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.

Three-time Emmy-winning composer Bear McCreary is merging guitars and orchestra on his new solo album, and he’s got help from Slash, Tim Henson, Guthrie Govan, and Steve Vai.

McCreary has scored some huge films, including Godzilla: King of the Monsters, The Cloverfield Paradox, and Paws of Fury, and, having enlisted Serj Tankian for his 2024 hard rock record, The Singularity, he’s going bigger and bolder with its follow-up, The Singularity: Ekleipsis.

A concept record that picks up where its predecessor left off, it explores themes of disillusionment and perseverance in the face of struggle. Cool Kids, its lead single, pairs Guns N’ Roses stalwarts Slash and Duff McKagan with Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith and his vocalist brother, Brendan McCreary.

“Cool Kids was born when Duff McKagan sent me a voice memo of a riff he was messing around with,” McCreary details. “My ears perked up instantly – his riff was undeniable! So Duff and I went into the studio the next week with my brother, vocalist Brendan McCreary, and Chad Smith to write the song together.

“When Slash got back into town, he added his signature screaming guitar parts, and there it was,” he adds. “It’s a song about all of us being proudly who we are, but I wouldn’t blame anybody for assuming the title was inspired by the fact that Brendan and I got to create this song with the coolest kids in rock and roll.”

Slash’s scorching blues rock licks are instantly recognizable, with a warm tone that plays off McCreary’s lush orchestrations for an effective double act.

Equally, Black Box, which has dropped simultaneously, hinges on grinding guitars straight out of the Duplantier playbook on a song with a heavy, anthemic edge.

Elsewhere on the tracklist, Steve Vai and Tim Henson double up on the track Blueshift, with Henson also tag teaming with Coheed & Cambria’s Claudio Sanchez on Sweet Misery.

Guthrie Govan (Alexandria), Gojira’s ESP artist Joe Duplantier (Black Box), and Alissa White-Gluz (Our Kingdom) – the latter of whom is fresh from launching her shred-laden new band, Blue Medusa, and joining DragonForce – also feature. It’s quite the lineup.

McCreary will take the album on the road, with dates in the UK and Europe in July and August, before hitting the US and Canada in September.

See Bear McCreary for more.

Few guitars are quite as monstrous as Steve Vai’s triple-neck Hydra, but its tamer is considering retiring it.

The Ibanez guitar was launched in 2022 to coincide with the release of Inviolate, the virtuoso's first album in six years. Vai’s got plenty of mileage out of the near-mythical head-turner since then, but the jig may soon be up.

“This is probably the last time the Hydra will come out on tour,” Vai’s guitar tech, Doug MacArthur, reveals to Premier Guitar.

He doesn’t explain why, but Guitar World can take a wild guess. The Hydra comprises a half-fretless 12-string, a seven-string guitar, a half-fretless bass, and there is also a harp, and a suite of in-built effects for good measure.

As McArthur says, “Really, it’s five instruments in one.”

The maintenance must be astonishing, and it probably weighs as much as a small city. Given that Steve Vai underwent shoulder surgery in 2022 after a pizza oven mishap and was still feeling the effects of those issues as he began tackling Robert Fripp’s King Crimson guitar parts for Beat, it might be too big a cross to bear these days.

“I had some physical challenges with my shoulder, fingers, and wrist,” he told GW in 2024. “I couldn’t play the Hydra, and I was in a lot of pain – I didn’t feel like I was delivering on all cylinders.”

But the guitar, inspired by the steampunk double-neck in Mad Max, may have also run its course as an entertainer. It starred in the deft and dextrous track, Teeth of the Hydra, and has had its place on stage with the SatchVai Band, but maybe the ridiculous 36-string has said all it needs to over the last four years.

“When you see how I performed this piece, it’s so entertaining, because I had to negotiate the left-hand pull-offs so that the melody sounds uninterrupted – like a real melody,” Vai said of Teeth… upon its release. “It was crazy. It took two months.”

Maybe it’s time for a new star to take its place. The obvious contender would be Vai’s custom-built Green Special – a Vai-ified tribute to Brian May’s Red Special.

But given how Vai’s imagination ran amok with the Hydra, who’s to say he doesn’t have another mystical beast up his sleeve? Maybe he’ll go microtonal like Angine de Poitrine...

Matteo Mancuso has revealed that his hero, Steve Vai, pushed for a chance to work together, and taught the young star a big lesson along the way.

The former Frank Zappa, David Lee Roth, and Whitesnake shredder is one of a number of virtuosos who championed Mancuso’s talents before he exploded onto the scene, with Al Di Meola and Joe Bonamassa also among them.

But with Mancuso’s newly released second album, Route 96, Vai is no longer just a fan as he features on its opening track, Solar Wind. It turns out that the track was Vai’s idea, planting a seed after welcoming Mancuso to the 2024 edition of his namesake guitar camp.

“That was the first time I met Steve in person,” he tells MusicRadar. “We played almost every night. I was one of the teachers at the camp, and every night, there was a different teacher on the stage.

“He told me that if I had something, like a song or something to work on, he would be happy to collaborate. I immediately started to work on the song.”

Fast-forward around two years, and that idea has now bloomed into a track that entangles Mancuso’s sun-baked melodies with Vai’s golden touch. It was an experience that the younger of the two will remember fondly.

“I wanted to have the most Steve Vai song possible on the record,” says Mancuso, who ended up altering his usual playing style to harness some Vai-ism.

“That’s why even I’m playing some stuff that maybe you can associate with Steve, some legato runs or some of the sounds that I used. I wanted to build an environment where Steve was comfortable playing. And that was very important to me.”

The guitarist had written the song with a key lesson from Vai, which had been said to him on the last day of the camp and still reverberated in his head.

“He told me, ‘Play what excites you the most about the instrument.’ And it’s one thing that I always think about,” Mancuso details. “Because the guitar has so many ways it can be played. You can play like Tommy Emmanuel. You can play like Yngwie Malmsteen. You can play like Allan Holdsworth.

“There are so many different techniques. You have tapping, legato. You have sweep picking. And that is why it’s such a personal instrument. You project a lot of your personality in it; you can play it in a really personalized way.”

Having now worked with one of his biggest influences, Mancuso is now eyeing another big-name collaboration and a signature version of his beloved Yamaha Revstar. But he’s also been quick to herald the next generation of players, saying there’s one star-in-the-making everyone should know about.

Steve Vai has revealed he’s heard a raft of unreleased Van Halen material and is in high hopes for the band’s highly anticipated forthcoming release, which will revive some of Eddie Van Halen's older demos.

Alex Van Halen recently caused a stir when he revealed that he and Steve Lukather were working on a posthumous Van Halen album using material the band recorded before Eddie's passing, intended as a successor to 2012’s A Different Kind of Truth.

The two rock heavyweights have a wealth of ideas to work with. And it turns out Vai has heard some of it.

“I was up at Edward’s house once, in his studio,” Vai tells Guitar Player in a new interview. “He had a room filled with tapes, and he was pulling them out, and we were listening. He would just sit, record, and play.

“I’ll tell you, nobody plays like they do when they’re sitting in their room alone,” he continues. “It was a whole library of tapes, and it was such great stuff.”

He adds that he asked Eddie about the prospect of turning his swathe of riffs and ideas into a solo album. The late virtuoso said that “he always felt that Van Halen was his solo records”.

In turn, Vai has given his blessing to the Lukather-guided project. Lukather is, he says, “the best guy to help with this” given how close Eddie and Lukather were.

However, after early rumors got out of hand, Lukather was quick to clarify his role in the album shortly after its announcement, explaining that he won’t play a single note on it after fans reacted to the news.

While details of the record remain scarce, we do know that Bad Company vocalist and recent Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee Paul Rodgers turned down the opportunity to front it.

Former bassist Michael Anthony, meanwhile, who was replaced by Wolfgang Van Halen in the band’s latter years, has his own thoughts on how the record should be released, and such a move would render the need for a vocalist redundant.

Vai, of course, has his own chapter in the band's history, having been chosen by Diamond Dave for his solo band. He says he got the gig with a little help from Billy Sheehan.

Some bassists lie back, but not Gary Shea – as he tells Bass Player, “Always remember: no bass, no party!” And it’s been quite the party for Shea, who’s played in New England, Warrior and Alcatrazz with John Fannon, Vinnie Vincent, Yngwie Malmsteen and Joe Stump.

“I always wanted to be the bass player on the jukebox original track as opposed to the bass player playing the song in a bar,” he says. At 74, he continues to do just that with New England and Alcatrazz. “I’m very fortunate to have played with some of the best of the best over the years.”

He admits that involved dealing with some tough customers: “I set out to find the music that inspired me and met some incredible musicians along the way. Not bad for a left-handed guy living in a right-handed world! All talented musicians can be difficult. That’s what makes them special – they stick to their guns and follow their vision.”

What sounds were you going for when you formed New England?

New England was a progressive rock band that played short songs. With Jimmy Waldo’s Mellotrons and an array of other keyboards, we had a huge palette of color that could take us from heavy orchestral rock to quiet ballads. It was a great opportunity to play some very creative basslines. New England is a great fit for my style.

What was your rig like then?

I used three Ampeg SVT heads with four 8x10 cabs and two Cerwin-Vega B48 MF 18'' reflex horns, each with a front-loaded 12'' speaker. I also had Moog Taurus bass pedals. I used my 1965 L Series Jazz Bass with a P neck and Tele pickguard.

I played with my fingers, using my fingernails for more clarity and attack. I also had a 10-string Explorer bass, a Hamer Blitz bass with a Kahler bar, and an 8-string Cruise bass, custom-built by Paul Hamer.

The 10 strings had a high B string and could be tuned to fifths for more chordal work. I had one of the last ’76 Bicentennial Gibson Thunderbird basses from the factory. I had the top painted white by a young Mike Pedulla, who lived nearby.

What was it like having Paul Stanley produce New England’s debut? Was he miscast in that role?

On the contrary – working with Paul was very comfortable. We were all the same age and had the same influences like Free, Terry Reid and The Move. Our goal was to re-record our 16-track demos to 24-track, and Paul was an excellent fifth voice in making it sparkle.

We also had ace engineer Mike Stone from the Queen camp, who got massive sounds for us with his expertise at the recording desk. Being part of The Kiss Army was nothing to sniff at; it got us on their 1979 Dynasty tour.

Despite strong material, New England fell short. What happened?

Our big problem was that our record company, Infinity/MCA, folded during its first year of business, just as we’d started tracking our second album. We had six major-label offers for our first album, and chose to go with Elektra for our second and third albums.

The transition took precious time. Although we were doing great musically, working with Todd Rundgren and touring, Elektra let us down on the promotion side of things. You can hear what would have been our fourth album on our Cherry Red boxset.

Is it true that New England’s management was focused on Kiss and neglected your band?

I have what I call the David-and-Goliath theory of management. You can have your cousin manage your band, who’ll lay his life down for you, but has no major contacts. Or you can go with Mr. Big, but he has big-name clients that you must compete with for attention.

We chose Bill Aucoin for his vision, experience and direction. It was up to us to be great and earn attention. We’re all still friends with Kiss. I recently played at a convention in Finland with Bruce Kulick.

How did you meet Vinnie Vincent and form Warrior?

As New England went into pre-production for its fourth album, guitarist John Fannon left the band for family reasons. We put the word out to replace him and got some great inquiries. The best one was from Gene Simmons, who told us of a guitarist named Vinnie Cusano who was writing with them for their new album in L.A. [Creatures of the Night].

They were looking for a replacement for Ace Frehley, but there was a concern that Vinnie was too short to be in their band. Gene suggested we contact each other. Vinnie sent us a demo tape that we really liked. It was in the Foreigner vein but a little heavier.

He flew to Boston to audition for us, and, unbeknownst to him, we learned his demo tape. He played our music very well, but we blew his mind when we played his music. He smiled and said he couldn't find anyone who sounded like us in LA. We decided to pool our resources and start a whole new band in Los Angeles.

Tell us about the recordings you did with Vinnie.

At the time, Vinnie was very together musically. As well as working with Kiss, he was working on the television show Happy Days. Prior to that he’d played with Dan Hartman and Edgar Winter.

His style was more like Jeff Beck, and the music was straight-ahead, radio-friendly rock. Vinnie has a cool voice, but didn't want to sing and play guitar. We auditioned Fergie Frederiksen, who would later join Toto.

I taped rehearsals on my Sony TCS 350 cassette deck for my own benefit. A few years ago, a CD was released of these sessions under the name Warrior that we were floating at the time. The tapes are bass-heavy because I wasn’t taping the whole band.

I had a great roaring midrange sound at the time, using my 1980 G&L 1000 bass, played with a pick. I was playing through a very beat-up Acoustic 360 bass amp rental at SIR Sunset. I offered to buy it on the spot, but they declined!

Is it true that Vinnie took some of Warrior’s material and used it for Kiss and The Vinnie Vincent Invasion?

Warrior only lasted two months when Vinnie was asked to join Kiss full-time. Great for him; not so great for us, but a deal hard to refuse. We kept in touch a bit as time went by. Vinnie had many songs, and we’d touched on some that showed up later down the line on his solo albums. His only shortcoming at the time was stressing over making final decisions on arrangements and mixes.

How did Alcatrazz form?

Jimmy Waldo and I decided to stay in LA rather than go back to Boston. I got a call one night from manager Andy Truman, who was a neighbor of Graham Bonnet.

Graham had just left the Michael Schenker Group and Rainbow. They were looking to start a new band as opposed to a solo artist band. Barrymore Barlow from Jethro Tull was to be on drums and Zal Cleminson on guitar. Andy asked if I knew a keyboard player, and I mentioned Jimmy.

Jimmy, Andy, Graham and I met at the Hyatt Hotel bar on Sunset and discussed forming a band with a European rock feel. We were offered a record deal with no demo on Rocshire/MCA through our freind Bob Sifkin, A&R for MCA.

How did the young Yngwie Malmsteen come into the picture?

Barry was asked to play on Robert Plant’s solo album so he stayed in England. Zal was not in the picture. We auditioned two guitarists that weekend – Laurence Juber from Wings and a young Yngwie.

Laurence is a great player; but obviously, Yngwie was what we were looking for to complement Graham's background with Ritchie Blackmore. I came up with the idea of using Alcatrazz as the band name. Later on, we added an extra Z like in “jazz” or “nazz.”

What was your rig like by then?

I had my three Ampeg SVTs and four 8x10 cabs that I’d brought out from Boston. Later on I switched to a Randall endorsement, using their RB 500 solid-state heads and eight 2x15 cabs.

I continued to play my G&L 1000 and later switched to Aria Pro SB Elites with EMG pickups and Badass bridges. Yngwie got me in with Aria basses, and I got him in with my D’Angelico endorsement for strings and picks. I later sold all of my Ampeg gear and cases to Yngwie’s band – I didn’t want to deal with tubes any longer.

Yngwie takes a lot of credit for the music he made with you. How accurate is that?

Yngwie actually has a great sense of humor in private. Of course, he didn’t write all the songs, vocals, keyboard parts and basslines. Island in the Sun was a New England song that Jimmy had written. Graham wrote new lyrics for it, and he wrote General Hospital.

We were a band, not a solo project. I put in a B minor ascending arpeggio at the intro of Hiroshima. Yngwie told me I was stepping on his solo, but the lick stayed. He did write a major part of the music but it was no-one’s solo album. Because of the band’s structure, he played some of his most memorable solos on No Parole.

What led to Yngwie leaving, and how did Steve Vai enter the picture?

Yngwie was replaced for becoming difficult to work with. We’d auditioned Chris Impelliteri and Steve Vai in secret. We chose Steve, but both are brilliant guitarists. This was prior to going a major tour with Ted Nugent in the summer of ’84. Our label agreed to the swap, but asked that we do it going into our next record. We all agreed to that.

Steve seems much easier to work with.

