The only guitarist Steve Vai was never able to imitate: “Walking on higher ground”
The great Frank Zappa wouldn’t have even been floored by Mike Tyson, such was his steely resolve to remain eternally acerbic, but even he was impressed by Steve Vai.
When the late ‘Peaches En Regalia’ maestro was auditioning guitarists, a young Vai rocked up to chance his hand. He could barely muster bum-fluff at this stage, let alone stubble, making the audition akin to a high school student taking a few conical flasks over to Nikola Tesla’s lab and asking for a job. He was unknown, inexperienced and understandably nervous.
Nevertheless, Vai knew he had a grip on his instrument. After a youth spent riffing along to his favourite rock records, he was able to copy them with ease. So, he was sure he could handle what Zappa would throw at him despite his tender age. “He’d play something, and he’d say, ‘Play that’, and I’d play [it],” Vai recalled. “Then he says, ‘Now, play it in 7/8’. So I play it in 7/8. He says, ‘Now play it in reggae 7/8”.
This continued for some time, with Vai seemingly passing all the early tests with aplomb. But Zappa wasn’t finished yet. The tests grew increasingly weird. “He said, ‘Okay, add this note’. And it was impossible. It was physically impossible, not just for me but for anybody,“ Vai continued.
Adding, “I said, ‘I can’t do that,’ and he said, ‘Well, I hear Linda Ronstadt is looking for a guitar player”.
While Zappa was joking and he gave the kid the gig, offering up a fine chance to say ‘the rest is history’, in truth, he probably would’ve nailed it with Ronstadt, too. He would have just copied Steve Cropper or someone of that smooth ilk. Because, while he might be known for his searing sonic invention, that was merely the challenge that he set himself to offer up originality to the guitar world.
His natural mode, however, was to embody others. He could do Jimi Hendrix, he could do Eric Clapton, in time, he could even do the manic Zappa himself, but one star always remained entirely out of reach: Brian May.
“I can listen to any player and pantomime their sound,” Vai told Rolling Stone, “But I can’t do Brian May. He’s just walking on higher ground.” While some Queen scholars would point Vai towards banjo strings, that mythical quirk in his gear case is only a fraction of why May proves to be so unique.
Having built his own guitar, The Red Special, in his childhood with his father, May learned not just how to play the instrument but the intricate nature of where its sounds derive from. He then ditched plectrums for the most part, using fingerpicking for a more rounded sound. Once again, this led to a deep intricacy and intimacy, giving perfect control over vibrato and sustain.
So, if you want to sound exactly like him, you basically have to start in your childhood and then train your hands, ears, and mind. For Vai to copy, he couldn’t just play along to the records like the others – he’d need a bloody time machine. That notion has always left him in awe, with the guitarist later saying, “Every time he puts his hands on his guitar, the sound that comes out inspires and humbles me… even just one note.”
