“You ARE the Universe!” Steve Vai Talks EXCLUSIVELY About the New SATCHVAI Album!

Steve and Joe.

Two kids from Long Island who grew up in the 1970s, loving rock music, hanging out and playing guitar. It’s an idyllic friendship, and one which transformed into two of the most glittering careers in modern music. Steve and Joe both found fame and success the following decade as two of the most impossibly talented guitarists the world has ever seen. 

I’m pretty sure I don’t need to describe the colossal influence that Steve Vai and Joe Satriani have had on the world of rock, or their well-known lifelong friendship, which began as student (Vai) and teacher (Satch). Millions of album sales and decades’ worth of sold out tours are the least of their achievements, but it has actually taken until now before both players have appeared on an album of new material together.

The result is The Sea of Emotion, out on November 6th, and it’s a wild, evocative, kaleidoscopic hymn to the joys of guitar, with more than a few nods to the classic 70s rock of Vai and Satriani’s youth. Much like the Satchvai tour last year, fans of all things six-string are gonna go nuts when they hear some of the stuff on this record!

As you may expect, I was hugely keen to talk to the chaps about this momentous release. I’ve been lucky in the past with both Steve and Joe, but the signs this time weren’t great: Steve was touring the US with BEAT and Joe had come down with a bug and lost his voice.

Rather excellently though, Steve was kind enough to clear a little space in his pre-show schedule, and I was able to talk to him via Zoom, to catch up on not only the new album, but to hear his thoughts on inspiration and creativity. Regular readers of these articles will know that Steve and I have spoken together a number of times now, and he always gives such effortlessly interesting answers. He’s a fascinating guy on top of an incredible artist, so please, enjoy this conversation in full right here…

Guitarguitar: Congratulations on the new record, Steve! I’ve been blasting that all week, what an amazing album! I think it’s the album that we always hoped we’d get from you and Joe! On this album, I think you sound more ‘Steve Vai’ than ever. I wondered if playing alongside Joe allowed you to really lean into your eccentricities and your vocabulary as a guitarist?

Steve Vai: Yeah, I would definitely say so. When I was a young boy - I was 12 when I started taking lessons from Joe, he was three or four years older - and he was always great, he could always play and he’d help us kids who wanted to take lessons. That went on for two or three years and at some point it turned into these glorious jam sessions where he and I would just sit back to back with electric guitars not even plugged in, you know? Sometimes in his back yard, we’d just play, play, play. That’s the best way to develop your communication skills with another musician. You live in that intimate zone of exchange. And when you do that for hours at a time - one time we went six hours! - you’ll have a tendency to exhaust all of your cool riffs that you've ripped off from your heroes. That doesn’t last long, you know? (laughs) You have to start finding yourself.

(Photo: Larry DiMarzio)

It was an extraordinary opportunity to learn how to listen and respond with your voice, because we were kids! No one was criticising us, or judging us. It had nothing to do with having the right song or record sales or a video. All the things - I’ll use the word ‘superficial’, and that might be a little strong - but you know, the things that attach themselves to an artist once you become a professional and have to start trading your art for commerce. Everybody has to find that balance. And there are musicians that enter that field in a totally authentic, organic way, you’re still confronted with various challenges that may have a tendency to take you out of that intimate zone where there’s no rules.

So, shoot ahead 50 years (laughs), Joe and I have taken those seeds through our entire lives and built our own careers. Then when we came back together, and we were actually in that intimate space again, it was like: “Ahhh, that’s right! We’re crazy and we can do whatever we want!”

So you are absolutely correct, because when I hear the record, I hear things that I just never would have done! I never would have pulled them out of myself, if not having a speaking board like Joe. I suggest to everybody: just get with your best buddy and just play, play, play.

GG: Even if your best friend isn’t Joe Satriani, you’ll still get some sort of gold from the experience!

SV: Yeah! See what happens!

GG: This shared life of you and Joe’s is so intriguing to me. You’ve both had your individual, incredible careers, and it’s a well-known thing about the teacher-and-student, the G3 tours and so on. That is a very unique, beautiful and artistic thing that we don’t see a lot of in the rock world. With that context: what was your primary message that you wanted to communicate with this album?