Yngwie is great, and Steve is awesome. They’re bookends. Steve was a joy to work with musically and brought a whole new bag of tricks from the Zappa camp. I’m very proud of the level of musicianship on Disturbing the Peace. Along with producer Eddie Kramer, I felt we’d come into our own sound and looked forward to more down the road.

What led to losing Steve, and Graham torpedoing the band?

Once again, a guitarist of ours was offered a deal you can’t refuse! This time it was from David Lee Roth. Of all the guys David could get to play with after Eddie Van Halen, he chose Steve Vai. We split amicably and are still good friends.

Graham refused to record some outside material Capitol Records A&R suggested to us, and they didn’t renew our contract for a third album. That’s life in the big city.

What led to New England and Alcatrazz both reforming?

New England got back together in 2003. We realized we had great chemistry and we’d been away for too long. Our first rehearsal produced two great songs, which led to some spot live appearances.

Eventually we took things further by playing over a dozen shows on the East and West Coasts as well as Tokyo. We’ve recorded an EP and a live album over the last 10 years on a part-time basis.

Alcatrazz reuniting morphed out of The Graham Bonnet Band. Jimmy was asked to play some keyboard tracks on an album, then joined as a touring member. Joe Stump was added as lead guitarist.

I went along on a Graham Bonnet Band tour doing an Alcatrazz set, testing the waters on a few gigs in the Southwest and Japan. It went very well and led to reforming Alcatrazz properly, signing a record deal with Silver Lining Records. We took drummer Mark Benquechea and guitarist Joe Stump with us.

Would you work with Yngwie or Graham again?

Over the years I’ve learned to never say never. Music is a very liquid gift. It ebbs and flows in sometimes strange ways. All of us have worked extremely hard making music together, and that strength shows when we get back together as if nothing happened. Life is mysterious, and I rule nothing out. Keep an open mind and a warm heart.

And you finally put out those long-lost Warrior recordings.

Yes – a combination of live rehearsal tapes and demos done at the Record Plant in LA. It’s a showcase for what might have been.

What are your thoughts on Vinnie charging hundreds of dollars per song?

I don’t know any more than everyone else knows! He’s welcome to sell his music however he wants. He seems to be in a rough spot, and I wish him well.

Out of John Fannon, Vinnie, Vai and Yngwie, who’s the best guitarist you ever worked with?

That’s the old question – which flavor of ice cream is best! Ther’s no definite answer. I love them all, each for a special reason. I must also add Joe Stump to the group. He’s a master shredder. He has also been an associate professor at Berklee for the last 20 years.

What’s next?

Most of our shows are fly dates. I recently played on Hirsh Gardner’s new solo album, Three Times the Charm. My latest endeavor is my new book, No Bass No Party – it’s about walking into a department store, buying an inexpensive guitar, and eventually playing Madison Square Garden. It’s a story of patience and persistence, navigating through the music business with its pitfalls of contracts, lawyers and record deals.

Alcatrazz has begun work on the band’s seventh studio album, due for release later this year. Touring will resume at that time.

• Warrior Featuring Vinnie Vincent: The Complete Sessions is out now via Cherry Red. Shea’s book No Bass No Party is available via BWL Publishing.

Billy Sheehan knows a thing or two about holding down the low end for some of the world’s top virtuosos, having worked with everyone from Paul Gilbert and Mike Portnoy to David Lee Roth.

And, it just so happens that Sheehan who introduced another virtuoso – a certain Steve Vai – into the fold when he was playing alongside the former Van Halen vocalist.

In 1984, Vai found himself replacing Yngwie Malmsteen as the lead guitarist of Alcatrazz, with whom he recorded their sophomore album, Disturbing the Peace. However, Vai was soon recruited to join the solo project of post-Van Halen David Lee Roth – although, as Sheehan recalls, Vai wasn’t his first pick.

“The original idea was Steve Stevens, but he was busy with Billy Idol and wisely decided to stay with him,” Sheehan remembers in a new interview with Guitar Player.

“I told Dave I know another Steve, ’cause at the time my band Talas was on Relativity Records out of New York City, and Steve was also on that label, and we’d talked about doing something together before the Roth thing happened.

“Steve, because of his association with Frank Zappa, had a sense of humor about his playing, which was very important for the Roth band.”

As Sheehan describes it, Vai’s stint with a musician as left-field as Zappa left an imprint on his playing, which became “kind of quirky”.

“He had all the fundamentals very, very down, then added the quirkiness from the Zappa thing. So Vai came in and was just awesome, a great, great player,” he continues. “So he was in, and we had a great time putting that Eat ’Em and Smile tour together.”

As for what he remembers from those heady days with Vai, Sheehan immediately replies, “He’s such a dedicated player. We’d be in the dressing room before the show, and he’d be there for hours, just working on stuff, head down for hours at a time before every show, pretty much.

“That also shows how much he cares about the audience, too, ’cause you want to do the absolute best for them all the time. Steve is definitely in that club.”

Later on, Sheehan would join Vai on some of his solo tours as part of his backing band, The Breed.

“It was always a blast,” he recalls. “ We had so much fun on those tours – no nonsense, no drugs, drinking, disrespectful rock star bullshit. We were all just legitimately having fun, and it was like a 24-hour comedy show.

“There was a lot of mutual respect in the bands I played in with Steve. I have nothing but great things to say,” he concludes.

And speaking of Vai, for those in the hunt for their own top-tier home studio, the guitar maestro just listed his LA property – which comes fully equipped with his famed Harmony Hut studio – for $11.7 million.

Steve Vai has put his Los Angeles property up for sale – and it comes complete with the electric guitar virtuoso’s famed Harmony Hut home studio.

As reported by the Robb Report, Vai purchased the Encino home for $1.2 million 30 years ago, and promptly turned the run-down shack at the end of the backyard – which had once been the residence of gardener, who died in the space some time in the past – into the ultimate guitar paradise.

Vai once retold the tale of the Harmony Hut’s creation in a blog entry posted to his official website, documenting the various renovations he had done to the place while he was on the road for the Ultra Zone tour.

“The house itself was vacant for 10 years before we bought it, but there’s two acres of land so we saw the potential,” Vai wrote. “There was a gardener that lived in the little shack out back while the house was vacant for 10 years. The poor guy died out there and was not discovered for 2 weeks when the neighbors noticed a funny smell. Ah, a perfect place to make beautiful music, right?”

Nonetheless, Vai gave it a much happier next chapter – reinvigorating the building and turning it into a light-filled home studio space.

“I added a small room to it and bumped out the front and put in a huge window, so now when I work at the desk I can look out over the backyard and see the kids, the sun, etc,” he continued. “It’s a very comfortable environment with various fabrics on the walls and colored tiffany-type lamps that set the room in a warm glow…”

It became something of a sanctuary for Vai, who used the fully functioning studio extensively to write and record. He also filmed live performances there, and ended up working on The Story of Light and Modern Primitive.

It also became a safe space for his comprehensive guitar collection, with a huge array of builds hung up across the wall.

During a studio tour video posted to YouTube last October, Vai showed off some of his Harmony Hut collection, which included guitars personally gifted to him by the likes of Yngwie Malmsteen, Joe Satriani, Mick Mars and Frank Zappa.

There’s also Vai’s first-ever electric, his Whitesnake Ibanez, the three-neck Heart guitar which spurned an absurd arms race with Michael Angeo Batio, and more.

Unfortunately, the listing doesn’t include the guitar collection, so any prospective new owner will be left with plenty of empty wall hangers to fill with their own guitars.

Head over to Sothebys Real Estate to explore the full listing.

The ever-outrageous shred wizard Michael Angelo Batio has revealed the origins of his iconic quad-necked guitar, which was designed to go toe-to-toe with Steve Vai.

The 1980s was a decade that pushed the electric guitar to new extremes. While Eddie Van Halen lit a fire under a new generation of players with his tapping fireworks, and Yngwie Malmsteen was breaking the speed limit with lightning-fast arpeggios, Michael Angelo Batio was standing out by shredding on not one, not two, but four fretboards at once.

He’d already turned heads with his double-neck guitar, which, in contrast to the traditional parallel neck designs – see Jimmy Page playing Stairway to Heaven – found Batio’s necks pointed opposite ways, allowing him to legato two fretboards simultaneously. But this was the ‘80s, and he was quickly outdone.

“Steve Vai came out with his three-neck heart guitar,” Batio says in the new issue of Guitar World. “My label wanted me to challenge Steve to a duel. I didn't see the point in competitions like that.”

Mark that down as another ‘what if’ moment in music history. Michael Angelo Batio versus Steve Vai would have been a guitar duel for the ages. But luckily, the story didn’t end there.

He continues, “The label went, ‘Michael... Steve's got three necks, and you have two. You know what you need?’ And I went, ‘Four.’ They loved it.

“As it happened, Wayne Charvel was building all my guitars,” he adds. “I said to him, ‘Can you do this?’ I have a good engineering mind for guitar design, so I designed the Quad. I told him how I thought it should be four separate guitars, and that was that. It was the wildest thing. There was no limit to what we were trying to do.”

When the maverick shredder unleashed the fury of the Quad, playing at Formula One speeds with not a single guitar pick in sight, many thought there was some studio wizardry (read: cheating) going on.

“No, no,” Batio returns. “Those songs were clocking at 200 bpm, which was nothing for me – that's all 16th notes. That was all analog tape. There were no punches. There are a lot of guitarists who can play like that now.”

Batio’s full interview features in the new issue of Guitar World. Print and digital copies can be ordered from Magazines Direct.

The SatchVai Band recently treated fans to a spectacular jam at a show in Portland, covering two bona fide rock classics and littering them with three-part guitar harmonies and oodles of guitar solos.

The band, spearheaded by resident virtuosos Steve Vai and Joe Satriani, powered through a high octane take on Led Zeppelin’s Rock and Roll, before riding through Steppenwolf’s ever-cool Born to be Wild.

The show at the 2,700-capacity Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall was the second date of the band's latest run, marking their first dates since last summer and their first US run.

The Surfing with the Hydra tour is now making its way across the US for the first time. Before, the SatchVai Band's only show on home soil prior to this tour was a debut gig in New York in 2024.

So, to mark the occasion, they dropped in two rock guitar staples into their encore.

Marco Mendoza handled vocals pretty damn well across the two songs, but given the context of the night, all eyes were on the fretboards of Vai, Satriani, and their well-picked third guitarist, Pete Thorn. It was the latter, after some extravagant three-part harmonies, who delivered the first solo, unleashing a flurry of hot pentatonic licks on his Suhr signature guitar.

Vai was next up, and as is to be expected, there was a little more weirdness sprinkled in, including some whammy-lavished mimicking of Robert Plant’s crooning vocal lines, all while staying faithfully in blues rock territory.

Satriani actually didn’t get his chance to strut his stuff until Born to Be Wild, and he serves up tapping and harmonic licks aplenty. It's like his time in the Best of All Worlds band is rubbing off on him.

There was also a tasty wah solo from Thorn, more screaming leads from Vai, and some dextrous arpeggios from Satch, who was seen to be rocking his EVH-coded 3rd Power Dragon amps. A nod to Cream’s Sunshine of Your Love to top it all off was a doozy, too.

The band’s first US tour sees Animals As Leaders in tow – for even more virtuosity – and a SatchVai album has been teased for the near future. They released their third single, Dancing, earlier this year, with the help of Dethklok’s Brendon Small.

Steve Vai has recalled the time he played Brian May’s legendary Red Special electric guitar at just 20 years old – but admitted he struggled to get a tune out of it.

In a new interview with Q1043 New York, Vai looked back on his early years as an aspiring artist who'd just moved to Los Angeles to make it big as a guitar player. While there, he crossed paths with one of his heroes.

“It was bizarre because I had just moved out to LA,” Vai says “Just a year before that, I was in my teenage bedroom with Queen posters and Led Zeppelin all over the walls. And I walk into the Rainbow [Bar & Grill], and there's Brian May standing at the bar. And I just thought, ‘How is this [possible]?’”

The Rainbow is LA’s famous rockstar-friendly watering hole, which has been frequented by the likes of Guns N' Roses, The Who, Led Zeppelin, Alice Cooper and more.

But for a young Vai, walking in and seeing a bona fide rockstar was still a shock. Yet May was welcoming to the starry-eyed fan.

“He actually invited me to a Queen rehearsal,” Vai continues. “I was just this unknown kid, and there I was. And then there it was, the Red Special. I said, ‘Is that it?’ And he goes, ‘That's it. You wanna play it?’”

May has been loyal to the electric guitar he built with his father throughout his entire career. So loyal, in fact, that last year’s Gibson SJ-200 was his first-ever signature guitar, after a series of Red Special releases via Brian May Guitars.

As such, it was made to his liking – no one else’s. Vai figured that out pretty quickly. Some of the specs were just too far removed from his own personal setup – particularly the neck.

“I just remember thinking, ‘I can't play this thing.’ The neck is like a bat,” he goes on. “It's got like, what, gauge 0.8 strings? But it was a miracle to actually have the guitar under my fingers, and he allowed that.”

Indeed, when showing off his custom-built Vai-ified Red Special guitar earlier this year, Vai said the neck was “the size of a small tree,” and him trying to play it was like “a giraffe on roller skates.”

May signed with Gibson in a surprise move in 2024, and while there's been speculation that a Gibson-made Red Special is in the works, there’s sadly no sign of movement there yet.

Elsewhere, May says he gave the Red Special one mod after taking inspiration from Jimi Hendrix, but he quickly regretted it.

From playing Van Halen with David Lee Roth to replicating Robert Fripp's prog wizardry in Beat, Steve Vai has often taken on demanding gigs. But his toughest tonal challenge came during his Whitesnake days.

Roth famously singled out former Frank Zappa guitarist Steve Vai to be the lead guitarist of his new solo project, believing he could outgun the one and only Eddie Van Halen. More recently, the physicality of Fripp's playing has been a huge undertaking for Vai.

In both cases, he pulled through – but to this day, the task of following in the footsteps of John Sykes in Whitesnake was a completely different challenge.

“I discovered that it would be harder to try to replicate his tone than anybody else,” Vai says in conversation with Eddie Trunk. “When he recorded those Whitesnake records, all the stars aligned for him. He really delivered, not only the writing and the construction of the parts, but the tone.”

Sykes, who also played on Thin Lizzy’s final album, Thunder and Lightning, passed away last year. He played on two Whitesnake albums, 1984's Slide It In, and their self-titled LP three years later. Vai took his place for Slip of the Tongue in 1989 as a new-look Whitesnake closed out the decade. Sykes was a tough act to follow.

“It was uber fat, you know?” Vai says of Sykes' guitar tone. “I tried to think of his harmonizer [pedal], and how it spread, because it didn't sound like [there was] a lot of doubling. But it was spot on; it seemed to cover a lot of audio real estate.”

Vai’s experiments and research led him to accept that this new-era Whitesnake was a very different proposition. So, instead of copying Sykes' tone and style verbatim, he had to get more creative.

“When it came time to play those classic John songs live, I would hit a preset, and it would widen up a bit,” Vai says. “But I’ve got to hand it to him. What he did on that [self-titled] record is stupendous. His tone, attitude, vibrato, the choice of notes, and the songs themselves; he delivered in a big way.”

Sykes, the man who once dived into a burning car to save his 1976 Les Paul, was one of rock’s most underrated players, with Guns N’ Roses among those paying tribute to him in the wake of his passing. Vai was also among his admirers.

In related news, Doug Aldrich has revealed the guitar he found best replicates Sykes’ tone, having played with the group in the early 2000s.

Coca-Cola has enlisted Steve Vai to reimagine the Van Halen classic, Jump, as an anthem for the 2026 FIFA World Cup – and yes, it's got shredding galore.

One of the world’s biggest sporting competitions, the 48-team soccer tournament is being hosted by the USA, Canada, and Mexico this summer. To celebrate, Vai has lent his virtuosic hands for a lead-laden version of the track.

