Gary SteelGARY STEEL enters the mouldering vault of past interviews and digs out his never-before-published 1997 chat with guitarist extraordinaire, Steve Vai.
Steve Vai was visiting New Zealand for the first time. I met up with him in the private corner of an Auckland hotel foyer. Frank Zappa had died only three years earlier and the guitarist was happy to talk about his experience with the maestro as well as his own dalliance with orchestral music and life on the road.
Gary Steel – Do you drink or smoke at all?
Steve Vai – Not at all.
Gary – Is that to do with being healthy and fit?
Steve – Yeah. A lot of reasons. Whenever I used to get drunk I would do really stupid things that I would regret and feel really stupid about. I just stopped.
Gary – When did you get here.
Steve – We got here last night.
Gary – Is this the last day of the tour?
Steve – No, we’re actually going to Korea tomorrow. We booked Asia, Japan, Australia and New Zealand, and then we were going to go home, but then Korea came in. Coming here was really… it was a chance. I’d never come and I thought I want to check into it, and see. No promoters would have us, because they thought I wouldn’t sell any tickets, and I didn’t think I’d sell any. We got to Asia… it was riotous at times. So there’s a market there. And same thing here, we didn’t know it was gonna be this good. I mean everything sold out in Australia. Finally we found guys that would promote it. Adrian Bohm. He just said okay we’ll give it a shot. So I owe him. When we were in Asia we played hard rock cafes, about 1500 people. I lost dough, but that’s what you gotta do the first time. It was obvious when we got there a lot of people couldn’t get in and whatnot. So it’s like, we discovered there’s an audience and the promoters are like ‘oh, okay’. But you gotta do that sometimes, you really gotta go out and explore. We went to Russia two years ago, we went for no money, I lost dough, and it went so well that they asked us back a few months later. We did two shows, and now they ask us again to do four shows. And now we have a market there. You just gotta do it. It just doesn’t work like that in America for people like me.
Gary – What do you mean by that?
Steve – It’s very hard for a person like myself to tour in America and Europe because they’re so saturated with MTV that the kind of music that I do is… there’s no market.
Gary – I always imagined that you had a really good audience in America.
Steve – There was at one point, but there’s just so much rap and alternative stuff.
Gary – Do you still make videos?
Steve – No. No fuckin’ way. If I was to make a video, it would be with my own money, my own entertainment. Alien Love Secrets, that EP, I made a video for the entire thing, and it’s good for fans that like that kind of stuff, but as far as servicing MTV with a video, ha!
Gary – They wouldn’t play it?
Steve – Not if I was on fire! As a matter of fact my bus burnt down on the last tour, we had to flee the bus for our lives, and we got videos of the bus burning down with all our stuff in it. My record company thought ‘we’ll get some press out of this’, and they sent a copy of the video to MTV with the news report. And MTV sent back a letter or a phone call or something saying we’re not gonna air this because they thought it was a promotional stunt. Because the name of my record is Fire Garden. They thought I’d burnt down my $450,000 bus and risked my life and the life of my band and crew to get on that station. I’m not bitter it’s just the way things go.
Gary – Is your kind of music unfashionable at the moment? Or do the people dispersing the information think ‘we don’t like this’?
Steve – There’s a lot of people making music, and there’s trends that come and go. The kind of music I make is unique to a certain audience that craves it. Unless they were to take my music and put it on the radio and say ‘here’s a hit song’, because it has potential, everybody’s music has potential if it gets on the radio, it’s just who’s gonna pick it, and what’s right. You know, Steve Vai is just not right to be a pop star. I’m too musical. I’m too ‘80s for some people. And that’s okay with me. I’ve had my big success. I’m very happy with the fanbase I’ve got. I’m able to make records, and hey man, I’m very grateful for that. I’m here. And I don’t mind. I know trends come and go. I don’t have the energy or the time to try to be on the cutting edge of every trend. Then you’re like chasing feathers in the wind. I just want to make the kind of music that I like.
