The “coolest” song ever, according to Steve Vai
When Frank Zappa was auditioning guitarists, a young, inexperienced Steve Vai rocked up. He could barely muster stubble at this stage, while Zappa was well-established as the moustachioed maestro, making the audition akin to a high school student taking a few conical flasks over to Nikola Tesla’s lair and asking for a job. Nevertheless, Vai had the skills to impress. “He’d play something, and he’d say, ‘Play that’, and I’d play.“ Vai recalled. “Then he says, ‘Now, play it in ⅞’. So I play it in ⅞. He says, ‘Now play it in reggae ⅞”.
This continued for some time, with Vai seemingly passing all the early tests with aplomb. But Zappa wasn’t finished yet. “He said, ‘Okay, add this note’. And it was impossible. It was physically impossible, not just for me but for anybody,“ Vai continued. “I said, ‘I can’t do that,’ and he said, ‘Well, I hear Linda Ronstadt is looking for a guitar player‘”. Crestfallen, the young guitarist began to trudge to the door before a deadpan Zappa revealed he was joking and Vai had secured himself a job.
Vai’s abilities were borne from a rock ‘n’ roll obsession. He was born in 1960, which meant he was coming of age in an era where Jimmy Page, Eric Clapton and an array of other greats had finely honed their chops, and the tragic departure of Jimi Hendrix’s was solidifying just how much great guitar music meant to the masses. In short, he was learning from the best, and he was obsessed.
On his journey, there was one key song that changed the picture. Particularly when you’re young, coolness is very important. You’re developing your identity, picking your people, and art that express a sense of unique originality exhibits a prime virtue. For Vai, that was Led Zeppelin’s classic track ‘Heartbreaker’.
“Usually, we were inspired by the music that our parents are bringing or our siblings are bringing home,“ he told Planet Rock. “My sister brought home Led Zeppelin in the middle of my fascination with compositional music. And once I heard it, and I already had a love affair with the guitar going. I heard that song ‘Heartbreaker’, I knew what was going on.“
This pulled the rug out from under him. As the writer Graham Greene once said: “There is always one moment in childhood when the door opens and lets the future in”. This raw cut from Led Zeppelin’s 1969 record Led Zeppelin II, hit Vai like a brick. ”It was the meanest, coolest, most refreshing, alive, vibrant, visceral attack on the strings that I had ever heard. And it just lit me up. I’m like, ‘That is the coolest thing ever. I want it.’ And that was it,” he says.
At its core was Page’s unique wailing guitar. It was both measured and poetic and heavy and searing. This inspired Vai no end. ”In the physical universe, there are things that include stars and planets, all life and all dimension,” he explained.
Concluding: “And then there’s the space that enables these things to exist. That space is a vital element since 1968 for every kid that has picked up a guitar to try to find his voice on the instrument. Jimmy Page has been the space that enables all of our notes to be played.”
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