Vai’s licks pepper the song like confetti, with whammy bar wails, luscious harmonies, and a flash of tapping – in a nod to the song’s co-writer, Eddie Van Halen – characterizing its tasteful but impressive guitar solo.

“I never know what might come across my desk as an inquiry, but this was a taker,” he says of the wild reworking of the track, which also features Blink-182 drummer Travis Barker, Colombian vocalist J Balvin, and American singer-songwriter Amber Mark.

It also continues Coca-Cola’s tradition of reworking a classic track in honor of the World Cup, having been an official sponsor of the competition since 1978.

Van Halen released Jump in December 1983, and it became the band’s first and only song to top the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart. It was also nominated at the 27th Annual Grammy Awards, losing out on Best Rock Performance to Prince’s Purple Rain.

Despite its success, Eddie initially had to work hard in order to convince the band to put it on the record.

“When I first played Jump for the band, nobody wanted to have anything to do with it,” EVH told Guitar World in 2014. “Dave said that I was a guitar hero and I shouldn’t be playing keyboards. My response was that if I want to play a tuba or Bavarian cheese whistle, I will do it.”

The track has been covered countless times, including a percussive acoustic version by Mike Dawes and an all-star live performance by Billy Idol, Steve Stevens, and Derek Sherinian.

Meanwhile, Alex Van Halen says a new Van Halen record was virtually finished before Eddie passed away. The project, which includes Steve Lukather, is now looking for a vocalist after Paul Rodgers turned them down.

When Guitar World scheduled an interview with Dethklok mastermind Brendon Small, we had no idea that a few hours prior, Joe Satriani and Steve Vai had premiered their latest SatchVai music video, for their new single, Dancing.

In the comical clip, Small portrays a misguided manager who tries to convince the guitarists of the importance of “motion” and “energy,” which leads to a series of auditions by a wave of impressive dancers as the duo perform in a school gymnasium.

The video isn’t Small’s first collaboration with Satriani and Vai, as both served as guest voice actors on Small’s cult animated TV series, Metalocalypse. Since then, Small explains, both guitarists have proceeded to serve as mentors.

“When I was discovering guitar, Flying In A Blue Dream was about to come out and Passion and Warfare had just come out, so I was in guitar heaven,” Small says.

“Joe's music is so creative, and his [sense of] harmony and melody are so strong. I think he's one of the great songwriters, and I could say the same thing for Steve. It felt like they were playing these kind of dream melodies in this dream universe.”

Years later, Small met the pair at a Guitar Player-sponsored competition (“they put me on as the funny guy at a dais, where I would just make jokes the whole time”), where they “became very friendly, very easily, very quickly,” he says. Soon after, Satriani left an indirect stamp on Dethklok’s music.

“Joe actually helped me find guitar sounds for Dethalbum II,” Small explains. “I had just finished Dethalbum I and was working on Dethalbum II, and he said, ‘Where are you at with the process?’ I go, ‘Well, I’ve run out of studio time, so I'm doing overdubs from my home studio.’ He goes, ‘What are you using to record the guitar?’ I said, ‘I'm using my Line 6 POD,’ and he goes, ‘I’ve got something that may work better.’

“He asked me for my address, and he sent me two things in the mail,” Small continues. “One was his new distortion pedal, the Satchurator, and he [also] sent me his old Palmer cabinet simulator, because I didn't have an amp mic room or anything. And he said, ‘Get this stuff set up, and then give me a call.’

“Later, I found myself on the phone with Joe Satriani, and he's kind of giving me tech support and showing me, like, ‘Hey, this filter knob – that's going to be your best friend,’” Small continues.

“Steve Vai has done similar things for me. Both of them have been mentors to me in many different ways – musically, business-wise, financially, all kinds of stuff. Steve gives such great advice, and so does Joe. Joe's a natural teacher, and so is Steve.”

While Small says he had a blast filming the Dancing video, his favorite moments on set were off-camera.

“There's a lot of downtime on a video set – they're shooting all these dancers and everything – so we were huddled in a corner just talking the whole time,” he says. “For me, it was one of the most glorious days because there are my two guitar heroes, and we're just talking about the inner game of guitar the whole time.

“It's really funny, because in the world that I've kind of carved out for myself – which is part-time producer/director/writer, and then part-time musician – while I'm doing one, the other atrophies. So while I'm directing a movie or something, my guitar playing is just kind of going, like, ‘All right – you're on hold. I'll get back to you in a while.’

“I noticed that some parts of my guitar playing had atrophied over the years, and some parts had gotten better,” Small explains. “I took a lesson last year with Jason Richardson, and [as] I sat with Joe and Steve, I talked about how I kind of took my guitar-playing apart and cleaned the engine and put it back together again. They were very curious about that – ‘How does that work? How are your muscles working?’

“I'm talking to these guys who are kind of the statesmen of the entire guitar industry, and they're giving me really great advice. Steve Vai’s giving me posture advice. All this stuff, I'm taking in like a sponge, because it's a different game of guitar. It's the mental game of guitar, and Steve had a lot to say about that, and so did Joe. That day was pretty amazing.”

The complete Guitar World interview with Small – whose band Dethklok will soon join forces with Swedish viking metal warriors Amon Amarth on the North American “Amonklok Conquest” tour – will be published in the coming weeks.

In recent years, Matteo Mancuso has deservedly been heralded as one of the greatest players of his generation. Now, he's named a fellow young virtuoso who he believes deserves more recognition.

Mancuso, who is set to release his second studio album, Route 96, next month, has famous fans in Steve Vai, Tosin Abasi, and Al Di Meola. He’s also shared the stage with Joe Bonamassa and more than held his own, all while shredding without a guitar pick.

But, speaking to Guitar Player ahead of Route 96’s release, he’s turned the spotlight away from himself and towards a player he’s willing to put the ‘guitarist of a generation’ tag upon.

That player is Daniele Gottardo. The modern electric maestro recently shredded his Charvel Super Strat during Jeff Beck tribute shows, which also involved Joe Satriani and Steve Vai band members, and former Jefferson Starship players.

He’s also earned the mantle of being Steve Vai’s new favorite guitar player.

“He is truly one of the best players in the new generation,” Mancuso purrs. “And I’m not just saying that because he’s Italian. Daniele is a complete player. He can literally play everything.

“I remember when Daniele’s videos came out. Everyone was mind-blown by his tapping technique, his taste, and his tone.”

Indeed, the guitarist, who is fast approaching 40,000 Instagram followers, isn’t short of praise, with Vai also waxing lyrical over his talents.

“He has an elegant touch, stunning intonation, and innovative style,” Vai once said of him. “He honors the melody.”

Gottardo has released four solo albums since 2010, with his latest, INKBlot, arriving in 2022. He’s pretty prolific on YouTube, too, and he executes complex two-handed tapping parts with a frightening ease.

A quick look across his socials shows that he's got Gretchen Menn and Jordan Rudess under his spell too, and he's part of Hedras’ Apex Breed trio of virtuosos. His future is bright.

Meanwhile, Jason Becker has prophesied an equally blinding future for Mancuso, having won the guitar hero's heart during a visit to his home last summer.

Despite having served under Frank Zappa, releasing one non-genre-conforming solo record (1984’s Flex-Able) and scoring a key – and now legendary – role in Crossroads, which hit theaters in March 1986, Steve Vai was still relatively unknown in the land of regular humans. But after joining the solo band of former Van Halen frontman David Lee Roth, he’d become a household-ish name.

“At 26, I got to live the ultimate guitar rock-star fantasy,” Vai says. “I wish every rock guitarist could experience a piece of that, but it would need to be the ’80s when that type of thing was flourishing.”

The “thing” Vai is talking about is glammed-out shred, which was popularized by Eddie Van Halen (and a few others), who, in the eyes of Roth’s fans, Vai was about to be directly compared to. Not that this bothered Vai.

“I believe I worked well in the band because I’ve had rock in my blood since I was a teenager,” Vai says. “I was able to authentically express that, with my quirk, of course.”

Also helpful was Vai’s habit of coming in behind iconic shredders. “I’ve been lucky that way throughout my career,” Vai says. “I replaced Warren Cuccurullo with Zappa, Yngwie with Alcatrazz and Edward with Dave. Somehow the fans kept welcoming me in. Maybe they just like watching a guy try to keep his head above water!”

In all fairness, judging by Roth’s debut solo record, 1986’s Eat ’Em and Smile, Vai did more than keep his head above water. Tracks like Yankee Rose, Tobacco Road, Shyboy and Vai’s favorite, Big Trouble, tell the story of a match made in hair metal heaven.

Eventually, Vai would break out solo and turn the guitar world upside down, but he couldn’t have done it without having served under Roth. “I always look for things I haven’t done before, or I haven’t really heard from any other guitar players,” Vai says.

As for how he looks back on working with Diamond Dave – one of music’s most notorious characters – post-Van Halen, Vai smiles, saying, “He was a handful in the best possible way. Working with him was like being strapped to a rocket made of charisma and fueled by tequila.”

How did you end up playing guitar for Dave?

I was living in a little apartment on Fairfax in Hollywood when I heard he was looking for a guitar player. For some strange reason, I just knew it was my gig. It wasn’t an ego thing – I didn’t think, “I deserve this” – it was more like a quiet voice inside saying, “This is yours.”

The next day, the phone rings; it’s David Lee Roth. Turns out [bassist] Billy Sheehan had mentioned my name. Dave tells me he’s putting together a band for an album, a tour and even a movie, and he asks if I want to come down and jam. I knew they’d been trying out other guitar players, but once we started playing together, it just clicked. Sparks were flying, musically speaking.

How did you handle being compared to Eddie Van Halen?

I knew all ears would be on me. It was probably the most coveted guitar chair in rock at the time. I adored Edward's playing, so from a fan’s point of view, I understood that people would be skeptical. I would’ve been too. But competing with Eddie Van Halen? Forget it. You don’t compete with Mount Everest – you just admire it.

My mindset was simply to contribute something authentic, be myself and let that speak for itself. Once the album came out and we hit the road, the reception was fantastic. I didn’t feel the backlash people warned me about. I think fans realize you can’t replace Edward; you can only bring your own voice.

What did Dave expect from you?

Dave wanted a young hotshot who could play their ass off. He wanted a supergroup with players who could really throw down, and he nailed it: Billy Sheehan, Gregg Bissonette and me. It was wild chemistry. I knew I had to supply some riffs, and the ones I did resonated with Dave.

He has a great ear for what works for him and what doesn’t. As a soloist, I was quite the “shredder,” and that was popular at that time. I knew that was important to Dave, but he was also interested in solos being a musical statement and not just a flurry of notes.

What gear did you use in the studio, and what was the vibe like?

When I joined Dave, I was embarrassingly inexperienced with what people would call “big rock guitar tone.” I didn’t even own a Marshall! I was using Carvin X-100B amps, which I brought into the studio for Eat ’Em and Smile.

I tracked a few songs with them using my yellow Jackson Soloists and also my pink one. I also used my Charvel “Green Meanie.” But the Carvins weren’t cutting through for the more aggressive tracks.

Luckily, Steve Stevens was recording across the hall. I mentioned my tone troubles, and he lent me one of his favorite Marshall heads and cabs. Boom! Instant magic. I ended up using his rig for most of the album. Thanks, Steve. You saved my sonic bacon.

Ted Templeman produced Van Halen and Roth. What was he like?

He was brilliant. I learned a ton from him. He gave you total freedom, but his suggestions were so insightful that you wanted to follow them. I came from a background with Frank Zappa, where precision and complexity ruled the day.

Ted taught me the opposite – how to capture raw energy. He knew how to bottle the chaos of young lunatics like us and make it sound big, tight and alive. We respected him as the Yoda that he is.

What do you remember about working on Yankee Rose, That’s Life and Tobacco Road?

I knew this record would be forensically examined, so I leaned into my quirks. I’ve always had this playful, slightly mischievous streak in my playing. One such example is my “guitar talking” technique. I thought it’d be fun to open the album with it, just to grab people by the ears.

That’s Life was pure Dave – swagger, humor, and showbiz all rolled into one, and I was happy to support it. And Tobacco Road? That was a blast. Dave suggested it, and I went home and cooked up a guitar arrangement filled with weird little twists and turns. I remember thinking, “There’s no way they’ll let me get away with all this nonsense.” But they did. And that freedom made the whole session magic.

You handled the horn arrangement on I’m Easy. Did Zappa prepare you for that?

I started writing horn charts in high school and really dove into it at Berklee. I’ve always loved big band arrangements. It’s like sculpting sound with brass. Doing the horns for I’m Easy was… easy.

What’s your favorite guitar moment from Eat ’Em and Smile?

Perhaps my solo on Big Trouble. I had full creative freedom on that one, and it came out exactly how I heard it in my head – melodic, daring and unapologetically “Vai”. To me, it didn’t sound like Edward or anyone else, and that’s usually a sign that I was hitting the mark I set for myself for this record.

And the riffing with Billy on Shyboy? Total mayhem. Imagine two electric eels wrestling inside a transformer. That’s what it felt like.

Were you satisfied with the album?

It felt gloriously surreal to listen to that record from top to bottom and be embraced by its audio energy elixir. I still feel that when I listen to it now. A part of me ponders, “How the heck did we do that?”

We were holed up in Dave’s basement for about a year putting this thing together, completely under wraps. I couldn’t tell anyone what we were doing, so I had no clue how it would land. But I loved it. It had energy, humor and attitude. It felt alive.

Were you prepared for the wave of popularity that followed?

One funny moment – I was at the gym, walking through the parking lot and nearly got hit by a car. The driver slams his brakes and yells, “Hey, you dumb fuck – watch where you’re going!” All the while, he was blasting Bump and Grind at full volume while headbanging. I just smiled and thought, “At least he bought the record!” [Laughs] Soon we were playing to 20,000 people a night.

Would you do anything differently?

That gig was a gift for many reasons. It launched me into a whole new world and taught me how to command an arena stage. I can’t think of anything I would have done differently. It was financially rewarding, too, but after a 45-year career, I discovered that success is very nice – the money, fame, respect and so on. It's all quite fine and good, although it does come with certain challenges.

But of vital importance is the people you meet along the way, the experiences you have with them and the bonds you create. This is the real payoff, and when I look back at Eat ’Em and Smile, those are the things I'm most appreciative of.

To this day, Billy, Gregg and I are unbelievably close. They’re like brothers. There’s no way to put a value on our friendship that could compete with worldly success. I could even pick up the phone and call Dave. We were actually good friends back then.

He was like a mentor to me in many ways. When I look back, I thank my lucky stars. The whole thing feels extraordinary to me now. Touring, the videos, the huge stage, crazy clothes, girly hair, the backstage parties, the mayhem – it was outstanding.

Beyond that, what does Eat ’Em and Smile mean to you?

In all the bands I’ve been in, be it Frank Zappa, Alcatrazz, Roth, Whitesnake and the others, I knew there was a brand of music bubbling up in my imagination that I had to get out. Those eccentric ideas were there for as long as I can remember.

When I quit all those bands to make [1990’s] Passion and Warfare, I thought it might be the end of my career, but it was an easy choice. If you don’t allow your true creative impulses to manifest, it usually leads to depression.

I was fortunate in that Passion and Warfare and my brand of music and playing found an audience that has sustained me and my music. When I think of Eat ’Em and Smile, it’s like a wild, beautiful chapter in a fairytale. Somehow I got to be one of the characters.

• This article first appeared in Guitar World. Subscribe and save.

Where demand for pedal effects grew exponentially during the early ’70s as musicians sought new sounds, many stompbox designers turned to the synthesizer for new inspiration.

Mike Beigel was among the earliest engineers who realized that synth modules could easily be adapted into standalone effects. Although Guild hired Beigel to develop a synthesizer in the early ’70s, the project got canned, which inspired Beigel and former Guild chief electronics engineer Aaron Newman to form their own effects company, Musitronics, in 1972.

