It just takes caressing of the guitar frets to belt out Tender Surrender or Whispering a Prayer, and if it’s sonically transcendental, then you’ll know who it is! With winter dawning upon the City of Joy, music lovers from across generations broke into revelry as guitar virtuoso and guru, Steve Vai took the stage and owned it at JW Marriott Kolkata on December 9. He just concluded his 18-month-long tour Inviolate 2023 and after traversing 55 different countries he made it super special for Calcuttans on the last show of his tour.
When it comes to guitarists, Steve has a charm of his own — the charm that makes him stand out in the crowd, an evergreen charm, a charm that’s indeed indestructible. He’ll swap his guitars as smooth as butter and play his Hydra (his three-necked guitar) with utmost precision. From grooving to quipping in between his performances by saying, “Oh how I wish I could dance,” Steve Vai owns every moment that he’s on stage and to call his performance and pieces stellar would be an understatement.
Vai spoke to t2 about his playlist, some special notes on the Calcutta leg of his Inviolate 2023 tour, how he considers himself to be a service provider, his interest in beekeeping and the conversation just kept getting increasingly interesting. Excerpts.
How was it to tour with your latest album in India this time? Special notes on the Calcutta leg?
Performing in India is always a unique experience. The audience is connected to the band and overwhelmingly supportive. It’s taken me many years to allow myself to truly accept the appreciation that’s projected towards me from the audience. For me, there has always been a slight glimmer of unworthiness in me for such support, but the last show of our Inviolate tour, after 187 performances in 55 different countries, was in Calcutta and before I walked off stage after that show, the overwhelming energy and love that the audience honoured me with, and the fact that it was the last show of an 18-month long tour, caused me to release any resistance I had in me in accepting such applause, and I found myself swooning in the elixir of their love. I was moved to tears.
Can you share a little about the album, the concept behind it and the process behind creating it?
I had originally set out to make an entirely different type of record, but once the Covid lockdown kicked in, I decided to make an instrumental guitar record that showcased my most mature playing and innovation. I started to come across the word “inviolate” in my spiritual studies. The word basically means unable to violate, pure, untouchable and is used in reference to the spirit that we all are. Who we truly are is not our name, our past, our life situation or story, nor is it even our body or even the thoughts in our egoic minds. Who we truly are is our awareness itself, sometimes referred to as the soul or spirit.
This spirit, that we actually are, is invisible in this world. This is easy to recognise when looking at a deceased body and is evidence that we are not the body. This spirit that we are is inviolate. It cannot be touched by anything in this world because it is not of this world. Everything in the physical universe is in constant flux and change, but your awareness is not. It is not subject to change and it is timeless, eternal and immortal. It’s actually made out of unconditional love. It’s the only thing that is actually real that you can know, hence the statement, “know thyself”.
The creativity of humans is also inviolate. It’s an attribute of the soul. Every living thing is creative on some level. We can obscure, obstruct and not recognise our creativity but we can never lose it. When we are engaging with our uniquely creative instincts, we are in a state of enthusiasm and enjoyment, which is actually our natural state of being as opposed to the dysfunctional state of resistance that we are usually in.
The pure and unique creative spirit of each human is in fact inviolate. I feel that the majority of my record came from that unique creativity. That’s why I named the record Inviolate.
You have a huge fan base globally... we all love you Steve! How do you reflect on your journey?
I feel overwhelming appreciation and gratitude for all the support that has been given to me by my fans. I’ve always loved the idea of being the best entertainer I could be. I see myself as a service provider and that allows those people who resonate with what I do to escape their thoughts for a time and engage in an experience that is uplifting and even mesmerising for them. But I also do not feel any more important than anyone else. I feel that’s the case for all of us. In reality, we are all working together to serve each other. It’s really a great design.
Tell us a little about your guitar. Maybe something that no one knows yet. Why did you choose the name it has?
I have been working with Ibanez guitars for the past 38 years and designed the Jem guitar around my specific idiosyncratic playing. I’m not nearly as good on any other guitar.
I called it the JEM as inspired by a dear friend Joe Despagni. When I designed it I included unique features at that time such as a 24-fret neck on a quasi-[Fender] Stratocaster style body, developed a unique pickup configuration that allowed for double coil and multiple single coil pickup configurations based on a unique pick-up switcher design, used a large cutaway so your fingers can comfortably play the highest frets, and designed a whammy bar system that allowed for the first true wide range interval stretches. I knew it had various unique features that other guitar companies would be inspired to incorporate, which is fine because that’s how it works. So I decided to do something that was quirky like me (smiles) that would uniquely identify the guitar, so I put a monkey grip handle in it.
Several years ago we released a bit of an evolved version of the JEM and that is called the PIA. I named it after my wife of 45 years. She thought that was sweet.
Apart from music, what do you like doing?
I actually lead a pretty simple life and like to spend time with my family and friends, or my bees. Yup, I’m also a beekeeper. Other than that, I like to do art occasionally. (Check out Steve Vai’s Art Evolution: Part 1 on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJN4JKJ5iBE)
Who’d be the second-best guitarist in the world?
Ha! Thanks for the compliment but the enjoyment of seeing someone play the guitar is a personal experience, so there really is no such thing as “the best” obviously. Having a favourite, yes. And I do have some favourite guitar players. For me, Jimmy Page was the reason I picked up the guitar and he will always hold a huge piece of my musical heart. Brian May, Al DiMeola, Allan Holdsworth, Tommy Emmanuel, Jeff Beck, [Jimi] Hendrix, [Joe] Satriani, etc. are some of my favourites too.
Are there any artistes from this generation that you’re looking to collaborate with?
I’m happy to collaborate with anyone who resonates with what I do and is boldly creative! I’ve done this quite often, but with my solo work, I usually do not collaborate with anyone, nor am I interested to do so. My goal I have for my own solo records is to create a catalogue of music that is undiluted.
What’s on your playlist currently?
My music, Tom Waits, Allan Holdsworth, Frank Zappa, Stravinsky, Giorgi Ligeti, Ghost, Soul Station (Paul Stanley) more Tom Waits, Devin Townsend, Eckhart Tolle, A Course in Miracles, Ennio Morricone, Jacob Collier, Jeff Buckley, Led Zeppelin, Meshugga, Michael Jackson, Queen, and more Tom Waits.
At what age do you think you learned to do your own improvs? What inspired you to do it?
I started playing the guitar when I was perhaps 12 years old and started improvising immediately, even though I had no idea what I was doing.
What projects do you have in the pipeline?
I have a solo acoustic vocal record I’m working on. I recorded over four hours of my symphonic music with the Metropole priest in Holland and the Tampere Philharmonic. I’m preparing for a G3 and Satch/Vai tours, and a couple of other surprises for the fans that are too early to talk about. The better it gets, the better it gets!