Gary – College radio here wouldn’t touch your stuff; they play alternative and dance.
Steve – Even if I was to make a record like that they wouldn’t touch it. It’s pretty much the same around the world. I’ve never had my music on any radio station anywhere.
Gary – Who is your audience? Are they mostly musicians?
Steve – Yeah. Guitar players. Musicians. It’s different in different parts of the world. Like in Japan these days there’s a lot of women. Where in America or someplace else, maybe it’s 95 percent guys.
Gary – It must be gratifying to have some women!
Steve – Oh I milk that puppy! I see a woman in the audience, I worship her!
Gary – It must be boring having all these serious guys all the time.
Steve – Well the funny thing is that they might be musicians and they might be serious, but they’re fun, too. Like they really dig it, they have a good time, and I like seeing people having a good time. Plus any women that come to the concerts feel like queens, because they’re surrounded by all these hot sweaty musician-type guys.
Gary – Who is in the band?
Steve – I’ve got Mike Mangini on drums. He’s fabulous, he was with Extreme. Philip Bynoe on bass, who was a friend of Mike’s from Boston, and on keyboards and guitar Mike Keneally who was with Frank Zappa. And they’re all really… this is my favourite band. Fine, fine musicians, wonderful people, and I love touring with them. And I love touring, and the only time I don’t like touring is when I’m with a band that’s miserable. These guys are the exact opposite.
Gary – How did Mike Keneally come to play with you?
Steve – I wanted to have another person in the band and I wanted to… I wanted a good guitar player. Someone who can play guitar and keyboards. And he’s just the guy. He can do them both at the same time. So I called him and asked him to do it, and he was a little apprehensive at first because he has his own career, his own solo career, makes great records with his band Beer For Dolphins. And eventually he saw it my way.
Gary – It must be quite a different sound than you get on the album, because you did so much yourself.
Steve – Yeah, but I’ve got guys who are interested in making the music on the record sound right, and they’re capable of doing it so…
Gary – How did the orchestral thing go?
Steve – Oh man it was just fabulous. It was really great. I love orchestral music, but on my own terms. I’m not really a fan of the classic classics. I like Stravinsky or Bernstein, and I wrote my first orchestra score in high school. I’ve always been fascinated with little black dots. So when I got together with Joel Thome and we won a Grammy for the Zappa tribute, I thought let’s do a concert with my own music. So the series is called Sound Current, and the first concert was in Rochester, New York. We played with a 60-piece orchestra and a rock band. And it’s really different to what you might think… it’s not boring classical stuff. It’s got muscle. It’s really a fine pleasure. It’s exquisite to experience that. To have an orchestra playing what you were hearing in your head. It’s totally different, it’s organic. It’s not coming from metal strings through electric devices. And it’s been going really well. We have two shows booked June 12th, 13th in Jerusalem with the Israeli Orchestra. There’s a rock band element to it. At times it’s totally orchestral, but it’s subsidised at times by the rock band. Sometimes the rock band is just out of control. It’s actually the trio, bass drums and guitar with the 60-piece. When we go to Jerusalem we’ll use a 100 piece. But it’s an ongoing thing. Right now I only have orchestrated music for pieces of the past. Basically I’m constructing the concept for a new piece that’s about 45 minutes long, but it takes six solid months of 10-hour a day undisturbed time to compose it, notate it, orchestrate it. And then I’d have to give it to somebody else and spend $25,000 having them copy the parts. So it’s a big undertaking when you’re doing press and you’re a dad and all that stuff.
Gary – Participating in the whole rock’n’roll thing, do you ever wish you could forget about it and concentrate on that.
Steve – Yes. I think about it all the time. I know that some day I’ll be able to do that. Some day I’m going to be too old to tour. I’m not going to have the energy to get up there… you’re never too old to tour, but I’m not going to be doing 10-month tours like this, travelling every day. It’ll be paced differently. But right now I’ve got the energy to go out there and blow up the bridge. So I’m gonna do it. If I spent six months right now with manuscript paper… it just doesn’t feel right, although it’s my favourite thing to do. I chip away at it. I carry a big briefcase with me that has all my music in it. And when I was on the Sex & Religion tour every spare minute I orchestrated, and that’s how I got all this stuff for the first Sound Current. Right now I’ve got a list of other things I’ve gotta accomplish first.