Beigel and Newman developed the prototype for their first product, an envelope filter called the Mu-Tron III, during the summer of 1972, and it became an overnight sensation when Stevie Wonder used the effect for his supremely funky Clavinet riff on the hit Higher Ground released in mid-1973.

The circuit consists of an envelope follower that uses optocouplers to control a voltage controlled filter. The optocouplers respond to input signal playing dynamics to sweep the EQ filter, resulting in a funky wah sound that is exceptionally expressive and responsive.

The wah sounds go well beyond those of a typical wah pedal, producing a wide variety of textures that include duck-like quacks, vowel-like vocal tones, piercing synth squeals and bowel-shaking bow wows.

Controls on the Mu-Tron III include a Mode switch with low-pass, band-pass and high-pass filter settings, a Peak (Q) knob for adjusting the resonant peak, a Gain knob and low/high Range and down/up Drive rocker switches.

Most guitarists prefer the fatter, thicker sound of the low-pass setting, which provides full bass and rolls off harsh treble frequencies. The early versions run on either two 9-volt batteries or an 18-volt power supply, while late-’70s versions (when Musitronics was owned by Arp) have a built-in power supply.

“We used a dual supply instead of a single supply so the effect could have a wide dynamic range,” Beigel said. “That way you could really smash on the guitar and not distort the whole effect.”

When combined with other effects like distortion, phase shift/flanging and pitch shifting, the Mu-Tron III can generate some dazzling, unusual sounds. Because the effect is dynamically responsive, it should be placed at the front of the signal chain and effects like compression and distortion should be plugged in after it.

Although the Mu-Tron III’s sounds are undeniably funky, and the pedal made a strong impression in the hands of funk musicians like keyboardists Stevie Wonder and George Duke and bassist Bootsy Collins, most of the guitarists known for using one hail from genres other than funk. Psychedelic jazz fusion guitarist Larry Coryell was an early adopter during the ’70s, as were Jerry Garcia and Frank Zappa.

Andy Summers and Steve Vai (taking a cue from his mentor Frank Zappa) employed a Mu-Tron III frequently during the ’80s and ’90s, and more recent, users include Trey Anastasio, Ira Kaplan (Yo La Tengo), Larry LaLonde, and Peter Frampton, who expertly summoned vocal-like textures from his Mu-Tron III on his 2006 cover of Soundgarden’s Black Hole Sun.

• This article first appeared in Guitar World. Subscribe and save.

Steve Vai has looked back on the time Steve Stevens came to his rescue while he was in the studio tracking his first album with David Lee Roth.

Sometimes, songs demand specific gear to let them truly shine. Fortunately for Vai, whose own gear at the time left much to be desired, he had a bona fide rock guitar great right next door to call upon.

In 1985, David Lee Roth left Van Halen – apparently, Van Halen's secret recording of Michael Jackson’s Beat It solo was the last straw for him. So, he set out on a solo career and recruited a new guitar foil who he thought could outgun Eddie’s alien talents.

Vai, coming off the back of grueling work as Frank Zappa’s transcribist and then his guitar player proper, was the man handpicked by Diamond Dave for the job.

Their debut album, Eat ‘Em and Smile, thanks to the MTV-championed single, Yankee Rose, would go on to be certified platinum. But behind the scenes, getting the right sounds for an album that was meant to see DLR stick it to his former bandmates wasn’t easy.

“When I joined Dave, I was embarrassingly inexperienced with what people would call ‘big rock guitar tone,’” Vai confesses in the new print issue of Guitar World.

He arrived at New York's Power Station studios – where Chic, David Bowie, and Dire Straits had recorded before them – armed with his Carvin X-100B amplifier. He quickly realized it wasn’t up to the task.

“The Carvins weren't cutting through for the more aggressive tracks,” he explains. “Luckily, Steve Stevens was recording across the hall. I mentioned my tone troubles, and he lent me one of his favorite Marshall heads and cabs. Boom! Instant magic. I ended up using his rig for most of the album.”

Judging by the timeline, with Eat ‘Em and Smile released in 1986, Stevens could have been recording his parts for Billy Idol's Whiplash Smile at the time. However, recording for Ric Ocasek's This Side of Paradise and the Top Gun soundtrack also took place around then, so we can't be definitively sure. Either way, Vai was thankful for his aid.

“He saved my bacon,” Vai laughs.

Vai is among the Ibanez artists to get a new signature model for 2026, and his Gold Flame PIA is a work of art. Vai will also feature on Matteo Mancuso's forthcoming second album, having once called the young shredder “the evolution of the guitar.”

The guitarist’s full interview can be found in the new issue of Guitar World, which also features conversations with Ola Englund, Andy Powers and more. Head to Magazines Direct to grab a copy.

NAMM 2026: Ibanez reliably stuck to NAMM tradition by showcasing a load of new signature guitars at this year’s show, giving Nili Brosh’s first-ever artist electric guitar its long-awaited debut.

Talk of Ibanez going into the show was focused mostly on the Alpha series – which nods to Tosin Abasi’s guitar designs – but the majority of eyeballs on the show floor were trained on the ‘Wall of Fame’ signature display, which offered new axes Brosh, Steve Vai, Joe Satriani, Kiko Loureiro and more.

We’ll be as impartial as possible, but Brosh’s is our favorite of the lot. That purple finish? Those yellow EMG pickups? Those exclamation mark inlays?! From top to bottom, it’s a sensational signature, one that puts the virtuoso’s spin on the classic RG template.

It’s been a long time coming, too. Back in 2022, the long-time Ibanez endorser revealed she’d worked on a custom shop model that was later played on stage alongside Danny Elfman. It’s been one of her main touring guitars since, with fans calling for a signature release.

This is slightly different from the OG custom model, with a deeper finish and purple inlays, instead of yellow. Still, it retains that distinct Brosh vibe, and leads the charge for the rest of Ibanez’s 2026 signature line.

“My thing basically was, you don’t see too many RG signature models these days,” Brosh told Guitar World. “I’ve always been an RG player so that’s something I felt like made sense for me.

“I’m not trying to reinvent the wheel here. It’s a workhorse that I’ve been using for everything that I do.”

The line also includes an official racing stripe-adorned signature for JB Brubaker, new-look models for Nita Strauss, Joe Satriani and Kiko Loureiro, and an extraordinarily styled Gold Flame PIA for Steve Vai.

Ibanez has gone big on visuals this year, it seems. The Gold Flame PIA has specially tailored pickup covers and inlays, while Satch’s Cherry Sunburst model puts a vintage spin on his usually Sci-Fi-esque six-string.

The Ruby Red Sunburst Flat finish of Loureiro’s KIKO300RRT, meanwhile, is very nice on the eyes, as is Strauss’ appropriately named Torch Red JIVA.

While we’re on the topic of visuals, we should also give a shout to Ibanez’s limited-edition RG, which celebrates 250 years of the USA with a very tasty blue, red and white art-style splash finish.

None of these models have been put on the Ibanez website just yet, but GW was able to get up close and personal with each of the models while scouring the Anaheim Convention Center for gear.

It’s only a matter of time before they do go live on the site, though, so keep your eyes peeled on Ibanez for more info when it lands.

Matteo Mancuso will release his second studio album in 2026, and not only does it feature Steve Vai, but the LP will also be emboldened by the advice that Vai gave the young virtuoso during its recording.

Route 96 will continue where the Tosin Abasi and Al Di Meola-approved guitarist left off with his 2023 debut LP, The Journey, which cemented his reputation as one of the hottest young talents around.

That was succeeded by the single Paul Position, a baritone guitar romp inspired by Paul Gilbert. This time, Vai has gone one better than just honoring one of his heroes: he’s enlisted one.

Vai features on the track Solar Wind, joining forces with a player he once called “the evolution of the guitar,” while also offering him some crucial recording advice. Unlike his debut, Mancuso's Route 96 – named after his birth year – was recorded at a 96kHz audio sample rate, thanks to Steve Vai’s intervention.

There are plenty of technicalities behind why this sample rate can be beneficial, but the long and short of it is that it can reduce digital artifacts and improve the overall sound quality of recorded material.

“I know myself better musically thanks to this album,” Mancuso believes. “I went through a process of eliminating things, and through that I realised more about the things I liked best about the music I compose and hear.

“The first album was made when I was studying a lot of things. Now I study less but listen more to just the music that attracts me. Route 96 is a more honest-sounding record, I would say.”

It’s not the first time that Vai has offered tutelage to the young star. He’s previously spoken to him about being himself as a guitarist and how no player can truly copy another. It sounds like that’s led him on a journey of self-discovery, where his voice leads the way.

We’ll have to wait a while longer to hear Solar Wind, but the record’s first single, Isla Feliz, has dropped, and it features the gypsy jazz talents of Antoine Boyer. The track sees Mancuso wielding, as he usually does, his Yamaha Revstar, and is seen as a love letter to his Latin influences for classical guitar, despite boasting some electric guitar distortion for good measure.

“This album has come at the right time,” Mancuso feels. “I want to have a busy 2026 in terms of tours, [and] I wanted something newer and fresher to play. These ideas are more original and melodically stronger. There are more explorations, harmonically speaking. I think it shows who I am musically a lot better.”

In related news, Al Di Meola has offered his take on Mancuso's rapid rise, while Mancuso himself recently discussed why he prefers baritone guitars to seven-strings for when he wants more low-end.

Steve Vai has paid tribute to Brian May, after finally getting his hands on his eye-catching reimagining of the Queen legend’s iconic Red Special guitar.

May famously built his Red Special with his father, but for his own radical take on the famed build, Vai went down a different route. He linked up with the UK-based Guyton Guitars for a truly radical variant, which included “Steve specified woods, electronics, and scale length.”

May's original electric guitar has been treated to several spin-offs over the years, including a fundraising pink model and, more recently, Tony Iommi received an exquisitely made left-handed version.

However, Vai and Guyton have gone all-out with theirs, which boasts a quilted maple top and an intricately carved custom pickguard, alongside a host of other Vai-isms. It’s left the For the Love of God shredder in a reflective mood.

“In the 1970s, when I was a kid trying to figure out how to play anything in tune, Brian May was one of my absolute heroes,” he says in an emotional Instagram post. “His tone and touch oozed rock and roll class, the songs he wrote, and the notes he chose dug deep into my psyche and helped shape a future fantasy image of myself in my mind.

“But his Red Special was not just a guitar to me, it was a mythical object, an alchemical wand built by a young genius and his dad. I studied every photo and rumor I could find. That guitar planted the seed that maybe someday I could build my own, which thankfully never happened, due to a total lack of expertise.”

Drafting in Guyton, then, proved to be a masterstroke from Vai, who is now able to honor his hero in the right way. It's an apt full-circle moment for Vai, arriving years after a rather memorable meeting with the British virtuoso.

“At 20 years old, I moved to L.A. and started working with Frank Zappa,” Vai continues. “One night, I walk into the Rainbow Bar and Grill and see Brian just standing there. I thought I was hallucinating.

“Brian was incredibly kind to this unknown kid and then did the unthinkable: he invited me to a Queen rehearsal at Zoetrope. Sitting in a room with the entire band was already unreal enough, but then I saw the Red Special… time definitely slowed down.”

Vai was given the guitar to play. “It was heaven,” he reflects. Then, years after Vai sat in on that Queen rehearsal, May was the musical director at a guitar legends concert in Seville, Spain – and Vai was on the bill.

“Brian told me the story about a young guitarist he once let play his guitar at rehearsal,” Vai adds. “A kid who was in town working with Zappa and who played amazingly well. I let him tell me the whole story and then said, ‘Brian, that was me.’ This stands as one of the most satisfying full-circle twists the universe has offered me.”

Vai says he’s “truly humbled” to own the ‘Green Red Special,’ calling it “beyond beautiful,” crafted with a “devotion made tangible.” It’s certainly living up to its special billing.

It might not be the only high-end Red Special that we see in 2026, either. Gibson – to whom May signed in 2024 before releasing a signature 12-string acoustic last year – could be planning to release Murphy Lab-aged replicas.

Tom Morello’s 14-year-old son, Roman, has continued to prove himself a chip off the old block by shredding Steve Vai’s finger-burning For the Love of God in Mumbai.

The Rage Against the Machine guitarist and political activist has been championing his son’s talents for a few years now. There have been videos of him shredding at a RATM soundcheck and jamming with Jack Black, and last year, the father-son pair put a song out together as part of Morello Sr.’s first rock-leaning solo album.

Playing a customized Stratocaster, complete with a chrome pickguard and 'Full Power' scrawled on the body above the strings, Roman Morello makes pretty light work of Vai's endurance- and talent-testing track, in a video posted to Instagram by his dad. The post also includes the hashtag #thereishope, with Morello clearly putting his offspring in the same bracket as the two bands he deems the future of rock n' roll.

“For the Love of God, written by Steve Vai and performed by my 14-year-old son Roman in Mumbai, India,” Tom's caption reads. “Happy New Year.”

Cynical viewers might say it isn’t the cleanest performance, but that’s forgetting he’s only 14, less than half the age the already-vastly-experienced Vai was when he wrote the song. I know I couldn’t do that at his age.

The Morellos have been out on tour together, with Tom eager to prove why he once said his son could “shred circles around me.”

Their setlists have pulled from across Tom Morello’s career, spanning Rage Against the Machine cuts to Audioslave’s Like a Stone, alongside a host of well-chosen covers. Mr. Crowley has seen the pair pay tribute to Ozzy Osbourne, while John Lennon’s Power to the People underscores the family’s political values, and Bruce Springsteen’s The Ghost of Tom Joad nods to Morello’s unlikely stint as The Boss’s onstage foil.

It’s not clear at what point on the night Roman took on Vai’s now-35-year-old shredathon – perhaps as a warm-up act – but what’s clear is that his dad’s praise wasn’t just hyperbole. The kid has chops; he’s likely to make news headlines plenty more yet and surely, given time, branch out to stand up on his own two virtuosic feet.

Roman Morello, though, isn't the only youthful shredder to have mastered the song. One Hungarian guitarist nailed a performance of it at his prom, a feat that even got the approval of Mr. Vai. There is hope indeed.

The Positive Grid Spark was one of the unarguable entries on our list of the Greatest Gear of the 21st Century. It wowed in its original format, quickly dominating the smart amp space. We’ve since had the Spark 2, Spark Mini, Spark LIVE and even Spark Neo Core headphones taking the concept into new forms of all shapes and sizes. However, Steve Vai maintains good things come in small packages...

To say Positive Grid’s Spark Mini is essential to Vai would be an understatement. “I carry one in my luggage at all times,” he says. “I have one for my dressing room and one on the bus. Before every show, I use it to warm up, and I’ve even used it in the studio directly into my DAW.”

After years of dealing with archaic and unreliable tech, Vai was overjoyed to discover the reliability and larger-than-life sound of the Mini. This led him to develop a signature version of the Mini, the Spark Mini Vai. And, yeah, he loves it.

“Virtually every guitar-player friend of mine that I gifted one to is over the moon with it,” he says. “They write me all the time and tell me how much they love it… even people I didn’t think I’d ever hear from.”

It goes without saying that the Mini, in all its forms, changed the game for guitar players on the road, in small spaces or on a budget. It allows players of all shapes, sizes and skill-sets to feel like they're dominating the stage without a massive Marshall cabinet taking up space.

“It takes the headache out of having to fiddle with page after page of digital controls,” Vai says. ”Every time I go to plug into my Spark Mini Vai, it feels like Christmas. As soon as I received it, I knew it was going to be useful. I just didn’t realize how useful and indispensable it’d become.”

What’s your history as far as this class of amp goes?

Ever since mini-cassette recorders were being used – before tiny amps for guitars were even a thing – I’d check out virtually everything that was coming out. First there were small amps, but they were still too big and clumsy to throw in your luggage.

Eventually, those novel little cigarette-pack-size amps started to emerge, but they were horrible sounding. Then, a category of portable guitar headphone amps and multi-effects units started to become popular in the mid-Nineties and 2000s, when digital signal processing got small and cheap enough to put into a pocket-sized box.