SV: The way the record started to be made was very organic, and very natural. Joe and I never sat down and started planning anything: “Hey, you wanna make a record? We could do this? We could do that?” You know, it just started to happen, beautifully, and we knew the game was on. We’re doing it; it’s happening.

So, in the process, there is discussion. We were trying to think: what can we centre this record on? What kind of foundation, or grounding? Really, it all came home when Joe sent me the first two tracks, The Sea of Emotion Part I and II. I created a track for Part III. 

"I suggest to everybody: just get your best buddy and just play, play, play!"

It’s interesting, in the little town we grew up in, there was this big field. Like, huge: 30 acres or so. It was surrounded by the various schools - kindergarten, grade school, high school - and there were sports: baseball, soccer, all this stuff. But it was a place where all the teenagers used to congregate, go back and forth, and hang out at night. At the weekends it became a den of iniquity (laughs), where you’d go there with your friends. You’re either discovering the secrets of the universe, or you’re getting drunk for the first time, getting high, getting laid for the first time, getting in trouble! It was one of those wonderful places, and Joe and I used to go. Joe was older, so he hung out with the older kids, but we’d go there after lessons sometimes and just sit out there - It was called the Sea of Emotion - and just talk, talk, talk.

In the 70s, being a teenager and playing the guitar was just awesome because there was no internet, there was no email, no cellphones, nothing like that. We only had ourselves and our instruments. And seventies rock music! So you got Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Queen, Aerosmith, Black Sabbath, you know, all these bands that were just dream fodder for a teenage kid with a guitar! (laughs) It’s all we thought about: what lick did you learn? What did you get outta this? Oh, you can play that?! It was just such a good time.

So that’s what we’d kind of reflect on when making the record, and when you listen to a song like I Wanna Play My Guitar, I mean that is as quintessential 70s Sea of Emotion fodder that we could muster! So everything was, at times, softly centred around that feeling, you know? 

We have a song on the record called The Feeling I Know, that I kind of kicked off with the chord changes, and it was reminiscent of the way I’d feel after a guitar lesson. Sometimes at the Sea of Emotion, I’d walk away from my guitar lessons with another little key to the kingdom, you know? And that feeling was so…there were two times in my life that I’d get that feeling. One of them was when I’d leave Joe’s house after a lesson, and the other was whenever I’d leave Frank Zappa's house. Because with Frank, you might go up there to record something, and you could be up there for three days, you know what I mean? (laughs) The feeling was so great. I’d drive away just in this amazing kind of a high. That’s The Feeling I Know’, and when I started that song, that’s what I was thinking of. I only did the first chords and then I sent it to Joe. He added and sent it back, then I added and sent it. It was so much fun! And really turned out great.

GG: It did! That’s one of the high points of the record for me, actually. Steve, I had an interesting conversation with Steve Hackett and Steve Rothery recently about their collaboration album, and a word that kept coming up was ‘conversation’. What a great way to describe two guitar voices speaking to each other. I wondered, does that word ‘conversation’ apply to the way you and Joe communicate with guitars?

SV: Well, it’s according to the song and the moment. There's times like when we toured, there were moments when it was very intimate again, it was like when we were kids. It almost felt like the two of us. Of course, there’s the energy of the band, the response of the audience, but the exchanging of notes was our own little secret. And I’m sure those guys were doing the same thing, so yeah there always a nice thing, like a conversation. If you’re working with somebody that has the ears to speak properly! (laughs)

GG: That’s a good point!

SV: They understand the language!

(Photo: Larry DiMarzio)

GG: Yeah! Now, one thing that seemed immediately obvious to me is that you sound as inspired as ever. You do not seem to ever get tired as a player or run out of ideas. So I’m wondering: do you find that inspiration is actually infinite?

SV: Well, I think that’s the case for everybody. The human imagination is infinite. Here’s an example: do you think you’ll ever run out of talking to yourself in your head?

