Steve Vai

Rip It Up, Issue 234, 1 February 1997, Page 11

Steve Vai

Bringing DownTheHouAe

Steve Vai’s incredible album Fire Garden has been in the shops for a few months, and now the guitarist extraordinaire is planning to ignite an audience here at the Powerstation on February 16. With a musical history which began in his teens as sideman for Frank Zappa, and then moved on to very memorable work with David Lee Roth among others, Vai also had a cameo performance in the movie Crossroads as the Devil’s guitar player and has five CDs of his own music out there, including the award winning Passion and Warfare. Steve’s show is not to be missed by those who enjoy the clashing of strings. He recently had some words to say about Fire Garden and the upcoming New Zealand concert. “I’ve never played down there and it always seemed like a very foreign place. I didn’t know if I’d ever get there and now it’s real nice to know it’s on the itinerary.” The Touring Band ‘Tve got a four-piece. Michael Keneally is a great musician, guitarist/keyboard player who was with Frank Zappa. Mike Mangini is the drummer — he was with Extreme — and Phil Bono, who’s a friend of Mike’s, is an incredible bass player. Making Fire Garden “It took about two and a half to three years, but in that period I did a lot of other things. I recorded probably a dozen more songs that just didn’t make it to the record, and I released Alien Love Secrets. I knew Fire Garden was going to be very involved but I wanted to get something out quick, so I stopped in mid-stream and did ALS, which was a strippeddown, very straight-ahead trio type record. I did some touring with it and then I went back and finished this one. “The FG album is sort of a blueprint to a script I wrote. The first song, ‘Fire in the House’, is a story about this kid who’s sleeping and he’s woken up by a startle and he finds out the house he’s in is on fire. In a panic, he runs from floor to floor going higher and higher, and the flames are chasing him and engulfing each floor. He hears the flames talking to him, and as the song melodically shifts and changes you can hear the different levels of intensity of his panic. Finally he reaches the top, and the flames are telling him, basically, they are the passions he will experience throughout his life, and how they will engulf him. He feels himself burning and the pain is so great he just gives up and finds liberation in becoming abandoned to the flames. Then he wakes up and finds himself in his bed... a dream. “If you get on my Web page you’ll be able to look at the FG cover and click on certain icons, and these stories in more depth will come up. They’re reflections on the script, and the concepts of the record, and some parameters of my life for those who may be interested.” The Superfuzz on ‘Blowfish’ That was done by going direct into a digi-tech, and then into a speaker simulator and a whammy pedal. So, it’s an octave, it’s distorted, and it’s really bizarre and blobulant!” The Piano on ‘Fire Garden Suite’ “I composed and then programmed it. In my mind I’m a very good piano player, but I can’t really sit and play from chord to chord to chord.” His Version of ‘Bangkok’ “That was written by Tim Rice and the two guys from ABBA. I had it on a lead sheet, I had transcribed it during the David Lee Roth days and we used to perform it, and I absolutely forgot I had transcribed it from something that was written. When I was doing the ‘FG Suite’, I took that piece of music and I composed around it because I thought I wrote it! I found out later I didn’t — isn’t that amazing? It’s a wonderful, beautiful piece.”

Fire Garden Faves “I think my favourite piece on the record is ‘All About Eve’. It just has this real ominous aura to it. I really like ‘Warm Regards’ too, because it came together so quickly. It only took about a day and a half to write and record the whole thing.” Recent US Shows with Joe Satriani and Eric Johnson “Just brilliant! We were so thrilled with how everything turned out. Everybody got along great, the shows were fantastic, the musicianship was just stellar and we recorded it, so eventually it will be a video.”

GEOFF DUNN