd have a sleepless night thinking about what we used to be. I don't know how we got by.”

However, after his son called him out for not being able to shred, he responded in a typically priceless fashion, saying: “Thank the fucking Lord.”

David Gilmour, in his early days as a player, recently told Rick Beato that his inability to shred forced him to be a more tuneful guitarist. It paid dividends in forging his now instantly recognizable signature style.

That’s two big-name players echoing Mancuso’s sentiments.

So while players may find it easier to master the guitar today, knowing when to shred, and when to be a little more tasteful will forever be a tightrope they have to walk.

Mancuso released his tribute to Paul Gilbert, a song called Paul Poisiton, earlier this year as he continues to – tastefully – showcase his talents.

Joe Satriani, Steve Vai and Eric Johnson shred the blues classic “Crossroads” in this exclusive new video of the three electric guitar virtuosos from the 2024 G3 reunion tour.

Directed by ZZ Satriani, the “Crossroads” video captures the energy, fun and celebratory exhilaration that those concerts delivered.

Says Satch, "ZZ’s video brings together all the fun and musical magic of this epic G3 journey Eric, Steve and I have been on since 1996. Because of our shared roots, ‘Crossroads’ is a song that unites us. We are three very different players, still evolving on our instruments but still enjoying the celebration of the electric guitar with each other.”

Vai concurs. “We’ve played this classic jewel on various G3 tours in the past," he says, "and it always feels good to wrap the fingers around this iconic riff. Slamming away with Joe and Eric on this track creates a rich atmosphere of crushing guitar delight. It’s an honor to be a part of it.”

Adds “Johnson, “It’s always a fun one to play and stretch out on!"

The video is a tantalizing sample from the trio's forthcoming Reunion Live album that captures the electrifying magic of their sold-out 2024 U.S. tour. The album features the three guitar icons, who first joined forces in 1996 on the inaugural G3 tour, doing what they do best — shredding guitar before a live audience.

Out January 31, 2025, Reunion Live delivers full sets from each guitarist, including hits like Satriani’s “Sahara,” Johnson’s “Cliffs of Dover" and Vai’s “For the Love of God,” along with a thrilling encore jam of Hendrix and Clapton covers.

Recorded before an audience at the Orpheum Theatre in Los Angeles, Reunion Live captures the energy of the G3 live experience as it shines a spotlight on the ever-evolving art of the electric guitar. The package will include new live albums from each of the three guitarists, along with a collaborative supergroup album. The album mirrors the live tour format, with individual sets followed by an epic jam session featuring all three guitarists.

Reunion Live will be available in multiple formats, including Digital, 2CD Digipack, 4LP (Black) Gatefold, and a Deluxe Slipcase with four colored LPs, a 64-page coffee-table book and two CDs. The Deluxe edition will feature a different colored vinyl record for each artist and a special splatter LP for the jam sessions. The photo book is divided into separate chapters for each artist and and the jam. The two-CD set will include a 16-page photo booklet.

Reunion Live can be pre-ordered now.

G3 Reunion Live

Album Release: January 31, 2025

Formats:

Digital, 2CD Digipack, 4LP (Black) Gatefold, Deluxe Slipcase with 4LPs (Colored), 64-page coffee table book and 2CDs.

Tracklisting (all formats):

1. Gravitas (Vai)

2. Avalancha (Vai)

3. Little Pretty Intro (Vai)

4. Little Pretty (Vai)

5. Tender Surrender (Vai)

6. Zeus in Chains (Vai)

7. Teeth of the Hydra (Vai)

8. For the Love of God (Vai)

9. Land of 1000 Dances (Johnson)

10. Righteous (Johnson)

11. Trail of Tears (Johnson)

12. On-Ramp Improv (Johnson)

13. Freeway Jam (Johnson)

14. Desert Rose (Johnson)

15. Venus Reprise (Johnson)

16. Raspberry Jam Delta-V (Satriani)

17. Surfing with the Alien (Satriani)

18. Satch Boogie (Satriani)

19. Sahara (Satriani)

20. Nineteen Eighty (Satriani)

21. Big Bad Moon (Satriani)

22. Always with Me, Always with You (Satriani)

23. Summer Song (Satriani)

24. Introductions

25. Crossroads (Encore Jam)

26. Spanish Castle Magic (Encore Jam)

27. Born to Be Wild (Encore Jam)

It was just before the pandemic hit in 2020 that I happened upon a YouTube video by an Italian funk-fusion trio named the Snips. The initial hook for me was the fact that they were playing The Chicken, the funky Pee Wee Ellis tune that Jaco Pastorius had adopted as a set opener for his Word of Mouth big band in the early 80s. As Jaco’s biographer, I was naturally curious about their version. 

These were three young guys, just 19 or 20 years old at the time they first posted this audacious video in 2017. Jacked on adrenaline and youthful enthusiasm, they burned through the funk vehicle at an absolutely blistering pace (that video to date has garnered an awesome 2.4 million views on YouTube). The rhythm tandem of bassist Riccardo Olivia and drummer Salvatore Lima was impeccably tight, but what really stood out for me was the guitarist, Matteo Mancuso, who executed the incendiary lines and mind-boggling solo that followed, sans pick, with a kind of nonchalance that was totally disarming. 

And while his fingerstyle approach immediately recalled such other players who eschewed the pick — Mick Goodrick, John Abercrombie, Lenny Breau, Phil deGruy, and of course the whole lineage of classical and flamenco players who historically have navigated imposing lines with a strictly fingerstyle approach — this was something else entirely. 

Other YouTube videos followed by this precocious trio, including uncannily exacting renditions of chops-busting vehicles like Allan Holdsworth’s Fred, Chick Corea’s Spain (915k views), Tribal Tech’s Face First and UZEB’s Penny Arcade, as well as Matteo’s at-home practice videos of him blazing through John Coltrane’s Giant Steps, Charlie Parker’s Donna Lee and the age-old jazz jamming vehicle Cherokee, each one containing more jaw-dropping feats of fretboard fantasia by the young prodigio.

The comments sections for those same YouTube videos were soon flooded with superlatives about this amazing new guitar discovery. And it wasn’t long before the pros began weighing in on Matteo’s abundant talent, with no less than Al Di Meola, Steve Vai and Joe Bonamassa welcoming Mancuso into that rich lineage of great Italian guitarists, from Eddie Lang (Salvatore Massaro), Joe Pass (Anthony Jacobi Passalacqua), Pat Martino (Pat Azzara) and Joe Diorio to Frank Zappa, Bucky and John Pizzarelli, Di Meola, Vai, Frank Gambale, Joe Satriani, John Frusciante, John Petrucci and Chris Impellitteri. 

“I wrote to him and said, ‘Matteo, what are you doing? You’re killing us!’” says Di Meola, who invited the young Palermo-born guitarist to sit in with him on Spain and Mediterranean Sundance at the 2022 Eddie Lang Jazz Festival in Monteroduni, Italy. 

“I mean, his improvisational ability is light years ahead. Like, it would take two, three lifetimes to catch up with him. It was almost like when Jaco came on the scene: How the hell did he get so good so fast?” 

Adds Steve Vai, “I was pretty stunned when I heard Matteo. The evolution of the guitar is firmly secure in the hands of people like him… It’s just a new level: the tone, the touch, the notes… Incredible!” 

And Joe Bonamassa was over the moon for Mancuso. “I’ve never seen anything like it,” he raved. “It’s the most incredible thing I’ve seen since I first saw Stanley Jordan. He’s completely reinvented the instrument. He rips like Eric Johnson, then he’ll play over changes, then he’ll play Iron Maiden. It’s the most versatile thing I’ve ever seen.”

Finally, after six years of blowing minds on YouTube, Mancuso has released his first album, The Journey, on the Players Club/Mascot Label Group. And rather than just showcasing his prodigious and unprecedented chops on yet another string of well-chosen covers from the jazz and fusion canons, the 26-year-old has written all original material for this eagerly awaited debut, each already garnering hundreds of thousands of views on YouTube. 

Playing a Yamaha Revstar Custom electric guitar with a Line 6 Helix pedalboard for all his solos while overdubbing rhythm guitar parts on another Yamaha guitar, as well as a Bacci baritone guitar, Matteo rips on rockers like Silkroad and Drop D, swings confidently on the jazzy 3/4 number Polifemo, conjures up a bit of Holdsworth and Eric Johnson on Falcon Flight and Samba Party, and a touch of Pat Metheny on the bright, uplifting melody of Open Fields. He then showcases his beautiful nylon-string acoustic playing on Time to Leave and the poignant title track, which closes The Journey on a hymn-like note of reflection.

Guitar Player caught up with Matteo in a Zoom chat from his home in Palermo.

