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Biography

From the time he was recruited to play "impossible guitar parts" for Frank Zappa's tightly disciplined ensemble of the mid-'80s, Steve Vai has been regarded as a musician's musician, a bona fide guitar hero whose quest for excellence has never failed to hold aficionados and would- be guitar stars in total awe. His combination of mind-boggling technique tempered with intelligence and passion later served David Lee Roth, Alcatrazz and Whitesnake while also resulting in a triumvirate of stunning recordings as a leader, beginning with 1990's Passion And Warfare, continuing with 1993's Sex & Religion and culminating with last year's Grammy- nominated all-instrumental EP, Alien Love Secrets. For his Epic label debut, the guitar hero nonpareil unveils a new weapon in his awesome arsenal -- his voice.

While phase one of Fire Garden contains the same virtuosic playing and astounding intensity that Vai fans have come to expect from his albums, phase two introduces Steve Vai the impassioned vocalist and lyricist. "I don't want to be just an instrumental artist my whole life," says the poll-winning guitarist. "And it's hard to find singers to work with who are interested in what I'm doing, so I realized that if I wanted to have vocal music on my album I was going to have to sing myself."

A highly ambitious undertaking, Fire Garden took Vai more than two and a half years to complete. Recording at his own studio in Hollywood afforded him the luxury of taking his time to sculpt these pieces with a carefully crafted sense of "guitarchitecture" from track to track. As he explains, "On my last recording (Alien Love Secrets), I focused strictly on guitar, bass and drums in a pretty live setting. But on this one I wanted to make it thicker in terms of textures. I wanted it to be more orchestrated, focusing on basically three different elements -- the instrumental guitar melody approach, the whole compositional concept and the vocal approach."

And Vai acquits himself with t ypical passion in tackling "the vocal thing." As he mentions, "I'm very young as a lyricist. I'm just starting to explore that particular brain muscle. I just feel totally dwarfed on an expression level when I listen to some of the people I find effective in that area. But you know, you've got to start somewhere."

Steve summons up some strong images with his lyrics and sets the proper mood with his accompanying music on the vocal numbers. Whereas "Aching Hunger" seethes with a kind of violent energy, "Brother" smolders with passionate emotionalism and "Damn You" rages with anger, "All About Eve" conjures the ominous vibe of a New Orleans voodoo ritual. "That song is exceptionally special to me," says Steve. "On _All About Eve_, more than anything else on the record, I think I married the lyrical atmosphere with the harmonic structure of the chord changes along with the melody, and it comes from a deep, moody place. It's just ominous, and probably my favorite song on the record."

On the instrumental tracks, Vai takes no prisoners. The collection literally starts off with a bang on the explosive opener "There's A Fire In The House." It's a tune based on a script that Steve is developing called "Fire Coma," about a man who's on a soul-searching quest while in acoma. He launches into a bit of bluesy bombast with "The Crying Machine," which features former David Lee Roth bandmate Greg Bissonette on drums. And he rocks with raucous abandon on the aggressive "Blowfish" and the touching "Dyin' Day," a warm tune that was originally written for Ozzy Osbourne and features Stu Hamm on bass.

Vai achieves some of his more lyrical moments as a guitarist during the beautiful "Hand On Heart," a melody that magically came to him during a sound check in Milan and was luckily documented on DAT. And he completely blows minds on the album's chops-busting centerpiece, the four-part "Fire Garden Suite," which is full of some intense notational situations for drummer Mike Man gini and also features the multi-instrumental Vai on acoustic and electric guitars, electric bass and piano.

There are the usual snippets of Vai-esque humor in sonic interludes like "Whookam" and "When I Was A Little Boy." As he explains, "I enjoy humor in music. That's what attracted me to Frank (Zappa). I get really uncomfortable when I get too serious because it sounds pretentious to me."

"Genocide" has a real anthemic arena-rock quality to it, sort of Steve's answer to "We Will Rock You." And there is one brief but suitably insane solo guitar freakout entitled "The Mysterious Murder Of Christian Tiera's Lover" to further astound fretboard fanatics.