Gary – Your orchestral music, is it as full of music as your guitar playing? It’s not in any way minimalist!
Steve – My music is totally indulgent. Have you noticed? It’s really indulgent. And my music demands a lot of its listener. I demand a lot from the listener sometimes. It’s to the detriment of any pop icon-ness I may ever have the potential to achieve, but that’s what I like, and if you listen to Sex & Religion or even Passion & Warfare, it’s very demanding. Some people go for it, some people don’t. Some people are just enamoured with it. Like me, there are people… there’s music that I listen to that you would never hear on the radio, but it’s fulfilling. And the orchestra music I do is like that too, it’s artistic. There’s nothing pop… but it’s powerful.
Gary – We seem to have come to an era where the less is more approach has taken hold. What’s your attitude to that?
Steve – I think it’s relative. You’re gonna have an orchestra at your fingertips, or a rock band or whatever, you can be minimalistic and still be very powerful. But the mentality today, or that prevails in America, that minimalism is not minimalism in the sense of composition, it’s minimalism in the sense of musicianship. It’s like the simpler and more mundane the music, the better. And out of that sometimes comes some really brilliant stuff. I’m a fan of popular music. There’s good stuff, there’s inspired stuff, and there’s crap. There’s the mediocre meanderings of somebody else’s genius, that everybody tries to copy because they’re trend-mongers. I’m guilty of that at times. Sure. I hear something on the radio that I really like, I get inspired to write, I got to write a song just like it, I listen to it, I say this is CRAP. I throw it away and I go and write something like ‘Hangar 18’.
Gary – The metal aspect of what you do. The Whitesnake element of what you do, is that market directed?
Steve – There’s virtually no audience for the Whitesnake Steve Vai. A lot of my dedicated fans rebelled against that whole era. It was musical in a sense, it was metally. But the people who follow what I do… they’re moved by stuff that’s completely on the other side. But there’s that handful of people who are just touched by the notes and the composition of what I do. It’s not a vast audience, but that audience knows that they can only get that type of stimulation through what I’m doing. It’s not better or worse than anybody else, it’s just a little different. And in America that audience is there too. But that whole Whitesnake mentality… that’s gone. That’s so gone in America that anything resembling it is highly criticised.
Gary – Do you think non-musicians can understand what you’re doing.
Steve – I think if you’ve got an open mind, sure. It’s what you’re feeling. When you’re composing something, writing something, when you’re editing this, what you’re feeling when you’re doing it is really what people get out of it. You don’t have to be a musician to appreciate some of the old classics and stuff. It’s just the impact and stimulation that it has on people. Some people come to my concerts and the guitar solos sound like a series of morse code. They’re tone deaf, but they see the lights, they see the movement, like the colours, like the beat, and that’s when they get it. They never knew what it was like to hear (mimics guitar solo). It was never there for them. So everybody hears different things. So to criticise somebody’s ability to appreciate something… is pretty pathetic.
Gary – Zappa told me a non-musician would only understand about 10 percent of his music. As a non-musician I think ‘why do I like this so much if I don’t understand it?’
Steve – You don’t have to understand. What’s to understand? I never really understood that. Okay, when I listen to a piece of music, I know what everybody’s doing. I can hear the most complex piano concerto, and I know exactly what the guy’s fingers are doing. But that’s not what I’m listening to. I’m listening to the sound. The way it’s feeling, the way it’s moving me, what it’s saying. I listen to it on a non-musical level in a way.
Gary – Exactly what were your years with Zappa? The press release said you were in the mid-‘80s band!