It’s great to meet you, Matteo. I’ve been following you on YouTube since The Chicken. 

Yes. That was the first viral video, from 2017. That was my first trio, Snips. I was maybe 19 when it was starting. The bass player was Riccardo Olivia, who is also from Sicily, but now he lives in Milan. The drummer, Salvatore Lima, is also from here. We were playing a lot of very traditional fusion stuff back then, like Chick Corea’s Spain and Allan Holdsworth’s Fred, which I still play live. It’s one of my favorite tunes to play live. And then, in 2020, during the pandemic, I founded the Matteo Mancuso Trio, and it was a different trio from Snips. And that’s when I started composing original material and working on this album, The Journey. So there are nine pieces in total, all original compositions.  

The new core trio is Stefano India on bass and Giusseppe Bruno on drums. It’s a very flexible trio. 

They are very versatile musicians, able to play rock very aggressively and also swing, and sometimes within the same song. My goal was to have an album that wasn’t associated with only one style, and these guys really help me achieve that.

Let’s talk about your beginnings on the instrument. I read that your father, Vincenzo, was a guitarist and that you and he played Django Reinhardt together early on. 

My father is an electric/classical guitar player. He played everything from classical music to funk, so he’s a very versatile player. He was in an Italian rock band called Camaleonti in the mid-1960s, and he worked as a touring pop guitar player for other people here in Italy. Now he is more like a producer than a pure guitar player, so he’s worked with a lot of popular Italian musicians. He helped a lot with my album. 

He was like a listening guide for me, more than a teacher. I started playing guitar when I was around 10 years old, and I always saw my father playing guitar around the house. When I first started, I played with fingers because I thought that the instrument was meant to be played like that, because I always saw my father playing with fingers.

Your father never used a pick? 

Sometimes, but he mainly uses fingers. I started playing in a duo with him when I was around 17, though I had already played live at age 12 at the 2009 Castelbuono Jazz Festival in Sicily. I later studied jazz guitar at the conservatory here in Palermo, and because I wanted to study that repertoire, a guitar duo was perfect for me. That’s why I started playing live with my father. We mostly played standards and Joe Pass stuff.

And it was very natural for you to play with fingers from the beginning?

Yeah, it felt really natural from the start. I didn’t even know that you should use a pick for electric guitar. Basically, you have four picks when you play fingerstyle, so it allows you to have more possibilities for extended arpeggios. So I started off playing with bass technique, using two fingers. Later on, when I was around 14, I started studying to learn classical guitar, and that helped me a lot to develop my right- and left-hand technique. But I wasn’t really a good student of classical guitar. I consider myself an electric guitar player rather than a classical one, but I borrowed a lot of things from the classical world.

What about the flamenco world? 

Flamenco is slightly different. They use different guitars than the pure classical models, and the technique is different, of course. I have some similarities with the flamenco technique, speaking of the right hand. But I think my technique is closer to the bass rather than the pure flamenco technique. 

You mentioned bass technique. I’m sure you’re familiar with Mick Goodrick. He played with two fingers on his beautiful single-note lines. 

Yeah, yeah. I know him. 

And then we have someone like Lenny Breau, who played fingerstyle on a seven-string guitar with a high A. Were you hip to him at all? 

Yeah, I discovered him a few years ago, and I was shocked because of all the harmonics he was playing. I borrowed some stuff from him, speaking of chord melody. Yeah, he’s a phenomenal player. 

I’d like to talk about your instrument of choice. Like in those early videos, The Chicken and Fred, was that a different guitar than you’re playing now? 

No, it’s actually always been the Yamaha Revstar. It was a different model then, of course. Right now I mostly use my Custom model, which I’ve played since 2019. I use slightly different models for rhythm parts on the new record, but the main one is the Revstar Custom. I really like that the Revstar has a dark sound. It’s close to a Gibson SG, and I was chasing that for a while; that fat, humbucker sound is something that I really like. The Revstar is a little bit more versatile than the SG, so I can play jazz, funk and metal with it. And I have a five-way switch on my Custom, so I can also split the humbuckers to get a single-coil sound. Of course, I prefer a slightly wider string spacing, just because you have more room for your fingers. But once I got used to it, it wasn’t really a problem for me.

You mentioned the SG. I understand that one of your early rock influences was AC/DC. Angus Young plays a Gibson SG, and Holdsworth also played one in his earlier days.

Yeah, Angus Young was the reason I bought an SG [depicted on 2017 YouTube videos of him shredding on Guthrie Govan’s Fives, Eric Johnson’s Cliffs of Dover and UZEB’s Penny Arcade]. I was and still am a big AC/DC fan. That was the first band that I was listening to. So the SG was because of Angus Young. Later on I discovered Fender Stratocasters through Jimi Hendrix, who was another big influence on me. Some of the first tunes that I learned of his were Hey Joe, Purple Haze and All Along The Watchtower. But AC/DC was always a big influence. 

Holdsworth and all the fusion guys came later for me, when I was around 17. Allan is for sure one of my biggest influences, especially when it came down to phrasing and vocabulary. He was such a big influence, in fact, that I stopped listening to him for a while, because I started sounding too much like him. So I started listening to other players, like Scott Henderson, Frank Gambale, Robben Ford... All the jazz-rock guys. And I basically built my vocabulary through these players. So yeah, Allan is such a big influence that I had to stop listening to him too much. He changed the guitar forever, I think.

Comparing your early YouTube videos to your more recent stuff from The Journey, it seems that you’ve developed some incredible whammy-bar articulation, shaping the notes in that liquid fashion that reminds me of Holdsworth. When did that become part of your vocabulary?

It started when I first got the new Yamaha Pacifica, which is basically their Stratocaster. I started playing that when I was listening to Scott Henderson, who is a master of the whammy bar. So I started playing like that because of him. And actually, the first tune on the album, Silkroad, is dedicated to Scott, because the first theme was inspired by that diminished aspect of his playing. And then, of course, there is the Holdsworth influence on all the legato stuff. But that is also because Scott himself said that Holdsworth was a big influence for him. So I guess it’s also a tribute to Allan, you know? 

The second tune, Polifemo, opens like a swinging jazz tune in 6/8 that you play with a warm, clean tone. But you also inject some kind of crunch sound on your solo. You’re very adept at mixing influences, not strictly separating the tunes stylistically into rock and jazz camps. It’s all integrated very organically. Can you break that tune down?

Polifemo is a perfect mix of my jazz influence in a rock song, if you want. Because I feel that if it is hard to categorize, that means that you are on the way to making something new. So that was the goal with Polifemo. I wanted to do a jazz song, and I wanted to promote distortion but without sounding too much out of place. The first solo is with the piano, played by Giuseppe Vasapolli, and I came to the second solo with a distorted tone, but it’s not too aggressive. It’s more like a tone that Eric Johnson uses, for instance. More like an overdrive, rather than a pure distortion pedal.

And what device or pedal are you dialing for that?

I mainly used a digital amp modeler for the entire album. So all the sounds you hear on the album are digital, basically. And I mainly used the Line 6 Helix for modeling. The simulation of the amp was a Matchless DC-30, which is called the Matchstick Channel 2 on the Helix. And the Helix distortion I used for Polifemo is called a Tube Driver. It’s really close to the Klon Centaur distortion. The distortion sound on Silkroad was the same sound, but with a different guitar. 

Falcon Flight is an intense tune with a lot of harmonic movement and some open-string arpeggiating underneath. And you have a fairly clean sustain tone on the melody and your solo. Tell me about that one. 

First of all, I wrote that tune, like, two years ago. I wanted to write a bass drum ’n’ bass song because I was listening to a lot of Mark Lettieri back then. He’s a really funky guitar player with Snarky Puppy. I love Mark. So I was trying to write something similar, but I ended up doing something completely different. That’s how I write most of these songs:  I get inspired by one player or one particular song and I try to do something similar, but I end up doing something completely different. 

On Falcon Flight, the rhythm section is slightly different. Gianluca Pellerito plays drums on that track. He’s a pretty popular player in Italy. He is more like a chops kind of player, very American-sounding. There was a drum section that was really busy in that way, and I think Gianluca was the perfect choice for that piece.

Open Fields feels a little more relaxed. It opens with solo guitar that develops this kind of warm, inviting, almost Pat Metheny–esque kind of a melody. Very engaging and uplifting, like Metheny’s Phase Dance. To go from the burning intensity of Falcon Flight into the more intimate Open Fields is a nice contrast.