The original Korg Pandora PX1 came out around 1995. It was a palm-sized digital multi-effects processor with amp modeling and a headphone output.

When did things start to change, leading to the Mini class of amps?

Other companies such as Korg, Line 6, Zoom, Tascam, Boss/Roland, Vox and Yamaha started creating these pocket guitar processors, and I used many of these. A lot of them had the ability to load tracks to play along with.

The challenges were that you had to use headphones, they could be a bit complicated to use and edit, and they always seemed to be missing something “real” in the tone; a lot of latency and thin tone was just something you tolerated. The tones were very digitized-sounding. So none of these pocket rockets were ideal, but it was what was available at the time.

Once I tried the Spark Mini, the light bulb went [on]. It was perfect for me. It’s small enough to take virtually anywhere – you just plug and play – and it sounds real right out of the little speaker. It has four instant presets, which is all I really needed; it has jam tracks, and you can upload anything to it. It has an aux-in, so you can plug any backing-tracks player into it.

Where does the app fit in?

The app allows for virtually endless combinations of amps, cabinets, microphones, effects, and so on. It has a headphone input when I don’t want to disturb anyone. And the AI function blew me away! You can describe the kind of sound you’re looking for, and it pulls from its plethora of digital delights to create a tone that is its idea of what your description sounds like.

How did the Mini Vai happen?

I reached out to Positive Grid and started a relationship with them to create a signature Spark Mini Vai that has various accoutrements that reflect my workflow and aesthetic.

Why do you feel the Mini is worthy of being on this list?

It’s real. It’s such a well-received device because it’s so easy to use and travel with. You can dig into it, and it responds like an amp usually does. If I didn’t have it, at this point, I’d probably just warm up without anything, because I’m done with those little pocket boxes. And none of the other smaller amps, that are not quite as small, have a sound I can hang with.

• Find out more at Positive Grid.
• This article first appeared in Guitar World. Subscribe and save.

Joe Satriani and Steve Vai's maiden European tour as the SatchVai Band this past June and July was a milestone moment for the guitar world.

Now, the two are bringing their band to the States for a new leg of the aptly-titled Surfing with the Hydra tour in April and May 2026, with Animals as Leaders as support on all dates.

Speaking about the two’s first-ever collaborative States-wide tour, Vai says, “The SatchVai Band summer Euro tour of 2025 far exceeded anything I could have imagined. Joe and I struck pure jammin’ gold night after night.

“Being in the same band with Joe, playing songs we actually wrote together on stage, in real time, felt like watching a childhood fantasy step out of my teenage brain and stroll onto the stage. And somehow, it was even more rewarding, satisfying, and downright fulfilling than I ever thought possible.”

Alongside Satriani and Vai, the lineup is rounded out by drummer Kenny Aronoff, bassist Marco Mendoza, and guitarist Pete Thorn. They will not only be performing the collaborative releases the duo have put out so far, but also new material from a forthcoming Satch/Vai album and favorites from the pair’s prolific catalog.

Pre-sale tickets for the tour have just kicked off today with an Artist Presale, followed by local pre-sales tomorrow (December 11) and public on-sales on December 12.

For more information, head to the SatchVai Band's official website.

Earlier this year, the electric guitar titans released their sophomore collaborative single, the ’70s-flavored I Wanna Play My Guitar, with Glenn Hughes on vocals, which continued to tease what fans can expect from their upcoming album.

Steve Vai has partnered with a UK guitar builder to reimagine Brian May’s iconic Red Special, with a few tweaks of his own – and the result is quite something.

The Queen guitar hero’s legendary Red Special is one of the most well-known electric guitars of all time. Originally built by a young May and his father, it laid the foundation for a huge selection of Queen hits and, later, nspired the creation of Brian May Guitars – a brand that offers accessible remakes of the instrument.

As such, we’ve seen a few different takes of the Red Special over the years, but trust us when we say you’ve never seen one like this. And, what’s more, it was built for none other than Steve Vai, bolstered by a few tweaks that take it closer in line with the shredder’s Ibanez signature guitars.

Showing off the build on social media, Guyton Guitars writes, “What a pleasure it is to finally be able to share this. It's been a long term project, but now it's finally in the very talented hands of its owner, the one and only Mr. Steve Vai!!

“Steve specified woods, electronics and scale length, all subtly different from the original RS [Red Special]. The scale length is 25.5", with the neck being much closer to his Ibanez Jem/Pia guitars than Brian's Red Special.”

To compensate for the longer scale length – the OG is 24” – Guyton made the body itself slightly bigger. It comes with Yonderbosk Vai-Sonic pickups (custom-wound pickups made for Vai that fit the Red Special schematic), and some faithful expansive switching, including Series/Parallel and a built-in KAT treble booster.

Oh, and we should probably say, it looks absolutely drop-dead gorgeous. That veneered 5A quilted maple top – which has a matching headstock – is sensational. The birdseye maple fingerboard? Phwoar. Even the smallest details are exquisite; just look at those Yin Yang fingerboard inlays, cut from mother of pearl and Tahitian black pearl, with 9ct gold dots. Double phwoar.

And we haven’t even mentioned the pickguard yet. Crafted by Greg Goodwillie of Goodwillie Guns and Guitars, it depicts Vai’s logo among a swirl of elegant motifs, and raises the humble pickguard to high art levels.

“It’s not every day you get to work for a guitar player rightfully belonging on the pantheon of rock gods,” Goodwillie writes on Instagram. “There’s loads of little bits added into the scroll work .. the more you look the more you see, it was a seriously fun job and I’m very VERY proud to have been part of the build.”

“Mr. V is ELATED with his new guitar,” Guyton Guitars adds. “Rumour has it, Steve and his tech Doug have filmed an unboxing video, watch this space…”

At the time of writing, an unboxing video has yet to be shared by Vai, but we’ll certainly be keeping an eye out for when it lands. Here’s hoping we see him play it soon, too…

It might not be the only high-end Red Special that we see land. Gibson struck up an official partnership with May last year – and, when we spoke to May in June 2024, he dropped a heavy hint about the prospect of US-made Murphy Lab replicas of the Red Special.

We think of child guitar prodigies as a product of the YouTube era. Li-sa-X shredding Scarified at eight years old. Nine-year-old Maituo going viral with death-defying sweeps. America’s Got Talent contestants wowing judges with guitars bigger than they are. But Thomas McRocklin was tearing up an Ibanez JEM back in the 1980s – and winning over some of the biggest names in guitar with abilities far beyond his years.

At eight years old he landed a support slot with Ozzy Osbourne. By nine, he’d caught the attention of his hero Steve Vai, who helped secure him a record deal, and produced his band Bad4Good’s first album – but not before giving him a starring role in the Audience is Listening music video and handing over the original Passion and Warfare seven-string.

“I'd never seen a swirl before, never mind this seven-string with the handle,” McRocklin says of the Ibanez Universe – a priceless artifact now. “It's almost eerie to play that guitar. So much of Passion and Warfare was recorded on it. It's faded a little in color, but it's just as awesome as it ever was.”

His guitar journey began at four years old. By seven he was practicing eight hours a day and shredding in social clubs around his hometown of Newcastle, UK. “It was just an obsession. The guitar was right there all the time, on my lap. Even breakfast time when my dad would feed me: ‘Get that porridge down you, boy!’”

Nowadays, McRocklin – real name Thomas McLaughlin – is the definition of a modern-day guitar entrepreneur: he runs his own plugin company and teaching platform, and makes music as part of shredwave duo McRocklin and Hutch. He had a signature guitar deal with Kiesel and his sights are on a fresh collaboration with Strandberg.

But finding his place in a changing guitar world wasn’t easy. When shred gave way to grunge, McRocklin walked out on his childhood record deal – and before long he’d hung up the guitar entirely. When he came back the best part of two decades later he had to relearn everything, and abandon his Vai-isms to find his own voice.

What inspired you to pick up the guitar in the first place?

It was actually my dad. He was really into rock, metal, Van Halen, Ozzy, early David Lee Roth. He was never a big player, but he was into it enough to have one around the house. He would go to work and leave his guitar hidden behind the TV, and I would always drag it out. I would come back from school and pick it up straight away.

Once he saw that I had an interest he was like, “Let's teach him some chords.” He wasn’t a virtuoso or anything, but he knew enough to get me started. And once I nailed Thin Lizzy’s The Boys Are Back in Town chord changes, and it sounded like something real, that’s when the bug started. I was four or five at that time.

You developed into some serious shred stuff relatively quickly.

Between seven and eight is when the shred obsession came in, when I heard the early Roth stuff, all the EVH stuff, and the early Satriani stuff like Surfing with the Alien and Paul Gilbert.

By the time I got my Tony McAlpine B.C. Rich guitar, that’s when I got really into the shredding. That led to getting my first Ibanez. By eight to nine I was all over the place, tapping, trem dives – all the classic techniques were there.

You were gigging from a young age as well, right?

Often in places that I shouldn’t have been! That was always hilarious. My favorite place was social clubs, because there’d be strippers on. They’d hide me behind Marshall stacks, or I’d be booted out the place through the back doors, tthen they’d rush me onto the stage.

Gigs started for me really early; I think that was a good thing because it helped me to be confident. It was very difficult to get a conversation out of me when I was kid, which made for some horrendous TV moments – just so awkward. But being comfortable playing on a stage in front of people developed really early.

What did audiences make of it?

I think they were just in shock a lot of the time! They were expecting some nice little tunes, and then it’s a Marshall cranked up and there’s full fireworks. But it really caught people’s attention.

It’s that type of mentality and approach that led to my first big gig supporting Ozzy when I was eight. My dad was a bit of a chancer, let's say – he’d try things and often they’d just work.

Ozzy is playing in Newcastle and we're obviously going to go. Next thing, I’m a little kid dressed head to toe in leathers, big cowboy hat and boots five times too big for me – you couldn’t get Steve Vai-like boots in my size! – so I looked absolutely ridiculous!

But it worked. We’re knocking on the back door of Ozzy’s gig. Management, security – whoever – look at me and think, “What the hell is this all about? Drag him in.” Plug me into Zakk Wylde’s amp and next thing I’m going crazy. Harmonics flying everywhere! That leads to Ozzy going, “Let’s get him on tonight.”

How many times do you hear an amazing story like that now? It’s a different world.

Totally. But it’s that approach led to me meeting Steve Vai. We didn’t even have tickets to Monsters of Rock in ’88; we just drove down to Donington because David Lee Roth was playing. No tickets, no passes, no guestlist – just turn up, drive right through security, because I’m dressed like this little rock star kid.

We parked up right beside Steve’s caravan. I’d recently got a Steve Vai floral JEM. Little Gallien-Krueger amp powered up, sit in the back of the car with the boot lid up, and play. His guitar tech or someone saw me, spotted the JEM, and it's like, “Get him in the caravan.” Next thing you know, Greg Bissonette and Steve’s there, and the rest of the band, and I’m trying my best to play Tobacco Road.

How did the relationship with Steve evolve?

There was a bit of record label interest in the US. Interscope brought me over to play in their office, like, “Can we form a band around Thomas here?” So I was in California and there was a knock on the door. It was the Ibanez Artist Relations rep, who we’d been speaking to for a little while.

He brought the Passion and Warfare prototype seven-string guitar, which would go on to be the guitar that was on the record cover. And then there was a cassette of Passion and Warfare, unreleased. I listened to it and I was absolutely mind blown.

What were your memories of the Audience is Listening video shoot?

I had to learn the song as best as I could so it looked realistic. They blew a Marshall stack up behind me – they didn’t tell me they were going to do that! That’s a natural reaction when you see me tense up; and they had snakes and spiders on the set, which I hated.

The best part was seeing Steve shoot his end scene, where he’s doing the “I am the passion, I am the warfare” speech. Being there in the sports hall with a big blue screen, and seeing Steve do his performance, was pretty cool.

You were also writing songs with Steve during this time for Bad4Good’s debut album, Refugee. What’s songwriting with Steve Vai like?

He was writing songs which I think, in hindsight were a year or two out of touch with Nirvana and Pearl Jam. The Bad4Good band didn’t love the Refugee record or the songs, so we’d always spice them up heavily when we played them live. I’m much more fond of that record now.

Steve would send me tapes and tapes and tapes, and it was all somewhat produced Steve Vai riffs like David Lee Roth meets Whitesnake meets Passion and Warfare. It was something of that time. From a guitar point of view, very, very cool – but commercially it was out of touch with what was happening with grunge.

You were the youngest person to play the Jason Becker benefit concert. What are your memories?

It was so chaotic. You can imagine all these guitarists arriving for soundcheck! There was a little bit of friction – one of the guitarists, who was assigned to be with me, saw me play and he was like, “Eff that little bastard! I’m not playing on the stage with him!”

A lot of the guitarists, in particular Zakk Wylde, had something to say about that. I ended up playing with Zakk – he was all for it. By the end of the songs we played together, I was on his shoulders!

The only thing I remember is my final solo on the top of Zakk’s head. I’ve got this JEM, and it’s probably bashing all over his head. He’s swaying around; he’s had a few drinks, and I’m sure I saw my dad almost ready to catch me!

When did you realize Bad4Good was over?

When I walked out of the whole record deal. We were doing a lot; I was on tour with the band, we’d support Joe Satriani for a couple of months, and I’d do three, four months in California, and then a week or two in my hometown, Newcastle.

In a lot of ways it sound cray – it was the absolute dream to be living in Hollywood and LA and doing all these things. But by the time I was 13 or 14 it just felt like the tables had turned. Every time I’d come back to Newcastle, I just wanted to do regular things.

So I walked out of Interscope Records. That took a lot of people in LA by surprise. But fair play to my dad, because he always said, “As soon as it isn’t fun, no matter what you’re doing, we’re going back to whatever you want to do.”

Why did you walk away from the guitar in general?

After I walked out of the LA thing I was 15 or 16, and then I became obsessed with drum and bass, breakbeat and jungle music. At that time it was difficult to incorporate guitar into electronic music. I stopped playing, and it just didn’t occur to me for many, many years to pick it up.

It got to the point where, after so many years of not playing, it felt so alien – all my mechanics and motor skills and dexterity, the strength, everything, just felt horrible.

In 2016 I picked up the guitar again and I was just starting to get on social platforms. I posted a little clip playing a Fender Stevie Ray Vaughan Strat. And there was like a big reaction that I wasn't expecting – people were like, “You’re back!” I was like, “Wait a minute – it’s been 20 years since I did anything. How does anyone remember?”

But from there, the obsession came out of nowhere. The spark came back, and the love of playing came back, and then the obsessive personality came in, and that was it. I was practicing hard because I had so many years to make up for, and that began the start of the next journey. But it was a very difficult and long first year just to really work on the actual techniques again.

I immediately became the player that I was when I was at 13 or 14. I went to Bogner Amps’ factory and I was jamming around on an amp, searching for tones that I could relate to as a player after so many years off.

One of the guys walked past and he’s like, “That sounds great – sounds just like Steve Vai!” I was like, “Oh, shit. This can’t happen again.” As amazing and lovely as Steve is, I didn’t want the Vai association again as an adult.

So the hardest thing was how to find a new sound that’s my own and identifiable. I spent a year or so breaking every habit I’d built. I was drawing from drum and bass, electronic music, Skrillex. I love rap music, hip-hop – anything but guitar in terms of phrasing.

There’s a Strandberg currently sat in your lap. I know your endorsement with Kiesel recently came to an end… what can you say about where you’re going next?

I’m really excited by these Strandbergs. They work so well for me – first of all they sound and play really nice. Second, they're so light. I’m at a keyboard and mouse all day; I have this guitar on my lap so much.

And having played the same type of guitar for a long time, to play something that’s fresh gives me that extra bit of inspiration. If something really resonates with you and it makes you want to pick up the guitar more, go with it. It doesn’t matter what it is.