Steve – In 1977 I made contact with Frank. I was 17. In 1978 I started writing for him, transcribing music. I was at Berkeley College of Music. In 1980 I moved to California, and I started hanging out with Frank and recording with him up at the house. In 1980 I did my first tour with Frank. I was in the band. And I toured with him and transcribed ‘80, ‘81 and ‘82. And then in 1983 I transcribed… and in all that time I would record up at the house, too. In ‘84 Frank quit touring and started with his Synclavier, so I went and did other things. But Frank always kept releasing stuff that I had been on, that I recorded in that period, that window that I worked with him. And there’ll still be stuff coming out. You can go up to Frank’s house one night, and record for 9 days and the stuff will just be coming out for years.
Gary – That must have been an intense time for you.
Steve – Well it was… you see with Frank, if you were gonna join Frank’s band for a paycheque or because you had the talent and it was a stepping-stone or something, you were going to find it very challenging and very hard, maybe depressing at times. But for me, I adored the man and his music, and my whole focus was centred around impressing him with the way I played his music, and transcribed it. I worked morning, noon and night for Frank, and I enjoyed every minute. I was totally absorbed, and when you’re absorbed what do you miss? He challenged me, but I rose to the challenge, and I got a kick out of it, so it wasn’t like a chore. The only thing that was a chore was being on tour, and learning how to tour. Whew! It was very hard, because I was young, staying out all night, being very promiscuous and whatever. Not eating right. I was just totally out of shape. I sat like this for years and years and played a guitar and ate whatever was there. I never really focussed on my health.
Gary – I read something once where you said that Zappa’s cynicism got to you, and you found it hard to deal with.
Steve – No, not at all. What I was saying was, I was so into Frank, that I wanted to be like him. But my wit and mentality doesn’t even come close to Frank. I’m just very different. Frank was absolutely brilliant. He had a cynical edge to him, but he knew how to round it off with a very comical edge, too. So he would say something, but he would be really funny. Now if you don’t have all that stuff, and you’re hanging around with that, it’s easy to get into the cynicism, but if you can’t round it off with the comedy, you can become pretty unhappy. So I was having a sort of identity crisis.
[Gary’s guitar-slinging friend Tom Rodwell is listening in and joins the conversation]:
Tom Rodwell: How was it doing your book of Zappa transcriptions?
Steve – Oh yeah! I got some grey hairs with those songs! You see that book how thick it is? I have stacks like THIS (a pile the size of a dwarf). Anything he didn’t have a lead sheet I did, and anything he needed… you know the Roxy record, that whole side of the record with ‘Echidna’s Arf’, ‘Village Of The Sun’ and ‘Don’t You Ever Wash That Thing’? He didn’t have a score for that, so I transcribed every instrument. And you know ‘Gregory Peccary’? He had pieces of scores here and there and parts and stuff, and there was stuff that he didn’t have and he wanted one big… it killed me!
Tom – The book doesn’t have ‘Canarsie’. Do you remember the time signatures?
Steve – How does that one go? I don’t remember that one. I’d have to hear it again. I didn’t transcribe that one. He gave me a cassette and just checked off the list. There’s a lot that haven’t even been released yet, that I have transcriptions for. There’s one in there called ‘He Used To Cut The Grass’. There’s more notational experimentation in there than you can find in any Cage or Stravinsky score. I’m not trying to blow my own horn but the divisions of rhythmic notation in that book I’ve never seen anywhere, not in any book, not in any score, nothing. That’s a textbook of rhythmic notation.
[A guitar-playing friend of Tom’s Phill Dryson, also participates]:
Phill – How much of the show is improvised?
Steve – Parts of it. I try to keep the integrity of the melody or the soloist if it’s an integral part of the song, but a lot of it’s improvised. I start wanking sometimes! You just open your mind up and let it go. It varies. Sometimes I look at the audience, look into their faces, and try to connect. Sometimes I just close off the audience and try to focus on making a statement. Sometimes I just try to bring it all together at one time. There’s no real rule. Everyone has their own way probably.
+ A Frosty Poop production.