I actually wrote the song with classical guitar, but I wanted to do a trio version for the album, so it changed a little bit during the recording. It is dedicated to Sicily: The Italian name for Open Fields is Campagna Siciliana, which means ‘Sicilian countryside’. So it’s dedicated to the landscape we see every time we go to my home in Sicily. It’s really similar to what you see on the album cover of The Journey. And yes, it has a lot of Metheny vibes, because I was listening a lot to Pat when I wrote it.

Pat Martino told me that his people were from Palermo. Was he of interest to you when you were at the conservatory there studying jazz? 

Yeah, Martino was the starting point for my bebop vocabulary. I began working on it back when I was at the Conservatory of Palermo. Of course, I started with Charlie Parker and then I studied all the bebop guys, like Pat Martino and Joe Pass, of course. I learned a lot from them, especially Joe Pass, who was my starting point for my chord melody stuff, even though I don’t consider myself that kind of player. Joe also played with a pick a lot, but later on he played with just fingers.

There’s no mistaking the rock influence on Drop D, your first single. There’s some heavy power chording, and you’re just wailing on it. It sounds like a big production number with a lot of guitar overdubs. And you are just shredding on it with a ton of tapping on your solo.

Drop D is my kind of tribute to my first rock influences — AC/DC, Led Zeppelin. It’s also a tribute to all my rock-blues influences. This is the tune where I recorded lots of layers, guitars on guitars — backing guitars, even with the Bacci baritone guitar. I think it’s the most produced song on the album, because it’s more like traditional song sections rather than jazz elements.

Blues For John is a swinging tune with Giuseppe Vasapolli on organ. And I think I heard some Wes Montgomery kind of chord melody and octave playing in there. He must have been an influence on you at some point. 

Yeah, sure. Wes is one of my favorite jazz players. And Blues For John is one of my favorite tunes on the album, because on the solo section it tells through guitar my story to the blues, starting from the bebop clean stuff of Pat Martino, Wes Montgomery and George Benson, then moving into the more blues-rock players like Joe Bonamassa and Eric Johnson, with distortion tone. And this tune is actually dedicated to John McLaughlin, who is one of my favorite composers as well being a legendary guitar player. John McLaughlin is a perfect example of mixing technique with beautiful compositions. So it’s a blues dedicated to him, basically. 

Time to Leave sounds like you’re playing a nylon-string acoustic guitar.

It’s a classical guitar, though my kind of touch is not really like a classical player’s. I play in a more aggressive way than a classical player. Time to Leave started as a solo guitar piece, but then I changed my mind and started to work on an arrangement for the trio. That was actually one of the first things I composed for this album. I wrote it during the pandemic.

Samba Party features some incredible arpeggiating. And your fingerstyle technique allows you to very easily integrate tapping into your absolutely hellacious solo on this tune. Most players with a pick have to make a big overture to start tapping, but you do it so naturally.

I worked a lot on it, of course. I try to mix the tapping in a natural way. I don’t want it to be like a switch turning on: like, “Now I’m doing tapping, now I’m doing alternate picking, and now I’m doing legato.” So if I have to do a tapping section, it needs to be integrated into the solo really well. One of the guys that does this consistently is Greg Howe. He’s a really big influence, especially when it comes to the tapping sections, so he is one of my inspirations for Samba Party. I think it is maybe my favorite song from the album, because, personally speaking, I can’t categorize Samba Party. I don’t know if it’s fusion, jazz or rock. It’s a perfect mix of all of those influences. 

So yeah, my goal, as I said, is to find something that wasn’t associated with only one style, so Samba Party is a perfect example of that. 

I’ll tell you what it isn’t. It’s not a samba. 

Yeah, that’s for sure. 

You’re such a scholar and you have such a developed ear. You have obviously assimilated the music of Allan Holdsworth, Scott Henderson, Eric Johnson — and not just skimming off the top. It seems like you’ve very deeply absorbed these guys. You have a great ear and you integrated it all very organically into your own vocabulary. 

Thank you. Yeah, I’ve transcribed a lot of their solos and worked on the phrasing, so that’s why you hear those guys in my playing.

I imagine that The Journey, the very poignant melody played on acoustic guitar, expresses your own journey that you’ve been on. 

Yeah. That was the last tune I wrote for the album. Initially, there were only eight songs but I wanted to write a pure ballad. Open Fields was the closest to a ballad, but there is also the distortion ending. So I wanted a pure ballad, like a Pat Metheny kind of vibe. I started working on the melody with my father, and he ended up playing second guitar on that tune. My father was on the acoustic guitar and myself on the classical guitar. So it is a father-and-son duo.

That’s a beautiful way of coming full circle for you.

Thank you. I wanted to do something with my father as the last tune, because he was my listening guide for a lot of years. 

The Journey is out now on Players Club/Mascot and available to buy or stream.

Steve Vai may be considered one of the world’s greatest virtuosos today, but the guitarist — who is currently playing King Crimson’s ‘80s material alongside Adrian Belew in the group Beat — was humble about his talents when he was a teenager.

Speaking with Positive Grid to promote his new signature Spark Mini amp — part of the Spark 2 series of modeling amps — Vai says he honed his craft in secret.

“I didn't tell anybody when I started playing the guitar, because I was kind of shy that way,” he explains. "The guitar was such a cool instrument. If you played it, you thought you were really cool. And I didn't think I was really cool. So I never told anybody.”

Eventually, his talents came to light in a fashion that was surprisingly showy for someone supposedly lacking self-confidence.

“I did enter a talent contest,” he continues. “It was the first time I'd played in front of my classmates. It was a big auditorium, and I played 'The Star-Spangled Banner' with my teeth… and I won. It was the first time I won anything like that.”

The $50 prize money he took home that day was well spent and helped him develop a taste for what was to come.

“That was so much money,” Vai says. “Me and all my friends took that money and we bought cases of quality beer.”

Vai's latest guitar challenge has been to master Robert Fripp's relentless guitar parts ahead of the Beat tour. Since his having shoulder surgery in 2021, he's found keeping up with Fripp's ferocity isn't easy.

“If you take something like 'Frame by Frame' [from 1981's Discipline], the riff itself is hard enough. You have to have a particular picking technique in order to be able to play it,” he says in the November 2024 issue of Guitar Player.

“But what makes it so excruciating is the relentlessness. It doesn’t stop. The thing about Robert Fripp is, he runs very deep. He’s a holistic player. He takes into account not only body posture and hand posture but also inner-being centering: the need for bulletproof attention. He is highly disciplined. It’s the only way you could achieve the kinds of things he achieved on the guitar."

Vai’s conversation with Positive Grid also saw him imparting some key wisdom to budding guitarists — regardless of whether they think they’re cool enough to tell their friends about their talents.

“I think it's important to know that your imagination is infinite — it is — and that's your greatest tool,” Vai explains. “Your greatest tool for developing anything creatively is your ability to imagine it. Once a person realizes this, the most powerful tool that you have is the ability to visualize.

“That’s how I’ve developed my technique. I’ll bring it to the guitar. My favorite thing to do is to try to imagine something that I couldn’t do... and then do it. That was the greatest payoff. It still is for me, every time.”

Visit Positive Grid to learn more about the Spark Mini Vai.

And head to Magazines Direct to pick up a copy of the November 2024 issue of Guitar Player, which features an interview with Steve Vai and Adrian Belew alongside a feature-length interview with cover star David Gilmour, plus much more.

Adrian Belew has admitted it took “a lot of hours” of rehearsing with Robert Fripp to lock into his atypical approach to guitar playing.

He played alongside Robert Fripp in King Crimson for 18 years across two stints in the band and is currently celebrating that legacy with the band Beat. But speaking in the new issue of Guitar Player, Belew has opened up about the challenges he faced upon first entering the band.

“It was very difficult for me,” he admits. “I had to adapt my playing to that style, because it was not at all what I do. It took me quite awhile to be able to lock in with him. Robert told me I don’t hold my pick correctly. Which is true. I never concentrated on that. I’ve never really tried to be a fast-picking guitar player.

“There are other things about the instrument that I preferred,” he expands. “So I had to rehearse with him a lot of hours, every day. You get it to the point where we call it being ‘in the body.’ That means you can do it without really having to think about it all the time.”

Likewise, Steve Vai faced similar challenges joining Beat, which sees him stepping into Fripp’s shoes – with the prog legend’s blessing – to play the band’s trio of ‘80s albums alongside Belew, Tony Levin, and Danny Carey.

“His style is so specific and refined, it's not something I could just jump into,” Vai says. “There are a couple of things that are a little difficult. Elephant Talk is a peculiar kind of thing. Plus, this isn't a cover band, we're reinterpreting some things. My style and sound will flow into it, because it will be coming out of me.

“I'm trying my absolute best to respect every note that Robert wrote, it's just how I perform it might be a little different.”