GG: I definitely don’t! (laughs)

SV: Yeah! Well, that’s imagination, you know? So you can apply it to creative things or you can apply it to dysfunctional thinking, which is unfortunately what most of us focus on! (laughs) But, you know, it’s the most wonderful thing about life, that your ideas are infinite and that you’re worthy of them. They are there for you. As a matter of fact, the ideas that come to you that are inspired, are specifically built for you by the universe because they contain in them an enthusiasm that you feel because the inspiration is based on something that is very interesting to you, that you understand. You have a natural insight into it, like why was it, when I was 8 years old and saw written music, I just understood it all? ‘Oh yeah, I get that language! You put the dot there, you play that note, you stack it like this, you can hear it, there’s different instruments that have their limitations…but, I failed at school! (laughs) Simple subjects like English and History, those things were completely uninteresting to me and I couldn’t retain them.

"It's the most wonderful thing about life, that your ideas are infinite and that you're worthy of them."

So, I think people come into the world with a natural, instinctual pull to a particular creative thing, whatever that is, it could be anything. And then they’ll receive inspiration, and those ideas that are built for you will come with enthusiasm, and they come with a knowing that you can do it. In your mind, the download comes and you go ‘wow, I wanna do that’, and something else says ‘Yes, and you can. This is built for you, you can do it’.

The example from my own career would be the Hydra. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen the video for Teeth of the Hydra?

GG: I’ve watched you play it in person, Steve!

SV: Yeah! Okay, well that came as a download, and it came with a deep enthusiasm, and with a knowing that I could do it: it wasn’t a belief. I didn’t believe I could do it: I knew I could do it! That meant that it was made for me, you know? And everybody gets these. 

There’s a difference between a belief and a knowing. Because if you believe something, what you’re actually saying is ‘but I don’t actually know!’ (laughs) ‘I believe, but I don’t know!’ No, knowing is a whole full-body, psychological experience. And that’s what you’re gonna be the best at. That is what’s gonna fulfil you and satisfy you more than anything else: when you get that download and go for it without any excuses, because the only thing that ever disrupts it is your own thinking. The insecure thinking: ‘I’ve got this great idea, I know I can do it…but, but I can’t do that, I fail at everything’, or ‘I’m not gonna be good at it’, or ‘I won’t fit in’. That’s a big one, right? Or ‘I don’t know the right people’, or ‘I don’t have the money’. Y’know, all these things are obstacles to your joy. If you get a download, and it's meant for you, the universe is gonna give you the tools to manifest it. But you gotta be careful because the ego has other ideas! It slips in there and it sabotages everything.

GG: Yes, one of the big journeys in life, to deal with the ego that lives sort of beside us. You spoke to me once about discipline, and about how you actually didn’t have discipline at all, which surprised me! You said that your focus on music came so easily because of your love for it. Maybe with the ego thing, maybe discipline can help there, but only once you’ve received the sort of download you were talking about. Maybe that helps as a sort of shield against the ego?

SV: Well, you know I use the word ‘discipline’ in a kind of dual-use. The two kinds of discipline that I’m referring to are the kind of discipline that you employ on yourself when you’re in the groove; when you’re in the flow. It looks like discipline: ‘I’m gonna do this, I’m gonna complete this, this is something, and I’m not gonna allow phone calls, I’m not gonna allow this or that’. That sounds like discipline, right?

GG: Sure.

SV: But really, you just don’t want anyone to fuckin’ bother you, because you want to get it done, you know? (laughs) It’s like when I was a kid practising, I just happened to be one of those people - and I’m not alone - that just loved sitting there with the guitar doing things that I couldn’t do…until I could do them. Now that takes a particular type of discipline, but it’s like a joyful discipline: you want it!

The other type of discipline has a fight in it, almost like ‘it’s something I don’t wanna do but I have to do, so I’m just gonna grit my teeth and get through this’, you know? ‘I don’t care who I have to barrel over to get to where I need to go’. It’s a dysfunctional type of discipline.

The first type of discipline, I can interchange that word with ‘passion’. Passion is a very powerful energy of creation. And it looks as though it requires discipline! (laughs) But no, not really. Yes and no. 

GG: Yes, of course, and this is a terrible segue, but please allow me it nonetheless! Another type of discipline is the King Crimson Discipline record, and you’re currently on the BEAT tour. The last time you and I spoke was just before you went off on the first BEAT tour. Now, Robert Fripp famously said that you were the only person who would be able to play his parts, and you’ve spent two years playing them, reinterpreting them and making them your own. So, I wondered: even for somebody with as distinctive and original a voice on the guitar as you do, have you found that some of Fripp’s style or vocabulary has been making its way into your playing, generally?