I’m not at that stage where we have anything official. But so far I’m really enjoying playing them. That’s all I could ask for at this stage – that I don’t take 20 years off from playing again. Because I think you’d see me with a walking stick, playing banjo or something!

• For more information, head to McRocklin.com and Polychrome DSP.

Young guitarists dream of playing the same stage as their heroes, but few ever realize the fantasy. Guitar prodigy Thomas McRocklin, however, had the opportunity to open for Ozzy Osbourne when he was just eight years old – and he landed the spot on the day of the gig.

Nowadays McRocklin – real name Thomas McLaughlin – is Polychrome DSP’s headless guitar-toting head honcho, but back in the ’80s, he was a kid with outlandish outfits and technique far beyond his years.

At eight years old, he was shredding up social clubs in his native Newcastle, UK after school – and it’s fair to say audiences were taken by surprise.

“They were expecting some nice little tunes, and then it's a Marshall cranked up and there's full fireworks,” he says in a new interview with Guitar World. “But it really caught people's attention.”

It was that mentality that led to the Ozzy support slot, with a little help from his dad, who McRocklin describes as “a bit of a chancer” – the kinda guy who wasn’t afraid to try outlandish acts to make his son’s dreams come true.

“Ozzy is playing in Newcastle. We're obviously going to go,” recalls the guitarist. “And then next thing, I'm a little kid dressed head to toe in leathers, big cowboy hat and boots five times too big for me. I would look absolutely ridiculous. But it worked, because now we're knocking on the back door of Ozzy’s gig.

“Management, security, whoever, look at me and think, ‘What the hell is this all about?’ Drag [me] in. Plug me into Zakk Wylde’s amp. And then next thing I’m widdling, going crazy. There’s harmonics flying everywhere.”

Be it the harmonics or the hat, McRocklin says something caught the attention of the metal god. “That leads to Ozzy going, ‘Oh, let's get him on tonight.’”

Back then, the young guitar player would simply go up and shred sections of his favorite solos from Van Halen and Steve Vai before being dragged offstage – sometimes literally – when he reached the end of his 15-minute set.

As a result, he didn’t get a whole lot of time with Ozzy – which was probably for the best, given he was terrified of the Prince of Darkness’ persona.

“The only thing that was in my mind was the stories of Ozzy biting the head off a dove or something,” explains McRocklin. “And he was behind me in this picture with his arms right out, wrapped around me. I was petrified, but he was super-cool. Zakk Wylde was super-cool.”

McRocklin and his dad would go on to employ similar tactics to attract the attention of Steve Vai, who ended up producing the young shredder’s debut album with rock band Bad4Good – and later handed him the historic Ibanez Universe featured on the cover of landmark album Passion & Warfare.

But that’s a story for another time. To be precise, later this month, when McRocklin’s Guitar World interview will be published in full.

Guitarists know all too well about gear acquisition syndrome. But before you order that new pickup, pedal, or amp to fix your niggling tonal troubles, have you considered that your pick, even how you hold the pick, could be the answer you’re looking for? It certainly was for Steve Vai and his own playing.

“I just was getting tired of not having a great tone,” he once said. “I went through all these amplifiers. I was searching for something that sounded like some of the things I was hearing at the time. Edward Van Halen had hit the scene. You had Yngwie. So many players. And I could never figure out why I don’t sound good.

“I started to experiment with the way that I pick, where I pick, how I pick, the angle, all of these things. You get to a point where you hear it and you know it, and then the work starts.”

As Vai points out, the pick is your most tangible link to the sound you make on the guitar, and is often the tonal secret to a player’s identity. It’s difficult to imagine Brian May without the metallic rasp of his sixpence, Yngwie Malmsteen’s thunderous 1.5mm fury or Paul Gilbert’s precise pick attack which owes a lot to his pointy 1mm (or thinner) pick played at an angle.

Not only can the pick help inform your tone, it will also help hone your technique, so it makes sense to consider your options. If you want a loud sound and/or play quickly, a 1mm or thicker (even 2mm+) pick is great as it won't flex when you dig in. If you want a bright tone for acoustic or electric playing, a thinner pick such as 0.88mm with light playing is ideal. It certainly works for many strummers as well as funk legend Nile Rodgers.

This article will help you discover, as Steve Vai did years ago with his own practice, that focusing on your picking technique and hand posture can provide immense improvements for both your technical versatility as well as a much broader sound palette.

Before you get to the playing examples (from warm to bright, pinch harmonics to the secretive clarinet tone), the photos below highlight beneficial options about holding the pick, how to pick and where to pick.

How to hold the pick

Examples

Example 1 - Flat and angled picking

Play this single string B harmonic minor [B-C#-D-E-F#-G-A#] lick with alternate picking throughout. Start with your pick flat against the string, then rotate the pick angle 45 degrees to the string so the edge of the pick cuts through the string. Listen to how the pick angle changes the tone, becoming brighter with the angled picking.

Experiment with the angle as well as the guitar's pickup selections – a Stratocaster's neck, middle and bridge pickups all sound very different and can enhance your picking choices.

Example 2 - Varying picking dynamics

This A harmonic minor scale [A-B-C-D-E-F-G#] lick is phrased firstly as 3 groups of 4 notes, then 4 groups of 3 notes. As you alternate pick, accent the initial note of each grouping with a louder down or upstroke to expand your volume dynamics.

For the accented notes (shown above the music notation with this symbol >) use your wrist to snap the pick through the string with more force and conversely pick the regular notes more softly.

Example 3 - Picking in different places along the string

Use this example to pick at different positions along the string to access different tones. The two phrases are based in the A blues scale [A-C-D-Eb-E-G].

For the first phrase, pick nearer the neck for a warmer, fuller tone then compare to the brighter attack. You may find that your preference is somewhere between these extremes, so do experiment.

Example 4 - The clarinet tone

And now to the clarinet tone – the secret sauce for connoisseur pickers! Whatever you're fretting, pick the string exactly 12 frets higher. The photo above shows a 10th fret note being picked at the (virtual) 22nd fret. The tone noticeably changes to a thick, almost hollow sound that is akin to a clarinet. For sure, it's a game-changer when playing melodies with only downstrokes.

This melody is based in D Lydian [D-E-F#-G#-A-B-C#] and outlines two triad arpeggios: D major at the 7th fret and E major at the 9th fret. Maintain note separation by fretting each string with a different finger.

Next, count up 12 notes and pick the string exactly an octave higher than the fretted notes, which in this case would be at the 19th and 21st frets. Use down strokes for all notes to get the clarinet tone.

Example 5 - Palm muting and pinch harmonics

Based in A minor pentatonic [A-C-D-E-G], this incorporates palm muted notes and pinch harmonics. Use the bridge pickup for a bright tone and touch the string with the side of your thumb nearest the strings just after you've picked.

As you pick the string, lift off your thumb simultaneously. It's this very fast, double contact (pick then thumb) that generates a pinch harmonic.

Experiment with picking at different points along the string to produce different harmonic pitches (there are a wealth of different pitches to be found between the neck and bridge pickups).

If you want inspiration for pinch harmonics, check out Billy Gibbons, Eric Johnson, Zakk Wylde and Steve Vai: all know how to make a distorted guitar scream with their pick.

Example 6 - All picking approaches together

This longer piece is an amalgamation of the previous techniques. Based around the G Phrygian dominant scale [G-Ab-B-C-D-Eb-F], it starts with alternate picked accents with heavier pick strokes played every 3 notes, then every 4 notes.

Next, move your pick near the neck to give the sweep picked notes a fuller, rounder sound. Finally, pick nearer the bridge for a bright tone and to awaken squealing pinched harmonics.

Three pick masters in action

Eric Johnson - Cliffs Of Dover

This is one of the most loved guitar instrumentals ever written with some of the most articulate picking recorded, here in a ramped up live presentation.

The intro features hybrid picking for the chords while the distorted lead lines feature masterful pick based playing including precise economy picking, up picks and pinch harmonics.

The otherwise mellow tone is balanced by the zingy attack of the fabled red Jazz III, which has a sharper point than traditional picks and a harder material which provides a very quick attack.

U2 - I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For

The .88mm blue Herdim pick is the secret to The Edge’s early sound, not only because of the particular sound nylon picks provide, but also how he holds it.

By gripping the tip backwards, with the tip of the pick between the thumb and first finger, the strings are strummed by the textured, dimpled grip side of the pick, adding a unique scratch to the proceedings.

Holding a pick backwards isn't unique to The Edge – Pat Metheny and Robben Ford both favour this, too.

John Scofield - Blue Matter

Jazz fusion legend John Scofield uses a signature Ibanez 1mm pick which has a small teardrop style shape. His recognizable clear, articulate sound is in part due to his picking close to, or directly over, the bridge pickup.

Stevie Salas has backed up Rod Stewart, started a guitar trend via Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, and was asked to join both David Lee Roth and Sammy Hagar’s bands. But he doesn’t take any of it too seriously.

“I like to surround myself with super talent,” he tells Guitar World. “I always like to be the shittiest guy in the room – that makes me learn more and become better.”

Salas picks out his early ‘90s opening slot with Joe Satriani as a significant learning experience.

“I stole a lot of shit from Joe!” he admits. “But when I do it, it doesn’t sound like him; it sounds like me. I couldn’t do it when was there, but I was able to watch.”

While he’s promoting the reissue of his 1994 album, Back from the Living, his calling card remains the frenzied work from Bill & Ted. He didn’t like it when it arrived in 1989 – but he’s warmed to it now.

“A year ago I was with Keanu Reeves, and we talked about the third movie,” Salas says.

“I told him, ‘I’ve done a lot of amazing things, but when I die people will say, ‘That’s the guy who did Bill & Ted!’ He started laughing – we all feel like, ‘I don’t want to be known as the guy that did Bill & Ted.’ But it’s been an insane blessing – young guys are always like, ‘You’re the guy that did Bill & Ted!’ So there you go!”

Early on you rubbed elbows with George Clinton and Bootsy Collins, and eventually started working with producer David Kirschenbaum.

I left San Diego in ’85 after I got out of school and spent a couple of years rocking out with my band. My band was pretty good, but I didn’t think it was going to make it. I quit and moved to LA in 1985.

I was living in someone’s house with my next band, Color Code. We all got kicked out, and I was homeless from August to September ’85. Then I met George Clinton in the studio, and Terry Costa, wife of Don Costa, who produced Sinatra and Elvis. They let me live in their house in Beverly Hills. I was living in a rock star pad, but I had no money!

In ’87, David Kirschenbaum called me, because he knew I’d worked with George and Bootsy. At the time rap was very new; I was a big fan of Eddie Martinez’s playing with Run-DMC, and I was kind of emulating his funk-rock thing.

Someone said to David, “This kid knows about rap music.” I really didn’t, but I told him I did! So I became a producer for David at a studio called Power Tracks.

How did you end up working on movie soundtracks?

I met a Motown arranger named Gene Page, who told me about two African American boys called West Coast Posse, these badass rappers. There was this movie called Big Shots, about two black kids who steal a car and go across the country on an adventure.

They said, “We need some rap music.’ I said, ‘I can do it!’ and I went into the studio with these two kids. We created this song called Put On the Brakes. Atlantic Records loved it and released it as a 12-inch single.

That led to the next movie, Action Jackson. They needed another rap song, so I called the West Coast Posse kids and cut a song called Protect and Serve. That was another Atlantic 12-inch – and all of a sudden I’m the expert on hip-hop in LA, but only because no one in LA really knew shit about it. It was all being done in New York.

Is that what led to your memorable guitar solo at the end of Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure?

David said, “Stevie, I need your help. There's this movie about these two kids who play guitar and want to be in a rock band, but they don’t know how to play, and they go on this history trip. They put a score down for the movie, but there’s no guitar at all. They want you to redo the whole movie over the score.”

So that was unusual, but it was dope. Once the movie was done, I forgot all about it and moved on. I got a call from David, who said, “The Bill & Ted movie is coming out, but the ending isn’t testing well.” I was like, “I don’t even know what that means!” I was a stupid fucking kid! He goes, “They’re gonna reshoot the end and they want some kind of guitar solo.”

What do you remember about recording the solo in a scene with George Carlin?

I drove to this house in the Palisades. They had the whole Bill & Ted setup in the garage, and Keanu and Alex Winter were there. Everyone thought I was a big shot, so they had me share a trailer with George! He told me stories all night; it was one of the most amazing nights of my life.

So they called me up to the set with George, and we’re wearing matching outfits. They stood me up on this crate, handed me a guitar, and Keanu, Alex, and the two girls were standing in front of me.

I said, “What do you want me to do?” The director, Stephen Herek, said, “Just play something crazy!” I wasn’t plugged in, and I knew it was a comedy, so the first thing I did was hit the A chord like it was Eruption. Then, I just started spazzing out with my fingers!

So the solo wasn’t premeditated.

No – I just started moving in the most unorthodox, weird way all over the fucking place. I was trying to be funny, playing air guitar, and you couldn’t hear anything. My fingers were going bananas and everyone goes, “That’s great! That’s perfect, thanks!”

A couple of days later I got the cut. I went into Power Tracks and used a Rock Tron, which made these really cool pre-amps that you could plug into a pro-gap, like a yellow Bass overdrive. Joel Dantzig from Hamer sent me an amazing Tele-shaped Hamer, so I had that guitar. All I did was follow my hands – I hit the A chord and followed my fingers the best I could. It sounded ridiculous to me, which I thought it was supposed to.

I got the gig with Rod Stewart after I’d done it. I took off on a world tour, and when I went to see the film I thought it was the worst, crappiest film I’ve ever seen in my life! I was super-embarrassed. But somehow that guitar solo became part of the franchise.

Tongue-in-cheek as it was, you started a trend that Steve Vai and Tosin Abasi followed.

The next movie came out and Steve Vai was the guitar guy. And then the third one came out and Tosin Abasi did it. It became this rite of passage to be the guitar guy in Bill & Ted, which is really weird!

In the early ‘90s you opened for Joe Satriani. What was that like?

A fucking nightmare! I was managed by Bill Graham, and by then I was hot shit, playing on big records and going on MTV. I was the guy in LA, I’d just gotten this huge gig with Rod Stewart, and then I signed the biggest recording contract Island had ever given a new artist.

I made my album – the Colorcode album with Bill Laswell – and Bill Graham said, “We should put you on tour with Joe Satriani,” because they also managed Joe. I was up for it, but I was scared shitless because everybody who went on tour with Joe got booed off the stage. You can ask him!

Satriani really wanted me to do it and I wanted to go back on tour. But I’d just finished with Rod Stewart, where we were playing 20,000-seaters, with mostly women in the crowd. Now I was going out with Satriani with 5,000 people a night, and it was all dudes. They would just stare at your hands, and I’d never taken a lesson – I just play.

So I was like, “This is going to be gnarly,” and I was scared shitless. But in the end it was one of the greatest things I ever did. I got standing ovations every night!

What’s the biggest lesson you learned from Satch?

Joe was so good to me. He was really bummed when I had to leave because my European label wanted me to do a more alternative tour. He never tried to shut me down – he’d sit up the front watching me.

He’d measure the volume every night of what the amp was doing, and it had to be the same. Then he’d measure the volume of the monitors, and they had to be the same too. He’d measure between the monitor and his amp to be exactly the same, no matter how big the stage. At soundcheck, he’d hit a note, walk around, and put an “X” on the stage.

During the shows he’d go over to that spot, hold that note, and the crowd would go crazy. He’d worked all that out – he knew exactly how it was going to sustain forever and do that shit. That was a big thing I learned.

In 1994, you made Back From the Living, which has built a cult following.

I went from being this cult guitar player with tons of dudes who’d show up to see me play to having a ton of chicks in the audience! I shot the photos for the album in New York with a Vogue photographer. It sounds corny, but she made me look beautiful!

Suddenly I had all these chicks piling in to listen to me play. That album never caught on in America, but it was number one in other countries. It was life-changing for me; it made me rich. I got this multi-million-dollar contract where I kept all the money!