He's also mentioned how Fripp's relentlessness provided a stark early challenge, citing Frame By Frame as an example.

“The thing about Robert’s parts is not necessarily the complexity; it’s the relentlessness,” he says. “If you take something like Frame by Frame, the riff itself is hard enough – you have to have a particular picking technique in order to be able to play it. But what makes it so excruciating is the relentlessness. It doesn’t stop. It’s fast and it’s hard and incredibly difficult. [You] need for bulletproof attention. He is highly disciplined. It’s the only way you could achieve the kinds of things he achieved on the guitar.”

Despite his struggles – ones Belew can no doubt sympathize with – he’s said that Vai was the only man he had in mind when it came to putting the new band together.

For Belew, the Beat tour has provided him an opportunity to dust off his signature Parker Fly guitar, an instrument he’s often seen playing when not wielding his Seymour Duncan-“relic’d” Fender Stratocaster.

The original Parker Fly was designed by luthier Ken Parker and pickup guru Larry Fishman in 1993, with Belew's highly spec'd signature coming 18 years later, with Belew convincing Parker to bestow the guitar with MIDI integration.

As such, his signature model comes with a 13-pin out for MIDI-synth connectivity and a 25-point knob to reconfigure the instrument's tones to mimic everything from a Fender Telecaster to a sitar.

The band kicked off the tour earlier this month, with Vai reflecting on a successful but stressful opening night by saying, “You can rehearse until you're blue in the face, but once you hit the stage and the lights go out, all bets are off.”

The latest issue of Guitar Player sees David Gilmour gracing the cover, and discussing the stories and gear behind his new solo album, Luck and Stange, inside. There are also interviews with Jethro Tull’s Ian Anderson, Doug Gillard, Luther Dickinson, and many more.

Head to Magazines Direct to pick up a copy.

Electric guitar maestro Steve Vai is well-known not only for his virtuosity, but for his incredibly intense compositional approach, especially when it comes to his climactic guitar solos. 

Famously, he laid down perhaps his most famous composition, For the Love of God, while on the fourth day of a 10-day fast. 

In a 2016 GP interview, though, Vai emphasized a different solo – which he approached with a similar intensity (without the starvation, mind you) – as his “ultimate achievement of phrasing on the [guitar].”

Playing And We Are One – from his then-new album, Modern Primitive – for GP editor Jude Gold, Vai suddenly stopped the track, telling Gold, “For this note coming up, I’m operating my Morley Little Alligator volume pedal with one foot and a wah pedal with the other, while using the whammy bar. This is how forensic I get. It’s just one note, but it took my entire life to get to the point to where I could do that one note.

“I’ve never gotten as deep with my phrasing as I did on this solo,” Vai continued. “It may go right over the head of most people, and others might just hear it as Vai meandering, but, for me, this solo is my ultimate achievement of phrasing on the instrument.”

Fast forwarding to the present, Vai has already had an incredibly busy 2024 – reuniting with the original G3 lineup (himself, Joe Satriani, and Eric Johnson) for a tour, and teaming up with Satriani again for the first double-bill Satriani/Vai tour.

On top of that, it was recently announced that Vai would be joining forces with Adrian Belew, Tony Levin and Tool's Danny Carey for Beat – a forthcoming tour that will see the four musicians play the music of three early '80s-era King Crimson albums.

Robert Fripp himself gave the group a hearty endorsement, saying on social media that “Steve Vai is the only guitarist who could play my parts.”

• For tickets and more info on the Beat tour, visit the band's website.

Home is certainly where Kenny Wayne Shepherd’s heart is — and where his body is at the moment, which, given his heavy touring schedule, is not always the case. 

But today we find the guitarist and bandleader in the confines of his abode, south of Nashville, where, with six children, Shepherd says it’s even more “nonstop” than any given day in his prodigious touring schedule. 

“There’s lots of school, dropping kids off, trying to keep up with where everybody needs to be, what they’re doing,” Shepherd says with a chuckle. “And we’ve been renovating this place since we bought it a few years ago, so I’m helping out with that kind of stuff.” 

Domesticity does not delay the music, however. Shepherd — a one-time teen prodigy from Louisiana who’s now 46, with 10 studio albums behind him (plus two with the Rides, his all-star band with Stephen Stills and Barry Goldberg) — spent much of the past year and a half celebrating the 25th anniversary of Trouble Is..., his Platinum-certified sophomore album that topped Billboard’s Blues Albums chart and spawned a number one Mainstream Rock hit in “Blue on Black.” 

He even re-recorded the set as Trouble Is... 25, chronicling the growth and depth he’s attained as a player and singer during the past quarter-century. 

Waiting in the wings, meanwhile, has been Dirt on My Diamonds Vol. 1, perhaps the most ambitious outing of Shepherd’s career to date. It began with writing sessions he conducted with producer Marshall Altman and others at historic FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, where a who’s-who of blues, soul, rock and roots artists left their musical DNA in the walls and carpets. 

The Shepherd gang came up with a batch of songs there, from which eight were assigned to volume one. And, yes, there will be a volume two to follow. 

It’s an album that culminates what Shepherd has done before and takes the proverbial step forward — sometimes boldly. The blues is still alive and well in his soul — check out “Ease My Mind” — but the ears can’t help but perk up when they hear the subtle scratching underneath the halting groove of “Sweet & Low,” as if Tupac met B.B. King in — where else? — California. 

The socially conscious “Best of Times” has a funky, brassy grit, while “You Can’t Love Me” mixes some light country touches into the mix. Shepherd and company also deliver a convincing cover of Elton John’s “Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting,” which he even sings with a great deal more clarity than John delivered in the original. 

Shepherd clearly had his eye on some new musical horizons here, and his excitement about that intent is contagious as he rapid-fires through the narrative surrounding it. Or maybe he’s just trying to get through traffic in time to pick up the next kid... 

You’ve spent some time celebrating the 25th anniversary of your second album, Trouble Is…, during the past couple of years. Did that factor into Dirt on My Diamonds at all? 

I don’t think so. They’re pretty separate. I already had the road map there with Trouble Is…. The whole frame of the thing was already established on the original record. Then it became a really special, reflective kind of nostalgic experience, going back and revisiting all that music and re-recording it. 

The general feeling, walking away from that experience, is just how well that music has held up over the past 25 years. I still believe that the music and those songs would be as exciting and relevant if they were released today as all-new material. 

That’s a hell of a gauntlet to throw in front of a brand-new album then. 

Y’know, the new music, it all has ties to the past, right? There is a common thread in all my music, besides it being me. It is the influences; it is the approach. And there’s also been an evolution over the years. 

My goal has always been to make albums that sound unique and stand on their own and are unpredictable. I don’t want anybody to think they know what the next album will sound like. I think you can hear that on the new record, pushing in a number of new directions. You can hear a lot of new influences coming into play on the songs and the production of the record. 

What do you consider that common thread to be? 

It’s like this: Am I a blues artist that plays rock, or a rock artist that plays blues? It’s hard to say. There’s so many different labels — blues guitar player, blues-rock guitar player, contemporary blues… To me this sounds like a fresh, new, young, energetic album. That’s my goal, to continue trying to put the music forward. That’s what I’ve done from day one. “Deja Voodoo” from [1994’s] Ledbetter Heights — that’s not a blues song; it’s a blues-based rock song. 

Has your approach to them changed much over the years? 

It’s on a song-by-song basis, really, but nine times out of 10 all these songs start with a musical idea that I’ve come up with — a groove or a signature riff, something like that. So it’s built around the guitar as an instrument, which in itself gives the character to the song. 

And the grooves just naturally come out of me when I’m trying to create something or write something. I kind of intuitively know where I sit best and which tempos and which grooves I feel are a good platform for me to showcase what I do. 

Then, as the song comes together, you’ve got to take into account what is it about? What’s the message here? That influences the approach of the inevitable guitar solo. You have the one in the middle, the one in the ending, and all of the components of the song are going to influence what’s coming out of the guitar when it’s time to solo.

Really, I just try to focus on my strengths. I feel like what I excel at is trying to put riffs and emotions into every note, to try and evoke feelings in people through what I’m playing. I went back and listened to my heroes. When their playing stirred up something in my heart and mind, I’d stop the music and ask myself, What just happened? 

And I noticed that every single time I did, it was because the guy played a choice few notes, or even one note, or just, like, this lick, and milked it for all it was worth. It was never this massive amount of notes all played in a hurry for a “wow” moment. 

That’s how I wanted to affect people when I play the instrument, wrenching every bit of feeling that I can get out of the instrument through maybe not the most extensive vocabulary of guitar licks but just a few notes — or one note — and strive to take it someplace and do something different on each record. I think that’s served me well.

