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Steve Vai’s For the Love of God, from his 1990 sophomore album Passion and Warfare, marked a defining moment in his career.
The epic instrumental showcased Vai’s technical prowess – with harmonics, fast legato runs, sweep picking, and whammy-bar tricks galore – all of which he nailed after four straight days of fasting, meditation, and, naturally, non-stop practising.
“I was trying to push myself to the limit,” he said in a 2016 Guitar World interview when reflecting upon the experience. “When it came time to record For the Love of God, my fingers were totally gone. I had pictures of my fingers taken after that session, and they were bleeding under the skin.”
Equally as iconic as the track is its music video, which features a burned Ibanez Universe seven-string that, as brand representative Scot Schwestska told Guitar World in 1991, was intended to “look like the Stratocaster that Jimi Hendrix burned at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival.”
“The next thing we did was sprinkle mineral spirits on the body of a standard Jem Universe, and carefully started burning it to emulate the look of the Hendrix guitar. It was like a family barbeque!”
Now, as revealed by the guitar star’s devoted tech, Doug MacArthur, in a Premier Guitar rig rundown, the storied guitar has made something of a comeback, officially returning to the road with the SatchVai Band during their recently completed American spring tour.
“It's kind of funny that this is the backup, but this is the guitar from the For the Love of God music video,” MacArthur says.
“It's called Bruno…. They blowtorched it and scraped it up. It's funny – when we moved recently, I found the letter from Ibanez that was like, ‘Hey, we're kind of checking out this new aesthetic,’ so this got delivered to him in 1990 or late ’80s.”
However, all those who were (retroactively) hoping to spot it during this past run of dates were left disappointed, as, according to MacArthur, “He hasn't played it yet, though, because he hasn't broken a string on the guitar.”
But now that it’s officially in his roster of touring guitars, we wouldn’t be surprised if it makes an appearance at any of the supergroup’s future shows.
Speaking of Vai's Rolodex of guitars, the virtuoso has recently announced that he just might be retiring his monstrous triple-neck Ibanez Hydra.