Steve Lukather lived up the street from me, and he asked, “Where’s Stevie getting all that money – is he a drug dealer?” I swear to God! But that album changed my life in the most amazing way. I was just trying to blend James Brown and Jimi Hendrix; that was my thing.

Is it true that both David Lee Roth and Sammy Hagar asked you to join their bands?

Sammy called me two days after he got fired from Van Halen, and David Lee Roth called me after Steve Vai left. I might be the only guitar player in the world who was called by two Van Halen singers!

Why didn’t you take the gigs?

I was a huge Van Halen fan. When I was with Rod Stewart I got to meet Eddie Van Halen, and we became friends. I was a Van Halen nut – but when Roth called me, I thought somebody was taking the piss! He talked to me for about an hour, but he kind of sounded like he was out of his mind.

He was talking about making a blues album, like B.B. King. I’m thinking, “What am I doing?” I didn’t like where Dave was going. I didn’t like [Roth's 1988] Skyscraper album, and I just didn’t think it was what I wanted to do.

With Hagar, I was a Montrose fanatic. He called me, flew me to San Francisco, picked me up himself in his Porsche, and I stayed at his house. We started to write together. I wanted to write a Montrose album, and he wanted to write an album more like the Eagles – and I hate the Eagles!

No disrespect, but that didn’t work for me. Plus, I still had a recording contract, and Back From the Living was blowing up in Europe. So I played on his album, but I couldn’t commit to the tour.

What’s next for you?

Well, I’m 100 years old now, so I don’t know! But Deko has been talking to me about rereleasing my shit – so I’m kind of letting people rediscover my old shit like it’s new shit. In 2006, I started producing television; I’m still writing and producing movies and TV now. But I’ll still do music stuff if it’s something that’s good and interesting.

• The reissue of Back From the Living is on sale now.

Founded in Japan all the way back in 1957, with roots stretching to the Hoshino Gakki company in 1908, Ibanez stands today as one of the key players in the guitar market.

The brand has always been synonymous with high quality – so much so, in fact, that there’s even a now-collectable ‘lawsuit’ period of instruments from a time when American brands felt threatened by their Eastern imitators.

And while it’s easy to think of Ibanez as a company that’s at the cutting edge of metal machines for the modern age, it's also innovated much further afield: producing timeless acoustics, semi-hollows, and hollowbody instruments – not forgetting, of course, some of the world’s best-selling overdrive pedals in the Tube Screamer series. Which is exactly why this list of the 25 most important Ibanez players crosses through various genres and styles.

It's become the go-to brand for all kinds of players, from original jazz cats like George Benson and fusion pioneers like Pat Metheny to acoustic renegades like Jon Gomm and Marcin and modern trailblazers like Nita Strauss and Yvette Young.

Steve Vai

Could Steve Vai be the most quintessential Ibanez player of them all?

After all, it was his first JEM signature in 1987 that inspired the RG series, which quickly became a bestseller for the company. And then just a few years later, his Universe signatures made history as the world’s first mass-produced seven-string electric.

More importantly, however, Vai ended up cementing his name as one of the greatest guitarists of all time, from his stints with Frank Zappa, Whitesnake, and David Lee Roth and game-changing solo records like Passion And Warfare, Real Illusions: Reflections, and his latest instrumental masterpiece, Inviolate.

Joe Satriani

How many guitarists can say they taught the likes of Steve Vai, Kirk Hammett, and Alex Skolnick? Joe Satriani is truly one of a kind in that sense, but more significantly, he took rock guitar to new heights with the double Grammy-nominated album, Surfing With The Alien, and continued to innovate on the releases that followed, most notably Flying In A Blue Dream and The Extremist.

The legato-loving legend has also been prolific as a collaborator, having conquered arenas as part of Mick Jagger’s band and Deep Purple, as well as starting the G3 supergroup alongside Steve Vai. More recently, he’s been busy working with ex-Van Halen members on the Best Of All Worlds tour.

Paul Gilbert

Alongside Vai and Satch, Paul Gilbert completes what many would consider to be ‘The Big Three’ of Ibanez shredders.

His work in Racer X and Mr. Big sets him apart as one of the most advanced minds to pick up a guitar, as well as one of the most ferocious alternate pickers the world has ever seen, fusing the neoclassical edge of Yngwie Malmsteen with the impromptu bluesiness of Edward Van Halen.

He’s had all kinds of Ibanez signatures through the years, from the PGM series to the Fireman models he’s usually seen with today, having designed the latter, reversed-body model himself.

Pat Metheny

Since the release of his debut album in 1975, Pat Metheny has continually proven himself to be one of the most revolutionary minds to ever work in jazz, cross-pollinating elements of the traditional with more worldly and experimental meditations.

He currently has two Ibanez signature models, the PM200 and PM3C, and his most famous works include Still Life (Talking), Letter From Home, and Bright Size Life.

As well as these sizeable contributions to the world of electric guitar, he’s also recorded unaccompanied acoustic albums like 2003’s One Quiet Night and last year’s MoonDial release, which saw him wielding a custom-built baritone guitar made by the luthier Linda Manzer.

Tim Henson and Scott LePage

The genre-smashing guitarists from Polyphia could very well be two of the most ground-breaking names in the company’s roster of signature artists, at least in terms of recent additions.

Their most recent album, 2022’s Remember That You Will Die, was voted as the best guitar album of that year by GW readers and was also notable for featuring fellow Ibanez endorsee Steve Vai on its mind-melting closing track, Ego Death.

By that point, both guitarists already had their own signature electrics, but what really got the industry talking was Henson’s TOD10N nylon-string electric, as prominently featured on the album’s lead single, Playing God.

Ichika Nito

As the very first Japanese guitarist to become an Ibanez signature artist, you could say Ichika Nito is making history for all the right reasons.

Much like Tim Henson and Scott LePage, his take on guitar is an incredibly contemporary one – combining the sounds of tech-metal with spanky and funky cleans while dazzling listeners with an array of legato and two-handed techniques.

He currently has two Ibanez models, the Talman-inspired ICHI00 and the headless Q Series-style ICHI10.

John Scofield

Having worked with everyone from Miles Davis and Charles Mingus to Herbie Hancock and Weather Report, John Scofield’s jazz credentials are as impressive as they come.

His most famous works include 1986’s Still Warm, 1994’s Hand Jive, and 1997’s A Go Go, as well as 1994’s I Can See Your House From Here – which saw him team up with fellow Ibanez signature artist Pat Metheny for an absolute tour-de-force of modern jazz. He’s also ventured into bluesier sonic pastures, having collaborated with John Mayer and Gov't Mule.

Josh Smith

Continually featured in lists of the best blues guitarists in the world today, it’s no wonder that Josh Smith ended up being recruited by Joe Bonamassa and has become a regular face in the blues giant’s backing band. The pair also work together regularly as producers, lending their expertise to fellow blues powerhouses like Eric Gales and Larry McCray.

The guitarist/singer currently has two T-style signatures, the FlATV1 and FlATV2, and is also highly regarded for his informative tutorials, some of which he has authored for this very publication.

Manuel Gardner Fernandes

As the driving force behind progressive metal band Unprocessed, German guitarist Manuel Gardner Fernandes is someone who knows how to blend the power of gargantuan riffs with blistering lead work.

Last year he was awarded his own signature guitar, the MGFM10 – a stunning headless model in Obsidian Black Low Gloss, boasting the same advanced switching system he uses to make his guitar go from apocalyptic roars to spanky cleans.

This year’s latest Unprocessed album, titled Angel, served as yet another firm reminder of his all-encompassing talents.

George Benson

Now at 82 years old, George Benson is one of the dyed-in-the-wool veterans of jazz guitar – a multiple Grammy-winning master who influenced the sound of an entire genre and ended up inspiring countless players that came after him.

Over the years, as well as releasing an extensive solo discography, he’s worked with mainstream greats such as Stevie Wonder, Chaka Khan, Aretha Franklin, and Frank Sinatra, making him one of the most prolific jazz artists of all time. He currently has six Ibanez signature models, all of them hollowbody designs.

Yvette Young

There’s a wonderfully abstract quality to Yvette Young’s sound – of course, there’s plenty of dexterity and technicality, but the real magic lies in the sheer amount of personality the Covet guitarist throws into every note she plays.

Part of this comes down to her alternate tunings, which she has often cited as a secret weapon for yielding interesting results, as well as her experimental approach to tone, but then there’s also her piano background – which has led to her unique sense of phrasing and ear for melody.

Marcin

Having just turned 25, it would be fair to say Polish wunderkind Marcin Patrzałek is spearheading a new generation of daredevil acoustic guitarists.

He rose to fame partly thanks to his viral videos that shocked listeners in how they were able to blur the lines between classical and contemporary music. This all led to the release of his first signature in 2022, the Ibanez MRC10, and a major label deal that started with last year’s debut full-length, Dragon In Harmony.

Nita Strauss

In 2018, Nita Strauss made history as the first woman to have her own Ibanez signature model, which she named the JIVA. It was certainly well-warranted, given her background playing in Alice Cooper’s band, as well as the all-female tribute band The Iron Maidens.

Since then she’s worked with pop sensation Demi Lovato and has also released two solo albums, the latter of which featured an array of high profile guest stars, including Marty Friedman, David Draiman, and Lzzy Hale.

Andy Timmons

When it comes to tasteful shredding, Andy Timmons is up there with the likes of gold-standard legends like Eric Johnson and Steve Lukather.

He knows how to impress people, but more importantly, he knows when to focus on the melody. Which is exactly why he’s worked with high profile names like Olivia Newton-John, Paula Abdul, and fellow Ibanez endorsee Paul Stanley.

He currently has three Strat-style Ibanez signatures, which come fitted with three DiMarzio humbuckers, including his own AT-1 pickup in the bridge.

Jon Gomm

English guitarist Jon Gomm became one of the early standouts in the modern percussive acoustic scene thanks to the 2011 track Passionflower going viral, which led to both national and international coverage.

In 2020, he announced he’d joined the Ibanez roster, and two years later he unveiled a pair of signature models – the JGM5 and the JGM10 – tailor-made for wanting to implement two-handed ideas based on open tunings, while also using the body of the guitar for drum beats.

Lari Basilio

Over the last decade or so, Brazilian virtuoso Lari Basilio has established herself as one of the most tasteful players of her generation – striking that perfect balance between technical wizardry, emotional phrasing, and an inimitable sense of feel.

Her Seymour Duncan-equipped LB1 signature was debuted in 2021, making her the third female signature artist for Ibanez, with the latest update being this year’s version in black.

Her latest album, Redemption, was also released earlier this year, with no shortage of dazzling fretwork and earworm melodies.

James ‘Munky’ Shaffer and Brian ‘Head’ Welch

Steve Vai may have helped invent the world’s first mass-produced electric seven-string with Ibanez, but it was Korn who took that extended range to new (or nu) metallic heights, inventing a whole subgenre in the process.

For guitarists Munky and Head, the extra low-end only intensified the heaviness and helped them reinvent guitar music in the mid-90s.

Head left Ibanez for ESP back in 2016 but made his official return to the fold earlier this year with the launch of the K7 series.

Fredrik Thordendal and Mårten Hagström

Much like Munky and Head from Korn, Meshuggah guitarists Fredrik Thordendal and Mårten Hagström were early adopters of the seven-string, as demonstrated on the 1995 tech-metal landmark, Destroy Erase Improve.

Other releases like Chaosphere, Nothing, and Obzen would also become hugely influential on the tech-metal scene, with bands like Animals As Leaders, Periphery, and Tesseract taking metric modulations and polyrhythmic concepts to new sonic horizons.

The Swedish pair would later move onto eight-strings, leading to signature models like the M8M, M80M, and FTM33.

Paul Stanley

It’s easy to think of Kiss as a Gibson band, given the kind of instruments usually seen in the hands of lead guitarists like Ace Frehley and Tommy Thayer.

Singer and rhythm guitarist Paul Stanley, however, has been using Ibanez guitars on and off since 1977 – most notably the company's Iceman offset – which led to the five signature models that currently bear his name, including the striking Cracked Mirror PS1CM.

Kiko Loureiro

There’s a golden rule for anyone who plays lead guitar in Megadeth – you have to be, without question, one of the best shredders on the planet.

Brazilian virtuoso Kiko Loureiro had already proven his merits in Angra and was a perfect fit for the thrash titans when he joined in 2015. He recorded two albums with the band, 2016’s Dystopia and 2022’s The Sick, The Dying… And The Dead!, before announcing his departure in 2023.

He currently has three Ibanez signature models, all of which feature his custom DiMarzio pickups and a double-locking tremolo system.

Dexter Holland and Noodles

As the two guitar players in The Offspring, Dexter Holland and Noodles are well-known for dialing in tones that are guaranteed to cut through any mix.

The pair were at the very forefront of the 90s punk rock scene, with key albums like Smash and Ixnay On The Hombre setting them up for the mainstream success that followed with the 1998 bestseller Americana, which yielded hit singles like Pretty Fly (For A White Guy), Why Don’t You Get A Job?, and The Kids Aren’t Alright.

Holland sticks with ARZ and RG models while Noodles has had several signatures, the latest being 2020’s NDM5.

Daron Malakian

Joining Paul Stanley, Fredrik Thordendal, and Tom G. Warrior in our list of Iceman devotees, System Of A Down guitarist Daron Malakian is someone deeply connected to the striking offset shape.

“I went to Guitar Center, and I saw this Iceman sitting there, and I was like, ‘You know, that’s a guitar that not too many people use’,” he once explained.

The Armenian-American group became one of the biggest bands of their generation thanks to the world-conquering success of tracks like Chop Suey!, Toxicity, and Aerials.

Nili Brosh

Well-renowned for being one of the most versatile musicians in the Ibanez roster, Israeli-American shredder Nili Brosh has performed with Danny Elfman, Cirque Du Soleil, Dethklok, The Iron Maidens, and Tony MacAlpine – a list which perfectly demonstrates just how well-rounded her skillset is.

Her third solo album, titled Spectrum, was released in 2019 and her main guitars include an Ibanez LA Custom RG770 and a Desert Yellow RG550.

Jake Bowen

The sole Ibanez endorsee in Periphery’s trio of hotshot guitarists, Jake Bowen is also their longest-serving member after founder Misha Mansoor.

Over the course of seven full-length albums, they’ve become torchbearers for the modern tech-metal scene and in many ways typify the ‘djent’ wave of bands that arrived roughly 10 years after the new millennium.

He currently has three signature models: the JBM9999 and JBM10FX six-strings as well as the JBM27 seven-string.

Martin Miller

Martin Miller is a man of many talents. The German musician is a highly respected educator, with books and video courses to help rock guitarists expand into fusion.

He also writes, records, and tours original music, but his biggest calling card has been a series of live studio performances that find him enrolling guitar heroes old and new to cover hits of every kind. Hey Jude with Paul Gilbert, Kiss from a Rose with Lari Basilio, and Get Lucky with Kirk Fletcher are just three prominent examples.

He has a pair of Ibanez signatures to his name, the most recent being the MMN1, which was released in 2023.

Fresh from launching his namesake guitar brand, Nuno Bettencourt has announced the Six String Sanctuary guitar camp, set to take place in Las Vegas in January.

The Extreme guitarist, who recently revealed he turned down the chance to join Ozzy Osbourne’s band, has curated the four-day and four-night event to be a “celebration” of shred, and has tapped into his Rolodex of contacts to make it memorable.

Running January 16–20, 2026, at the Hilton Lake Las Vegas Resort & Spa, the event will host a handful of guest stars, including Steve Vai. He’ll be in attendance across the four days, holding masterclasses, while there’s promise of a “never-to-be-seen-again performance,” too.

Breakout workshops will be held by Rick Beato, Eric Gales, Richie Kotzen, Mateus Asato, and Taj Farrant. They’ll be organized by skill level to ensure all participants get the most out of their time with the elite musicians running the workshops.