Who were some of those guitar heroes you referenced? 

It’s not as extensive as you might think. Look at a guy like Satriani. Look at Steve Vai, Zakk Wylde, even Bonamassa. It’s baffling to me: There’s 12 notes on a guitar and these guys sound like they have more than 12 notes available to them. How do you do that? But they honed in on those things. Hendrix, even; he’s a pretty prolific guitar player, right? But he didn’t have a massive bag of tricks as far as licks go. 

Guys like Albert King, B.B. King, all the blues electric guitar forefathers… Albert had a very limited vocabulary of guitar licks, but it never gets old listening to him because of the amount of feeling he puts into it. So you don’t have to have an endless bag of tricks. It’s just how you implement what you do. 

So what can you do differently, or better, now than what you did back on Trouble Is… or Ledbetter Heights — or even The Traveler four years ago? 

I think I have a lot more control over my instrument — that’s probably the best way to put it. I certainly have learned a lot and can play things now that I couldn’t play then. That all comes with playing and touring every year since I was a teenager. The more you do that, the better you get. 

But intuitively, I’m just being a little more melodic in my playing, a little more vocal in my approach, and just mastering vibrato, which has always been important to me. 

In what way has it been important to you? 

A lot of young guitar players want to play lead guitar, and they focus on all the notes, and not vibrato, which gives the instrument your voice. I was guilty of that too. And the value of vibrato was driven home to me at an early age. 

A family friend showed me a few different ways to do vibrato and said, “This is the most important thing you’ll learn in your guitar playing. That’s how B.B. King can play one note and you know it’s him. Eric Clapton can too.” So I knew about it from a young age and feel like I’ve really developed that over the years, and I have strengths now that I didn’t have then. 

Take us into the creative process of Dirt on My Diamonds, which started at FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals. 

Most if not all of the songs I’ve written over my career have been written in Nashville, except the first album, when I wrote a lot of songs in Louisiana. So my producer, Marshall, and I thought, Let’s do something different and cool and vibey that might actually have a real influence on what we’re doing. 

The idea was to go down to FAME with some writers. For probably three to five days — less than a week — we divided into groups and started developing songs. 

I’d run into one room and say, “Here’s an idea” and play something for those guys, then I’d run into another room with different guys and start something else and just keep bouncing back and forth between rooms. It was a really interesting experience. 

And in a really interesting place. 

Oh, man! Being in those studios, in that town. The studio is pretty unchanged. It’s got that original vibe in the walls, in the carpet, in the console and everything. We just went in there knowing that by being there it would have some sort of influence on what we did, but then we let the project happen naturally. My goal the next time we go down there is to record an album as we’re writing. 

Would that be for Dirt on My Diamonds Vol. 2? 

That one’s already done. We’re fixing and finishing up that stuff, but it’s already done. Now we want to go down there again and write songs and record while we’re writing. Just do a totally different approach to what we did. 

What does “dirt on my diamonds” mean? 

Marshall felt very strongly that should be the title of the record and the title track. He just thought that song encompasses everything about me as an artist. It’s the blues. It’s rock. It’s fresh. It’s aggressive. He thinks it has one of my strongest vocal performances to date. It has all the elements he thinks represent who I am as an artist. 

And the message of the song is kind of timely. The world we live in, with social media and stuff, everything is pushing people to portray this facade of the perfect life and the perfect existence, with all these filters and special effects to make you look a certain way. 

But the real beauty is in the imperfections. The fact that we’re not perfect is what makes us interesting and unique, and also gives us something to strive for and learn from. So that’s it. It’s the dirt on the diamonds that makes them really interesting. 

What did you use to record, gear-wise? 

For the past few records I had Alexander Dumble building the amplifiers. It’s basically the same rig in the studio that I use live; it just depends on how many amps. If I’m tracking, I’m running three. 

If I’m overdubbing, I’m probably running five, maybe more. For each song we’ll figure out which will be the featured amp and create a blend with another one or two of the other amps. 

[Dumble’s] amps have made such a huge difference for me creatively, ’cause they respond so well to my playing. They do what I want an amp to do much more effortlessly, so that frees me to focus on other things, rather than force an amp to do what I want it to do. 

Effects-wise, in the studio I use the real-deal stuff. On the road I bring reissue pedals out. I had an original Klon Centaur on this one, an original Vox Clyde McCoy wah pedal. We had a Uni-Vibe that supposedly belonged to Jimi Hendrix, which is the best-sounding Uni-Vibe I’ve ever heard. I used an Analogman King of Tone overdrive pedal, a TS-808 Tube Screamer and an Analogman Bi-Chorus pedal.

And the guitars? 

My ’61 Strat is heavily featured on this record, and so is my new signature guitar. We had just gotten some early prototypes, so I wanted to make sure they went on the record. I used some Custom Shop Strats: the Copperboy and Crossroads. 

The Les Paul I used, like for “Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting,” that’s a ’90s Custom Shop Gibson a friend gave me for a gift. I just recently bought a 1960 sunburst that I’ve been dying to get; that’ll make the next record. 

On “Ease My Mind” that’s actually a new [Gibson ES-] 330; I was in the studio and I called my buddy at Gibson and was like, “Dude, I’m working on this song that needs a 330 and I don’t own one,” so they sent it over immediately. 

Did you do anything that you felt you’d never done before on an album? 

The solo on “Man on a Mission” has that real open-room sound. The [Fender] Vibroverb amp is just singing on that track. I tried to do more of an Allman Brothers kind of approach there, which is not always where I come from when I’m soloing. And on “Bad Intentions,” that solo and the sound of the guitar is so incredibly gritty. It’s like it has hair on it. It has these big, long bends which I love to do, and it gets me fired up. 

Is there a timetable for Vol. 2? 

Since there’s a volume one, I would say volume two would maybe be released a year later. 

Meanwhile, are the Rides over, or… 

Me and Stephen recently did a few things together. He’s like, “Oh, man, I miss you! We need to do this again.” We love each other and we love playing together. It’s just a lot more challenging now, ’cause I’m in Tennessee and he’s in California. It was much easier to get into the car and go to his house and write an album. 

But I would say the intention is there; it’s just a matter of can we realistically make it happen with my schedule and his schedule and all the logistics. It was a lot of fun to do, and it would be nice to do it one more time, for sure.

Into the Flame: Kenny Wayne reveals his long search for the perfect ’Burst

What was the last guitar you bought and why did you choose it? 

A 1960 Gibson Les Paul Sunburst — an original one. I had been on the hunt for some time, at least 10 years. The thing is, Les Pauls always felt a bit awkward because of my style of playing. I have to adapt my approach with Les Pauls, otherwise I’ll be in the middle of playing and I’ll accidentally hit the pickup selector and change the sound of the guitar mid-solo. 

For a long time Strats were the most comfortable guitars for me, but over the course of my career I started using Les Pauls on various songs on various records, and also onstage. Because if you want that sound, you can only get it from that guitar. I found that the features of the 1960 Les Pauls, with the thinner neck profile, just seem to play faster and easier for me. 

A year or two ago, I finally found the right one and it’s a beautiful guitar, with a tremendous flamed top and basically the appearance of a ’59, so it has all the good looks you would ever want and a great personality to go along with it. — David Mead

Kenny Wayne Shepherd’s new album Dirt on my Diamonds Volume 1 is available to buy and stream now

The following interview with Sharon Isbin was originally published in Guitar Player in 2011.

Sharon Isbin isn’t your average internationally renowned, multiple Grammy Award-winning, Billboard chart-topping classical guitarist. In addition to making dozens of recordings of music from the traditional and modern classical guitar repertoires – including nine compositions written specifically for her – and giving hundreds of performances with leading orchestras and ensembles in celebrated venues worldwide, she has also passionately embraced music of other traditions.

For example, 1999’s Dreams of a World explored several varieties of folk music from around the globe, and 2009’s Journey to the New World bridged British Isles and American folk. Both albums received Grammys.

On her latest release, Sharon Isbin & Friends: Guitar Passions, the maestro pairs with electric guitarists Stanley Jordan, Steve Vai, Steve Morse, and Nancy Wilson, in addition to Brazilian jazz guitarist Romero Lubambo, percussionist Gaudencio Thiago de Mello, soprano saxophonist Paul Winter, and vocalist Rosa Passos.

“Guitar Passions is a guitar tribute album with a Latin theme,” says Isbin. “It crosses the boundaries of people who are very present in the musical world today, and people who have figured in my life in the past in important ways, such as Joaquin Rodrigo, who put the guitar on the map in 1939 with his Concierto de Aranjuez, and the late Laurindo Almeida, who brought bossa nova to the West and arranged Adagio from the Rodrigo work – a revised version of which appears on the album. The uniting force is that we’re all passionate about the guitar!”