FIRE GARDEN closes, appropriately, on an instrumental note with the soulful "Warm Regards." As Steve notes, "I wanted to end it with an instrumental piece so that people realize that I'm primarily an instrumental artist...at least right now. If it was all vocal stuff that you listened to last, you'd be left with the impression maybe that it's more of a vocal album than an instrumental album. It's really not. And 'Warm Regards' was another one of those special moments that you're so grateful for as an artist. You walk up to an instrument and you start playing and this stuff just flows out of you. I sat at the piano, played the chord changes and sang the melody almost instantaneously. I literally wrote, recorded and mixed that song in two days."

On September 28, 1996 at the Eastman Concert Hall in Rochester, NY, Steve Vai will perform his original scores for guitar and 60-piece orchestra in a collaboration with conductor- composer Joel Thome. Two weeks later, on October 11, Vai will begin a major US tour in partnership with two other formidable guitarists, Joe Satriani and Eric Johnson. The "G3" tour, as it's called, will run for approximately six weeks and 25-30 performances, with Steve and his band leading off the show each night and all three guitarists performing together in a finale of fretboard fir eworks.

Discography

BTW: These CD's aren't all pure Steve Vai CD's, but every one of them features at least one song with Steve Vai. Pure Steve Vai CD's will be marked with *

  • Frank Zappa - Tinseltown Rebellion
  • Frank Zappa - You are what you is
  • Frank Zappa - Shut up 'n Play yer Guitar
  • Frank Zappa - Ship arriving too late to save a drowning witch
  • Frank Zappa - The Man from Utopia
  • Lisa Popeil - Lisa Popeil
  • Frank Zappa - Them or Us
  • Steve Vai - Flex-able *
  • Steve Vai - Flex-able Leftovers *
  • Frank Zappa - Thing Fish
  • Heresy - At the Door
  • Alcatrazz - Distributing the Peace
  • Public Image Limited
  • Frank Zappa - Frank Zappa meets the Mothers of Prevention
  • Bob Harris - The Great Nostalgia
  • Shankar/Caroline - The Epidemics
  • David Lee Roth - Eat'em and Smile
  • David Lee Roth - Sonrisa Salvaje
  • Randy Cover - Funk me Tender
  • Western Vacation - Western Vacation
  • Frank Zappa - Jazz from Hell
  • "Dudes" original Motion Picture Soundtrack
  • Frank Zappa - Guitar
  • David Lee Roth - Skyscraper
  • Frank Zappa - You can't do that on Stage anymore Sampler
  • Frank Zappa - You can't do that on Stage anymore Vol.1
  • Various Artists - Guitar's practising Musicians Vol.1
  • Whitesnake - Slip of the Tongue
  • Steve Vai - Passion & Warfare *
  • Steve Vai - 4 song Promo *
  • Steve Vai - 3 song Promo *
  • Alice Cooper - Hey Stoopid
  • Various Artists - Wayne's World
  • Frank Zappa - As an Am
  • Frank Zappa - You can't do that on Stage anymore Vol.3
  • Bill & Ted Bogus Journey (soundtrack)
  • Frank Zappa - You can't do that on Stage anymore Vol.4
  • Frank Zappa - You can't do that on Stage anymore Vol.5
  • Frank Zappa - You can't do that on Stage anymore Vol.6
  • Bad 4 Good - Refugee (produced by Steve Vai)
  • Various Artists - Zappa's Universe Choice Morsels
  • Various Artists - Zappa's Universe
  • Various Artists - P.C.U. (Soundtrack)
  • Whitesnake - Whitesnakes greatest Hits
  • Steve Vai - Alien Love Secrets *
  • Various Artists - In from the Storm
  • Various Artists - The songs from West Side Story
  • Ozzy Osbourne - Ozzmosis
  • Frank Zappa - Strictly Commercial
  • Steve Vai - Fire Garden *
  • Wild Style - Cryir's
  • G3 Live *
  • Frank Zappa - Have I offended someone
  • Various Artists - Marry Axemas
  • Various Artists - Angelica
  • David Lee Roth - The Best

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Links

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Steve Vai's Homepage