Frank Zappa on the guitarist who plays everything “Van Halen ever dreamed of”
In the realm of music’s most enigmatic figures, it’s difficult to find anyone who appears above Frank Zappa. Incredibly sophisticated and unafraid to be scathing of his peers, Zappa was one of the most unique creatives ever to exist. His demeanour sits at the intersection between the mundane and the surreal.
In almost every interview he ever gave, Zappa cloaked his thoughts and opinions in layers of complexity, making his more simplistic deductions subjected to endless thought provocation. Beyond the excellence of his music, Zappa knew more about the way the media operated, often more than journalists and public relations executives themselves, and how certain ideas can be misconstrued to support a further agenda.
Within the music industry, Zappa’s advice was always bolstered with a cynicism that only someone scorned by the business could hold. In the same interview, for instance, he could talk about listening to classical music in his recreational listening time while holding up the devil horns hand gesture in response to a question about giving advice to aspiring musicians.
However, much of Zappa’s intrigue wasn’t about being deliberately mysterious but rather a carefully cultivated part of his artistic identity. For instance, it’s anyone’s guess why the musician seemed to despise David Bowie, even when the ‘Starman’ attempted to establish some common ground but was met with childlike remarks like “Fuck you, Captain Tom“.
In truth, Zappa might have spent a lot of time dismissing the work of others, but those he regarded worthy of respect were often those he deemed contemporary equals, including Jimi Hendrix, Cream and Jeff Beck, or trusted musical partners like Steve Vai. Zappa recruited Vai after dusting his hands off and wrapping up The Mothers of Invention, and his unconventional audition clearly left him impressed, as Vai quickly joined Zappa’s cast of world-class musicians, ready for his next venture.
When looking for musicians to work with, Zappa often looked for technical adeptness and the ability to switch between varying approaches, sometimes simultaneously. In Zappa’s eyes, Vai was exceptional when it came to technical mastery. He was able to execute various innovative effects and techniques without compromising on sound distinction. In other words, Vai was Zappa’s saving grace, and he knew it from the moment he stepped into the room.
“I think he’s a really great guitar player,” Zappa told Guitar World in 1982. “He does everything on the guitar that I don’t do.” Touching upon Vai’s projects with former Van Halen vocalist David Lee Roth, he added: “He does all of the stock Stratocaster noises and he makes everything that Van Halen ever dreamed of and then some. He reads music. He plays sixteenth notes which I don’t play. And he does all of this stuff that I don’t do; and I think that our styles are kind of complementary.”
Beyond appreciating Vai because “he’s a thoroughly trained musical person,” the two also became mutual influences due to their shared love of the ways musical proficiency could be pushed to its limits. In their world, this was the key to exploring unconventional techniques, complex compositions, and the fusion of genres, and ultimately creating music that defied traditional boundaries and challenged them to think differently about sound and structure.