Briefly describe the roles of the other guitarists on Guitar Passions.

“Steve Morse improvised the solo on the bossa nova section of Adagio, a part originally played by Larry Coryell when he, Laurindo Almeida, and I toured as Guitarjam back in the ’80s. Steve and I go back a long way, and I absolutely love the way he improvised his very hot rock-styled part to the Adagio theme. 

“Steve Vai and I had played together several times, and he actually composed a major 20-minute work called the Blossom Suite that we performed together in Paris and hope to record. We were at his house one day when I started playing this Allegro by [Agustín] Barrios and he started improvising to it, and I said, 'Why don’t we do this on the album?' He’s such an amazingly lyrical player – so inventive.

“Stanley Jordan created an extraordinary new part for an expanded arrangement of [Quique] Sinesi’s Sonidos de aquel dia, which blends beautifully with the classical guitar part I’m playing. For Dreamboat Annie, Nancy Wilson and I arranged and recorded the entire song, including the tongue-in-cheek bossa nova section at the end, in an afternoon. I grew up listening to Heart, and having the opportunity to meet and record with Nancy was a thrilling experience.

“Finally, Romero Lubambo played beautifully on Adagio and Carlos Barbosa-Lima’s arrangement of [Antônio Carlos] Jobim’s Chovendo na Roseira.”

You mentioned that Morse and Vai improvised their parts. Improvisation played a prominent role in early classical music, didn’t it?

“Absolutely. For example, Bach was the pop artist of the time in the early 1700s, and improvisation was very much a part of being a performer and composer in the pop world. I think the ability to improvise is something that is a part of all of us, but when it’s developed to the fullest in artists like Steve Morse or Steve Vai, who can just create music on the spot, it’s truly something to marvel at. And I really like working with that kind of fresh energy because it inspires me.

“I’ve been spending time with Carlos Santana lately, doing some exploration for a project that we might do together, and that’s actually forcing me to learn how to improvise. So that’s my new project: learning how to improvise!”

That raises the question of why many classical musicians are uncomfortable improvising.

“I think that the fear factor probably interferes more than anything. For example, when I was in the studio with Nancy Wilson, she simply made me improvise, and I really liked the results. It becomes a lot freer rhythmically. You take your mind off the page and you just explore what comes to you, and that is a very freeing idea.

Similarly, working with Carlos was like getting a seven-hour guitar lesson. He was so patient and just stuck with it. I have a long way to go, but once I began to feel some sense of security, the freedom became enjoyable rather than terrifying.”

What guitars did you play on the new album?

“I played two instruments on Guitar Passions – one by Michael O’Leary and one by Antonius Mueller. They both have cedar tops, but are otherwise very different. O’Leary’s approach is to increase the volume and the resonance by focusing on the soundboard. The back and sides are doubled make them more stable, and the soundboard does all the vibrating.

“Tony Mueller’s guitar has a double cedar top with a sandwich material glued in between for stability. Both tops are very thin, and that thinness creates a very fast response, so that the string is almost playing before you touch it! The guitar has amazing warmth, and the high-E string has an extraordinary, bell-like sound. 

“I love both guitars, and I thought they would work well together on different selections. The only piece I played them both on was the Porro duet, and it really worked.”

How do you prefer to record your guitars?

“I like to have a resonant space, so I’m getting something back in terms of the studio itself. The setup usually involves four microphones – two placed close to the guitar to get the articulation and the presence, and two mounted on stands a little further away to get the ambiance of the room.”

How many distinctly different sounds can you get from a classical guitar just by changing the way you strike the strings?

“It’s really like an orchestra. If you play by the bridge using just your fingernail, and play perpendicular to the string, you can get a very bright metallic sound. The more you angle your nail when attacking the string, the warmer the sound, and when you add flesh it becomes even more sensuous and velvety in its color. Moving your hand down toward the fretboard makes the sound even warmer.

“When you add the left hand to the process, fingering in the first position, versus a higher position, produces a warmer sound. Add vibrato to that – say, finger an E on the third string at the 9th fret and multi-finger vibrato, where you put all your fingers down and really pull at that string with the left hand – and it creates an otherworldly kind of sound. 

“Adding harmonics, crossing the strings behind each other to get a snare drum effect, playing staccato where you muscle the string, pulling the strings to get a snapping sound – all of these add even more colors.”

What are a few examples of altered tunings used within the classical guitar repertoire?

“One common altered tuning is to lower the low E to D, and sometimes also to lower the A to G. And in Renaissance music sometimes the G is lowered to F#. It can become much more complex than that depending on the composer, but those are the basic ones that I have used.”

You have an extraordinary command of dynamics. What advice can you give electric guitarists to better incorporate dynamics into their playing?

“Their temptation is to be loud because they can be. But they might be surprised how they can also draw people to them by being as quiet as possible, so that they bring the listener into their world rather than the other way around. That establishes a real intimacy that is equally exciting as the loud and bombastic. So, if you have both of those and everything in between, then you really have a palette of expression that is incomparable. 

“Of course, I’ve always enjoyed the intimacy of the classical guitar, as playing it is a very tactile experience. You are touching the string, creating the vibration and the sound is born. In that process, I love to explore how softly I can play, how much I can turn each nuance into a caress, and then go to the other extreme of strumming away, which can be really loud and fierce. 

“One exercise I like involves taking a simple scale such as C major, and playing each pitch multiple times with alternating fingers. I might start with the softest I can possibly play, gradually getting louder until I reach maximum intensity, and then backing down gradually again, as I move through the scale. That really gives you a sense of how to move in between these extremes.”

Speaking of exercises, in your book, Classical Guitar Answer Book, there’s a chapter called 'Relaxation' and 'Visualization for Performing'. What is the visualization part about?

“I like to play by memory when I perform onstage, and there are several aspects of memory that come together to make that possible. You’ve got the motor memory of your muscles, the aural memory of what you hear, and the visual memory of seeing the notes or the position on the frets where your fingers are going. All of these are important, but, basically, the last signal that makes the sound happen is the impulse in your mind to put your finger on a particular fret to get a particular pitch. 

“I like to practice without the guitar and hear in my mind exactly what I want the music to sound like. That’s a freeing process, too, in that it gives you the chance to create an alternate vision of the music unencumbered by an instrument or technique. I visualize in my mind all the left-hand and right-hand fingerings and articulations at the same moment as I’m hearing the sound in my head, which unites the processes of the aural, visual, and visceral memories. 

“Immersing yourself in the music gives you a sense of confidence because when you step onto the stage you will know exactly what to do.”

What are a few classical guitar exercises that steel-string acoustic or electric players would benefit from?

“The Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos wrote 12 etudes, or exercises, the first of which [Allegro Non Troppo – Arpejos] uses a finger pattern that is a little complicated, but it just repeats every measure, so once you learn one measure you have it. I take that finger pattern as a daily warmup, and it is something that would really free up an electric or steel-string acoustic player who wants to be able to use their fingers as well as a pick.

“To get really great articulation with my left hand I practice hammer-ons and pulloffs, including playing with the very tips of my fingers, which gives me even more power and control. I also do exercises to maintain finger independence. 

“For example, if I’m playing hammer-ons and pull-offs up and down a string, when I’m pulling off I leave my other fingers on the adjacent string. So, if I’m playing on the sixth string, as I pull off, I keep my other fingers on the fifth string so that I’m only moving one finger at a time, with the others anchored, and that creates more finger independence for the left hand.”

How would you access the current state of classical music and where do you envision it going?

“I think we’re in a very exciting time in that composers really have free reign to explore what inspires them and there aren’t any restrictions as there were at one time, when you had to write 12-tone or atonal music. You can do those things if you like, or write tonal music, or be very avant-garde and experimental. And when composers have a link to their own heritage – whether it’s Chinese or African or British or Italian – they’ll bring something unique to the picture. 

“There are no limits other than the limits composers impose upon themselves – and that bodes well for the future, because anything is possible and the results are entirely unpredictable.”

“I write very emotional music, and most of the time it’s pretty angry,” says the reigning queen of shred metal, Nita Strauss. Right now, however, she’s the picture of morning contentment. Speaking with Guitar Player via Zoom, the guitarist is happily seated in the back of her tour bus, having wrapped the first date of her Summer Storm solo tour the night before in Nashville. On her lap are her two dogs: Bentley, a Pomeranian Chihuahua mix, and Motley, a Chihuahua mix. Strauss pats their heads and strokes their fur.

“The back lounge of the bus is their little kingdom,” she says. “They have everything they need, and they love it when people come by to visit them. They’re true little road dogs. I take them out on all of my solo tours. When I’m playing with other people, I have to leave them home, but when I do my shows, I get to set the rules.”

