Steve Vai
Steve Vai
Steven Siro "Steve" Vaiis an American guitarist, composer, singer, songwriter, and producer, born and raised on Long Island, New York. Vai was voted the 10th "Greatest Guitarist" by Guitar World magazine, and has sold over 15 million records. A three-time Grammy Award winner and fifteen-time nominee, Vai started his music career in 1978 at the age of 18 as a transcriptionist for Frank Zappa, and joined his band from 1980 to 1983. He embarked on a solo career in 1983...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionMusician
Date of Birth6 June 1960
CountryUnited States of America
Baby don't wake me, let me take you on an endless journey. We touch and the softest kiss explodes with lust. It's real and you can't deny the heat you feel. And if I die before I wake, baby that's all right.
We may be human, but we're still animals.
You know, there's times when you should play and there's times when you gotta hold back.
Acting, at least for me, is very unreal, and when I'm doing it, I actually feel embarrassed.
I can tell you this: I'm an extremely passionate individual. I try to be careful how I display it because you never know how people are going to take it.
That's the thing about great artists: They find the thing that's most obvious to themselves, what's most conscious and natural, and they put it out there and the audience comes.
I'm a big fan of cultural music, and that's how I try to expand my playing, by listening to music that is not conventionally American.
I was about seven or eight years old when I first heard West Side Story, and it had a huge impact on me. If you look at the elements of that record, it contains many of the things I enjoy doing today.
I was a kid, 12 or something, when the Partridge Family was big on TV. I liked the curly cord running from the bass to the amps, which were real fancy. That cord looked so cool. I said, 'Wow! I gotta play something like that!
My past is very interesting, and I treasure it, but to write about it, it's just not on my radar.
Along with its enchanting and exquisite melodies, West Side Story has attitude and a tremendous amount of frenetic energy. It's emotional, theatrical and technical. It's everything.
I've never really heard anybody imitating anything of mine the way they do with Edward Van Halen's stuff.
... you watch Jimi Hendrix literally reinvent the instrument. He was playing from somewhere else. He was really a kind of hybrid, and I can't even begin to imagine where he came from
I'm always pursuing knowledge; I'm a seeker of spiritual equilibrium - and music is a big part of that.