SV: Well, it’s been helping my playing! Because Father Robert has a very different style (moves right hand in a picking motion), it's very technically…disciplined! (laughs). There were certain songs that could be naturally adapted into my style, and that just happens naturally. It didn’t need to be avoided.

The only parameter I put up to myself was: I gotta play his notes. For the fans: they don’t wanna see some rock ‘n’ roll guy sabotaging his parts. But in the same breath, they’re gonna come out the way I play. I couldn’t duplicate his style, but I wanted to honour the parts. But did some of it make its way into my playing? Absolutely! Learning those parts, they are beautiful parts, and some of them are booby-trapped! You can’t play them anyplace else, you’ve gotta play them the way he played them. Three of a Perfect Pair is like a mountainous gauntlet! (laughs) With all the picking and the speed, and the relentlessness of it! Four and a half minutes of relentless 16th notes, you know? But somehow I’m attracted to challenges, and that one’s my favourite song to play!

But yes, absolutely, it’s helped hone my chops in certain ways that I may not have focussed on, because I was presented these challenges.

So it was great, and it still is, every night!

GG: It’s a once in a lifetime band for sure! Now, whenever I hear your guitar playing - and this goes back to when I first heard Bad Horsie as a teenager - is that I always come away feeling like there are more possibilities with the guitar. Each time you release a new record it’s like more and more veils being drawn back on what’s possible on the guitar. So I wondered: with this album, and not necessarily for the world of guitars in general but just for you personally, were there any moments where you found yourself breaking new personal ground as a player?

SV: I’d like to say on everything! Because you’re always evolving, you’re never the same, even if you play the same riffs. I mean, there’s subtle differences. But I make conscious efforts - and I plant subconscious demands - and they say: ‘you’re not gonna repeat yourself’, and ‘you’re not gonna play anything that you’ve heard someone else do’. And I’m allowed to tell myself that!

GG: Yeah!

SV: Yeah, because that’s what I want! (laughs) And I suggest that everybody follows that - if they’re interested. Some people are only interested in playing somebody else’s parts exactly, and there’s nothing wrong with that if that’s where you’re at. But if you’re the sort of person who wants to plant a subconscious seed to find your unique voice, you have to have a desire for that. And your desire IS the planting of the seed, but it has to be an authentic desire.

"There's a difference between a belief and a knowing."

So, I tell myself - quietly - ‘what can you do that is interesting and exciting to you, and perhaps something you’ve never done’. And sometimes I’m wrong about that, because I’ll say, ‘Oh, here’s something!’ and I’ll listen to a record from 20 years ago and say ‘Aw shit, you did that there!’, you know? (Laughs)

So sometimes I get tripped up. It’s a slippery slope when you say something like ‘I don’t wanna play anything that I’ve heard, anything another player’s doing, and I don’t wanna repeat myself’. You can scare yourself! A little voice says ‘Yeah? Well, what is that? What is it you’re gonna do?’ And you can replace that question with: ‘I don’t know what it is, but I know that it’s there!’ Because it is! To believe that you can’t come up with something uniquely new for you is like saying the universe is limited. It’s not! And you ARE the universe, for fuck sake! (laughs)

(Photo: Jen Rosenstein)

I don’t think I’ve landed on a better final sentence in years! Vai never disappoints! Because Steve and I have been over his guitars and equipment in lots of detail before (see the links at the bottom for more!), I didn’t feel the need to waste precious interview minutes relearning stuff we all already know. Instead, what Steve offered up was worth a lot more to the people willing to take heed of it and do the required work.

At any rate, there’s a new SATCHVAI album out on Friday, and that’s brilliant news for all guitar fans. Keep an eye on the Satchvai official website for vinyl, CDs, merch and further news on tours. Also head over to the official Steve Vai website for loads of great content.

My thanks always to Steve Vai for showing up with enthusiasm and good vibes. Check out over 200 exclusive interviews at the guitarguitar interviews page.