It’s breakfast time, so Strauss pours some food in a couple of bowls and sets her canine pals down to eat. She smiles as she watches them, then turns her attention back to the subject of music. “Playing the guitar and writing music is therapy for me,” she says. “I’m typically a pretty happy person. I’m not angry, although I have stress like anybody else. I don’t get into fights at the drive-thru. It’s interesting, though: When I pick up the guitar, I let it all out and go wherever my creative journey takes me. It usually takes me to some aggressive places.”

That’s certainly true throughout much of her second solo album, The Call of the Void (Sumerian Records), a relentless – and relentlessly thrilling – collection of scorching metal that showcases Strauss’s lethal virtuosic abilities as both a guitarist and songwriter. Whereas her first record, 2018’s Controlled Chaos, was an all-instrumental affair that proved she could whip up an old-school neo-classical storm, the new album is a more future-forward set aimed at mainstream rock and metal audiences.

More than half of the record features vocals from a variety of aggro guests – among them, Disturbed’s David Draiman, Halestorm’s Lzzy Hale, Dorothy Martin (from the band Dorothy) and In Flames’ Anders Fridén. Even Strauss’s longtime employer, shock-rocker Alice Cooper, turns up and delivers the goods on the righteous arena-rock anthem “Winner Takes All.”

“I like to operate on 10 all the time, so for me, playing on the vocal songs was a real challenge,” Strauss explains. “Whenever people talk about ‘taking things to the next level,’ I always think about going to 11 – you know, pedal to the metal. On straightforward rock songs, like ‘Victorious’ with Dorothy or ‘Through the Noise’ with Lzzy Hale, I had to try to do what I wanted guitar-wise without stepping over their vocals. Even the song I did with Alice, I had to tell myself, ‘Hey, let him sing!’”

She laughs and recites Yngwie Malmsteen’s famous line, “How can less be more? It’s impossible. More is more!” “That’s always been my attitude,” she notes. “I would think, All right, I have this main part, and then I have this minor-third harmony. Now I can double the main line up an octave – but maybe it would be better to have three, four or five harmony parts? And hey, I can put a little arpeggio in there, too. It can get a little crazy.”

And indeed, on The Call of the Void she does go a little bonkers in the Yngwie sense. Many of the album’s cuts – instrumentals as well as vocal tunes – are packed to the gills with mesmerizing, high-flying guitar harmonies that at times reach operatic heights. “It was all about balance,” she says. “I had to keep reminding myself that not all of my big ideas had a place on any given song, which runs counter to my intuition. Being on 10 is my comfort zone, but occasionally I have to dial it back.”

She points to the exotic ballad “Kintsugi” as prime example of this kind of restraint. Only Strauss and her keyboardist, Katt Scarlett, appear on the track, which features blistering, fleet-fingered runs. At its core it’s an affecting study in legato melodicism, and it succeeds in casting a mystical spell. 

“I’m so proud of that song,” Strauss says. “It’s very pure, and the emotion comes from a different place than the other cuts on the album. I didn’t use any fancy tricks – I didn’t use a lot of gain or anything like that. It’s very simple and evocative. To be honest, I didn’t know I could do something so sparse. It’s just the guitar and keyboard having a conversation. I didn’t need anything else.”

Nor did she need a lot of added musicians on the album. Aside from herself and Scarlett, the only other player is her drummer, and longtime boyfriend, Josh Villalta. They’re both part of Strauss’s touring band, which includes guitarist Johnny Young and bassist Dean, as well as singer Kasey Karlsen, a social media star and vocalist for the group Deadlands. “I’m so psyched about this band,” Strauss says. “To have Josh and Katt with me is awesome. Everything I do musically involves them. And Kasey is killing it. She did her first show with us last night, and she floored everybody. We’re having a blast.”

The brief Summer Storm tour saw Strauss return in August to her main gig with Alice Cooper (a spot she’s held down since 2014, one in which she shares guitar duties with another band veteran, Ryan Roxie). Last year, she caused a stir among fans when she split the Cooper camp and took up with Demi Lovato for a reinvention of the pop singer’s sound. Strauss added plenty of metallic crunch to Lovato’s bracing alt-rock album, Holy Fvck, and performed live dates as a member of the singer’s all-female band.

“There was some confusion about me going off to play with Demi, and I was surprised at the blowback,” Strauss says. “I was never ‘quitting’ Alice. There was a tour with Demi, and I talked to Alice about it – ‘Hey, are you okay with this?’ He said, ‘Absolutely. Go do it, and we’ll be here next year if the schedules work out.’ He gave me his complete support. Kane Roberts stepped in for me with Alice, and he did a phenomenal job. There weren’t that many dates with Demi this year, and there were a lot of dates with Alice, so it made sense for me to come back. There was zero drama.”

She picks her pooches back up and considers the road ahead. “I’m in a really good place,” she says. “This year marks my 20th year as a touring guitarist. If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s ‘Man makes plans and God laughs.’ No matter what you’ve envisioned, something will happen and it all changes in front of you. I’m taking things one step at a time – getting this record out, a solo tour, touring with Alice, some one-offs with Demi and then game-planning the next solo record. If I looked back five years, I couldn’t have imagined where I am right now.”

It’s interesting. The press never calls female singers “female singers.” But if a woman picks up a guitar, she’s a “female guitarist.” A woman who plays drums is a “female drummer,” and so on. Aren’t you sick of all that?

Honestly, it doesn’t bother me at all anymore. Maybe when I was younger and had a chip on my shoulder, I’d be like, “I don’t want to be a female guitar player; I just want to be known as a guitar player.” But I’ve been touring for so long now, and the world of women in guitar is very different than when I started out. At the end of the day, to be in the conversation is a great thing. If we’re talking about great female guitar players, or great guitar players from Los Angeles, or great guitar players with blonde hair, or whatever, I’m focused on the “great guitar player” part.

At the same time, though, you’ve talked about how happy you are to be the first female to have a signature guitar with Ibanez. Last year, you said that you hoped Demi Lovato’s band could inspire women musicians. Is there a dichotomy there?

Maybe a little, when you put it like that. Look, let’s just get down to the harsh reality. You can be the best heart surgeon in the world, and there will still be a guy out there saying, “I don’t want a woman operating on my heart.” There are still stereotypes to break down – it is what it is. We have a song on the new record called “Victorious,” which is not meant to be a girl anthem, but it’s taken on the role of a girl anthem. It’s for anybody who struggles with self-doubt, and that’s not limited to the female gender. I know a lot of insecure guys.

By and large, it’s important to encourage people. When I was growing up, I didn’t have a lot of women to look up to in the guitar field, so if I can somehow inspire the next generation of girls who want to pick up a guitar and learn to play, I’ll gladly do what I can.

I would think that you already are an inspiration. Do you have girls come up to you at shows and say, “I picked up the guitar because of you”?

All the time. I can’t put into words how much that means to me. It’s not just little girls – it’s 50-year-old men and women who are retired. Their kids are grown, and they want to learn how to play guitar. I really get all kinds, and I love it.

Let’s talk about shred guitar. Who lit that fuse for you?

I loved the Shrapnel guys – Paul Gilbert, Marty Friedman, Jason Becker. Of course, I loved Steve Vai and Joe Satriani. This was when I was 13 years old. Then I saw Steve Vai in Crossroads – he was so cool and charismatic. At the time, I had a guitar, but I hadn’t fallen in love with it yet. I remember watching Steve Vai and thinking, Why didn’t anybody tell me that you could do that with a guitar? That is so cool!

After that, I started devouring anything I could get my hands on. I got the instructional DVDs by John Petrucci, Marty Friedman and Yngwie Malmsteen. It was all too advanced for a beginning guitar player, but I was into it. My family didn’t have a lot of money, so we couldn’t afford private lessons. Those DVDs were my teachers. I would sit there watching the screen, just picking out the patterns as best I could. That’s how I learned.

What was it about shred guitar music that spoke to you as opposed to other genres at the time?

The fact is, you had to seek out the music; shred wasn’t being played on the radio. Oh, it was hard to find, for sure. I got into really heavy music, bands like In Flames, Childen of Bodom, Soilwork… I loved the European metal, but of course I loved our American heroes Metallica and Megadeth too.

I think the music brought me out of my shell. I’m a naturally quiet person. I’m not super outgoing; I didn’t have an easy time making friends in school. When I started playing in bands, it was like this whole new community accepted me. I could almost play a character version of myself. I could get onstage and become somebody who was confident. At the same time, I had a hard time starting a conversation with kids my own age. But I knew that if I played guitar, they would listen and they would pay attention. I fell in love with communicating through music and performance.

It’s like how many shy kids excel in sports.

I did that, too. I grew up doing rhythmic gymnastics, and I would fly all over the country and compete. I had friends in my gym, but I still couldn’t hold a conversation with anybody at school.

What would you say is the most important shred technique – maybe something you learned early on that still matters today?

Good question. Hmm… I would say legato playing. It’s something I picked up on very early, and I still lean on it quite a bit. I think a big part of that is because I’m self-taught. Any self-taught guitarist will tell you they have holes in their playing. I’m not as well-rounded as I could be.

My right hand isn’t as strong as my left; I’m a very left-hand dominant player. That just came from being a young guitar player who didn’t know what was important. It was easier to move my left hand around, so I kept working harder on it. In a way, that ended up serving me very well, because later on my right hand caught up and I can do all the fast picking now. But I know that I’ve leaned heavily on my left hand since the very beginning.

It’s interesting that you say legato playing. For a lot of shred players, that technique takes a back seat to high-speed flash.

I know, which is crazy! I love playing fast, believe me, but you have to know when to put on the brakes. Teaching myself how to play wasn’t the smartest way to do it – I’m just being honest. If I could go back and take proper lessons with somebody who knew how to teach a young guitar player, I would probably be a very different guitarist than I am today. I’d certainly be a more complete player. But this is where I’ve landed, and all things for a reason. It’s working.

You mentioned how Steve Vai in Crossroads got you interested in shred guitar, but the movie itself concerned a young blues musician. Did blues come into the picture when you were starting out?

I wouldn’t say it was a major influence. Of course, I had Texas Flood by the great Stevie Ray Vaughan.

That’s funny. A lot of people who don’t listen to blues have a Stevie Ray album.

That’s true. Later in my career, I got into more modern blues players, like Joe Bonamassa. He was actually at my show in Nashville last night – so no pressure, right? I look out and there’s Bonamassa. Wow! [laughs] He texted me after the show – “Big tone.” Coming from him, it was the greatest compliment I could ever ask for. As far as modern blues goes, he is just the pinnacle of what’s going on.

I asked because it seems that a lot of metal or shred players just pass right over the blues.

Right. They do.

Given that, how then did you approach playing much of Alice Cooper’s material? Take a song like “I’m Eighteen,” which is very R&B-based rock and roll – you could play it on an acoustic.

Exactly.

How does a shredder come at something like that?

It was kind of an education process. When I got the confirmation that I was going to be on the Alice Cooper tour, I wound up taking my first actual guitar lesson.

Why exactly?

To learn, basically. I talked to [longtime Alice Cooper producer] Bob Ezrin, who was a big part of my audition process, and he said, “Alice Cooper doesn’t need a shred guitar player. He needs a rock guitar player. Can you become a rock guitar player in time?” I said, “Absolutely. I know I can do it.” This was two weeks before the start of the Alice Cooper-Mötley Crüe tour. When I hung up the phone, I was in a daze. I remember looking at my phone and thinking, “Wow… Bob Ezrin just told me I don’t know how to play rock guitar.”

That’ll wreck your confidence.

Yeah. I was like, “I need to figure out what he means – a ‘rock guitar player.’” I called around and found a great teacher. I came in and showed him my audition videos. I said, “What the fuck does he mean?”

My teacher was the first person to really teach me how to incorporate blues licks into my playing, like adding the blues note into the minor pentatonic scale – these little licks and things. AC/DC riffs, Kiss riffs and licks. Ace Frehley’s stuff worked seamlessly with my style of playing, but they added that extra nuance that made it feel a bit more like a classic-rock vibe.

What you’re describing is reverse engineering. A lot of the guitarists you first admired – Satriani and Vai, for example – came up listening to blues-based players. Their style of playing then morphed into what we call “shred.”

Completely. Reverse engineering – that’s the perfect term for it. We reverse-engineered my guitar playing to fit what it needed to be. You know, we talked about being a complete player and the gaps in my knowledge – the blues part was a big gap for me. I think that happened because I taught myself. When I was younger, I didn’t have the discipline to start from the beginning. I just skipped ahead to what I wanted to do.

Once I addressed that hole in my playing, it made me a stronger guitarist overall, and it allowed me to incorporate that style into what I do. If you listen to the new record, you’ll hear a lot of these little blues licks that I’ve learned over the course of playing with Alice. Also, Ryan Roxie, who is a fantastic, very rock and roll blues-based player – there’s a lot of little Ryan Roxie tips and tricks in there, as well.

With the exception of “Kintsugi,” you tend to favor a big, orchestrated guitar sound on the album – lots of harmonized parts. Where does that come from?

Probably all the bands I grew up loving – Iron Maiden, In Flames, Children of Bodom, Arch Enemy. They gave me an appreciation for two guitar players doing minor-third harmonies.

Do you think you might explore the approach on “Kintsugi” in the future?

You never know. That one felt right at the time. I didn’t start out with the intention of doing it – it’s just what the song needed. If another song pops into my brain that needs it, absolutely.

Take me inside your process for writing instrumentals like “Summer Storm” and “Consume the Fire.” With the upfront knowledge that guitar players will like them, how do you try to make the songs appeal to non-guitarists?

Honestly, this may sound selfish, but I don’t do it for either of those reasons. I write the instrumental stuff for me. I don’t even think about the audience. These songs are pure, unadulterated creativity in a solo sense. I don’t work with other musicians or co-writers. It’s like a therapy session, and I get to explore whatever I’m thinking about. I’m always surprised at the reactions I get, and I’m so flattered that non-guitar players really get into these songs. The vocal songs get a lot of people in the door, but they stay for the instrumentals.

“Scorched” is a stately, elegant, mid-tempo instrumental. I hear bits of Satch, but mostly Vai, the way he orchestrated his guitars on Passion and Warfare. Am I in the right lane there?

Oh, my, what a compliment! I would say you’re in the right lane, although I didn’t really start out trying to emulate Steve Vai’s sound. I think it just happens naturally; having played for so many years in two- and three-guitar bands, harmonies are my wheelhouse. Everybody I work with knows that I’ll add harmonies upon harmonies upon octaves – to the point where it can be a bit much. [laughs]

When you write instrumentals, do you always have a guitar in your hands? Do you sometimes start with a melody or a riff that pops into your head while you’re walking around?

You don’t get to choose when the muse comes. Sometimes I’ll have a guitar with me, but other times I might be walking around thinking about a song. I usually try to have a story that I want to tell, and I try to come up with note choices and arrangements that serve the story. I think that’s why my songs appeal to people who aren’t guitar players; they might not have words, but they’re about something.

Who in your opinion is pushing the boundaries of instrumental shred? Who’s taking it somewhere new?

Oh, my gosh, I feel like we’re in a golden age for it. Look at what Angel Vivaldi is doing. Look at what Yvette Young is doing. Tim Henson and Scott LePage from Polyphia, Tosin Abasi, Jason Richardson. These players are advancing the music to a place that people couldn’t even conceive of 10 years ago. I watch Tim and Scott do what they do, and it makes my jaw drop. I would say that the world of instrumental guitar is in a very good place.

Anything new on the horizon for your signature guitar? Are you planning an update?

I have something cooking for a new JIVA model, but I’m holding off putting the wheels in motion until the new JIVAX2 Ghost is shipping more consistently. The pre-orders started at the last NAMM, and the first shipments are just starting to arrive now. A lot of people pre-ordered a very expensive guitar, and I think it would be a slap in the face if I said, “I know you haven’t gotten that guitar, but hey, here’s a new one.”

Did you use any new gear on the record?

I experimented with a lot of different plug-ins – that was new for me. We used some of the Neural DSPs and some Steven Slate stuff. I liked using a Slate mic because of the modeling aspect. As far as live gear, I still used my signature guitars, and I can’t beat a Marshall amp. I use the Satriani JVM series of amps.

You’re big into fitness. Is that how you keep yourself together?

Between the rigors of touring, plus everything else you’re involved with, you’ve got a pretty full schedule.

It gets pretty hectic. For me, it’s all about getting into a routine and sticking with it. The way my days are set up, I have to get to it right when I wake up. I take my vitamins, drink my green shake, and then I do my workout. If I don’t get that workout in, I won’t do it at all. It’s so important to stick to a routine, mentally and physically. You have to fuel your machine.

It’s admirable how seriously you take physical and mental health. I’m sure you’ve seen some musicians go down a bad road.

I have, but it’s less and less common now. More musicians than ever are prioritizing their health. I go on tour buses and people are like, “We drink this green drink, and we use this protein powder.” It’s not drugs and partying and girls anymore. Everybody has calmed down. We keep the craziness for the stage.