There'll be nightly concerts by the house band. Bettencourt has drafted in drummer Marco Minnemann (the Aristocrats, Joe Satriani, Steven Wilson), keyboardist Derek Sherinian (Dream Theater, Black Country Communion), and bass player Vincen García (Funkiwis) on bass for those performances.

Furthermore, there will be late-night jam sessions, with Kyle Brian, Doug Doppler, and Larry Mitchell among those burning the midnight oil.

Attendees will also be among the first players in the world to try out Nuno’s all-new electric guitars, which featured at Back to the Beginning.

Beyond that, attendees will shred over a new, original track penned by Bettencourt for the event.

“I’ve been waiting a long time to do this, and it’s finally happening; four days and nights of nothing but guitars, attitude, and music that hits you in the chest,” Bettencourt enthuses.

“This isn’t just about sitting back and watching us play. Everyone who comes to Six String Sanctuary will lay down a solo on a brand-new track I’ve written and recorded with the house band. You’ll walk out with your version in hand. This is gonna be raw, loud, heavy, and real. If the guitar has ever been your sanctuary, you already know you need to be there.”

Players must be over 16 to attend alone, and you’ll need to bring your own axe, guitar cable, and tuner to the party.

Head to Nuno’s Six String Sanctuary for more.

In related news, Bettencourt has unveiled a wild Mad Max-inspired Custom Shop Washburn that takes the keytar concept to ridiculous new heights.

It’s interesting to speculate on how the instrumental guitar boom might have gone if Eric Johnson hadn’t released his 1986 debut solo album Tones. It was a pivotal moment – but the virtuoso admits he enjoyed session work so much that he considered sticking with it.

Johnson insists that Satch and Vai had “a lot” to do with the explosion in technical players, and his record came after years of working with the likes of Cat Stevens, Carole King, Christopher Cross and Steve Morse. But Johnson admits that others were probably better in the session field, as his style of creativity thrives on a slow burn rather than a light-speed race.

“Sometimes I came up with stuff that was just different than jumping in and playing a generic guitar part,” he says of his best sessions. “It’s composing something like a part, instead of just filling stuff in.”

His departure from that world worked out. Tones was the gateway toward virtuosic success, culminating in 1990’s Ah Via Musicom, which featured signature track Cliffs of Dover.

“Sessions helped me get a wider grip on music,” he says. “It’s impossible not to let a little bit of that rub off on you when you watch songwriters like the ones I worked with. Without that I’d probably be like a chimpanzee hacking at the guitar!”

How did you first get into session work in the ’70s?

“I was in a contract that just wasn’t working out, and I wasn’t able to pursue records and touring. I kind of went insular and underground for a few years, and I got offered different session things.

“I guess it started with Cat Stevens. I moved to New York for a while, and I had a manager called Nat Weiss, who had Emperor Records at the time. I met Cat Stevens through Nat and he asked me to play on some of his recordings.”

On the surface – mostly based on what you’ve done since – working with Cat is an interesting juxtaposition.

“I didn’t play with him for that long. I played on a couple tracks, and we were going to do a tour and we were rehearsing for it. But it was right at the point where he was deciding to get out of music and follow his spiritual practices, so the tour never happened.”

What were Cat’s expectations of you as a guitarist?

“Well, it never got to the point where I felt like I could add as much as I wanted. I don’t mean playing crazy guitar – just stuff that would have supported him. He just wanted some kind of atmospheric guitar behind what he did.”

What was your typical rig like at the time?

“I’d either use a Fender or Gibson guitar, and a Fender Twin Reverb. I might have used a tube overdrive or an Echoplex. That was pretty much it – either a clean tone, or urn the amp up for a semi-dirty tone. And I had this thing called a Mini-Boogie, which was a predecessor to the Tube Driver.”

How did you end up working with Carole King?

“That was great – I was fortunate to play and tour with such a brilliant songwriter. She liked Austin, Texas, and wanted to come down here to make a record. There was a real nice studio on Sixth Street at the time. When she started a record here, they were looking for musicians and they called me in to audition.”

What kind of tones and textures did you use on Carole’s album, Pearls: Songs of Goffin and King?

“It was mostly clean guitar and rhythm stuff. Every once in a while there’d be some kind of little lead thing she’d want me to do. But it was mostly just backing her up with rhythm parts and little licks behind her vocals.”

You also worked with Christopher Cross – you’d known him since the early ’70s.

“I met Chris when I was in a group called Mariani. We were opening for Deep Purple, and Ritchie Blackmore got food poisoning and was in the hospital overnight. Deep Purple had to do this gig, and Christopher was a real hot-shot guitar player, and he knew all the songs, so they hired him for that gig.

“I met him that night. At the time he was more of a rocker. He played a Gibson Flying V and had long hair! He was totally different from what he did later. We got to be friends after that gig.”

Is that why you played on Minstrel Gigolo from his album Christopher Cross?

“Yeah – years later, after he became very successful with his first record, he asked me to do a guest spot. He had three or four different guitarists, like Larry Carlton and Jay Graydon. He asked me to play on that one song with him.”

Given Chris is a player himself, did he have different expectations than Carol or Cat, for example?

“A little bit. Hard rock guitar had been his main gig, and he just happened to have a really great voice and he got more and more into writing pop tunes. But he had a real affinity for guitar; he understood all the old guys – rock players, blues players. He was well aware of all that vocabulary on guitar.”

Before you recorded Tones you did a session with Steve Morse’s band, which ended up being the song Distant Star. That seems like it was the start of what we’d come to know as your style.

“Steve and I became friends when I was in the Electromagnets and he used to play with Dixie Dregs. We’d be touring around and we’d cross paths. Steve really, really helped me get my career started – and he also gave me a lot of good musical direction.”

A year later you went solo as a career. Could you have become a go-to session ace instead?

“Yeah, because I always enjoyed doing that. It felt good – it’s fun, you know? It’s not about having to be in the spotlight; it’s about how can you contribute to helping someone make their song better. But I think a lot of cats would be better at it than me because they write faster.

“Sometimes I take too long, you know? I want to sit and think about what to write. When I was working with Carol or Cat, during rehearsals, I’d have time to formulate a part. But sometimes a session pro only has five minutes to come up with something and nail it.”

Did you ever encounter any disasters during your session career?

“Oh, yeah! There was a famous country artist – I can’t remember his name. The piano player had played almost every fill in-between the vocals. He was doing a thing between every vocal.

“The producer wanted me to put something in there besides chords, but I couldn’t find any room. I hadn’t learned every lick the piano player had done, so I couldn’t harmonize, double, or come up with a continual part. I got fired from the session because I couldn’t get it.

“I once worked on a session for Donald Fagan – that didn’t work out too well either. Not because of him; he was just looking for a certain thing, but I don’t think that I came up with it immediately.

“Sometimes you want to go with that first impulse. But I guess the first thing I came up with wasn’t good enough or something. So, those two things were learning experiences – or examples of times that it just didn’t work out.”

Tones pre-dates the virtuoso explosion of Satch and Vai. Could you have set the table, so to speak, without your training as a session player?

“I like to approach guitar like a compositional, orchestral type of thing. With Carol, Cat and Chris, I saw these great songwriters. Doing an instrumental thing, it’s about how you can make it speak like a song with constructed, composed parts.

“I learned to try to have a melody and to compose structural parts that would make the song play as if it were a vocal tune.”

What do you think the instrumental boom might have looked and sounded like without Tones?

“Oh, there’s so many great players, as we know from watching YouTube today. There’s a lot of great players you’ve never heard of, or who never pursued a career. Maybe they just didn’t have ambitions to do it as a career, or to get known.

“So I think it would have always been there. People like The Ventures and Duane Eddy, and even some things with Hendrix – even though he was a vocalist – did that. The groundwork was already laid. But as far as the ’80s instrumental guitar stuff goes, of course, Joe and Steve have a lot to do with that.”

The culmination on your end is Cliffs of Dover. How did your session experience contribute to writing it?

“It allows you to be tuned into when you’re ready to step into something. It’s not always simple. When you do all this homework, you learn about music and you construct something. It’s more than just ‘you do your part’.

“That’s readying yourself technically and emotionally. You have to have the mechanical ability to reproduce something that comes out of the air. With some songs, I don’t think we can really take full credit for them. I think they’re just floating around as ideas.

“I think I wrote Cliffs of Dover in, like, five or 10 minutes. And then I could take a song I’d spent months trying to write, and it wouldn’t work. I don’t know where that all comes from.

“But I think it’s important that I learned a lot from those guys about not just settling for some guitar things. That’s kind of the purpose, you know – It’s about trying to come up with something that is really built into the songs, and to lift the song up.”

• Eric Johnson’s next tour commences on September 28.

As time goes on, the modeling amp world claims more and more tube amp converts into its digital realms, and Steve Vai has now explained how he ended up falling in love with his new go-to travel amp.

The virtuoso has been a key champion of Positive Grid’s Spark Mini amps, after releasing a signature model in August 2024. After early conversations with Positive Grid, Vai says a love affair was quickly established.

“Like many companies I end up working with, it started with a product they have that I am interested in,” he says in a new interview with German retailer Thomann.

“Because I'm in this position where companies are interested in working with me, I can make suggestions, I can change it a bit, and they'll do a signature series. So, they had this model, and I ended up getting three of them, because I just fell in love with them.

“[I’d use them] everywhere: backstage, I’ve had one on the tour bus, in my luggage at the hotel. So, I was using them, and they were just so great, because I've gone through every kind of little guitar amp that has been out there.”

For years, he says, Line 6’s POD modeler – which almost single-handedly helped inspire the djent and thall movements of metal guitar playing – was his go-to. The Spark Mini has seen him switch allegiance.

“They get over-complicated, it's all digital, and then you’ve gotta put the headphones in,” he continues. “You're lucky if it sounds halfway decent, and there's always latency.

• Save 10% off the Steve Vai Positive Grid Spark Mini signature amp

“I just wanted something I can plug into and play with. The end. And that was that those little Positive Grids were really doing it for me. So then I started thinking, 'Well, what can I do to alter it?'

“Now, I've got to tell you something. I've worked with a lot of companies in the past. I've hawked gear, and I'm not comfortable trying to sell shit. But I'm telling you, man, this is the greatest little thing a guitar player could use. The test is, how do I use it? I want simplicity, and I want it to sound great.”

Vai’s very mini amp packs 10 watts of battery-powered output, and comes with four signature presets. Yet it’s the practicality of the unit that has come up trumps for him.

“If there are people around, I just plug the headphones in, and it sounds just as good. I can go under the hood with an app, and it's like a space station with this thing. The editing possibilities are incredible. It's so useful and it's so simple, I want players to check it out.”

Of course, having a signature amp certainly helps, but it was always going to take a unique modeler to turn his head.

In related news, Vai was forced to play a Fractal modeler during a Beat show in Dubai when his rig was lost in transit. Elsewhere, Billy Corgan has quizzed Vai on his epic guitar battle with Yngwie Malmsteen and the lick that left them both in disbelief, and the virtuoso has detailed how his onstage chemistry with Joe Satriani works.

Visit Positive Grid to check out the Spark Mini.

Derek Day can be forgiven for having swagger – that’ll happen when Steve Vai tags you as the next big thing. But if Day has a big head too, you’d never know it.

“Two record contracts back in 2021, Steve graciously called me to give me some advice,” Day tells Guitar World. “He said, ‘At the end of the day, you gotta sit your ass on one horse’ – amongst other really cool phrases!”

With new album I Can’t Imagine and an appearance on the Satch/Vai track I Wanna Play My Guitar among his recent achievements, the 32-year-old has evidence the guitar is alive and well.

“Guitar music speaks and it can do virtually anything,” he asserts. “A lot of the synths you hear are actually juiced, geared-up guitars. It’s the instrument that sounds most like us. It’s timeless – 12 notes, six strings and one strum can emulate any of nature’s elements.”

What inspired you to pick up the guitar?

“I heard the original electric version of Layla by Derek and the Dominoes. Weird… I just realized my name’s in the band title! I thought I was hearing a violin at first, but then I didn’t know anything about instruments as I was about eight years old. I knew I’d found something sonically defining when I started writing my own songs.”

Your sound has a unique glam-meets-prog edge.

“I love that combo! I’m always trying to find something – anything – undone before. Sometimes the meat n’ potatoes of my style come out like that word: UNdone-UNdone-UNdone-UNdone-UNdone. That’s the prog.

“Then glam because swagger stays undefeated. Dirt is the cleanest. Slurring makes more sense. It comes from a childhood of rolling around in the mud and scraping my knees to the sounds of Off the Wall and Physical Graffiti.”

Your sound appeals to Gen Z and also to boomers. Have you considered your have cross-generational appeal?

“I don’t think any specific age group would particularly dig it – it’s just more for the weird. But I attribute all relatability in each bar of music to culture. I think I make a strong effort to bring out my Latino in the licks, my Polish in the arrangement, and my North-East L.A. in the delivery.

“I traveled quite a bit as a child. Maybe it’s not so much that both the young and old can dig it, but that a lot of storyline bases are being covered.”

How did Steve Vai come to discover you?

“He saw a video of me busking some SRV on the streets of Santa Monica, and gave me a chance to open up on his 25th anniversary Passion and Warfare tour. Ever since then my career has been immaculate and fun. He brought my confidence levels up and showed Los Angeles that I have a voice; and shortly after, showed the world.

“In my opinion Vai is the greatest living guitarist for so many emotional reasons – even though he’s perfect, he seeks out the broken. I’m honored to have played a couple of songs with him on stage for charity, as well as sing backup vocals on I Wanna Play My Guitar with Glenn Hughes and Joe Satriani.

“In the studio he’s just as godly as you’d expect. He writes the vocal harmony parts on the spot, very quickly, on his Ibanez, and I sing ‘em. With all of his chops from different star systems, he makes a conscious effort to feel. He picked up where Hendrix left off.”

Is his influence audible in your playing?

“He’s extremely influential on my playing, since I was 10 years old, in fact. Steve is always searching. I haven’t had any guitar advice from him because he demonstrates the best: always search; it’s your musical journey – no-one else’s.

“When I toured with him, on my band’s last song of the last show, my guitar was slightly out of tune. I told my drummer, ‘I was a little out…’ Vai walked past and said, ‘Your low E was four cents flat.’ And he’d been upstairs in the green room for that song!”

Are you a gearhead?

“Gear is fun! What’s cool is, we all find the right pedals at the right time, it seems. It’s tailored to our current personal state of grime or sparkle. Fender guitars make me feel like I’m tellin’ the Lord’s truth, or like I’m eatin’ Mama’s homemade tortilla con huevos. But I don’t discriminate.

“Gibson feels like I’m about to close a billion-dollar business deal – no mistakes, smooth and savvy. PRS and Ibanez necks are delightful. I can get away with a lot of fakin’ on those.

“Lately, I’ve been digging into Cream guitars from Mexico. They have weight and a lot of personality. And I love cheap guitars, the ones with fake names and funny bodies. I often write my music on them.”

What are the challenges of being a young guitarist?

“One challenge is finding your own voice and standing out. The scene is oversaturated with cats who can play Bach backwards, which is awesome. But that proves it’s an old instrument, man. God made Adam, then Eve, then a baritone Rickenbacker!

“I overcome this originality ordeal by thinking ‘memento mori’ when a guitar’s is my hand. If there’s something you can’t say out loud, she’ll do it for you. That sort of play makes something old feel forever new.”

Why does guitar music still matter?

“A guitar is a very temperamental body of mass. The wood breathes, the neck changes; it literally has good days and bad days. In a way, it has a perspective. We will always come back to guitar because we all need to touch grass and accept our own temperamental changes, and the occasional need for re-wiring.

“I’m hearing big ol’ solos in the new Chappell Roan single. There’s some beautiful legato in the next Dua Lipa album, and some sharp, tasty ‘chikkas’ at the start of Harry Styles’ new track.”

• I Can’t Imagine is out now.

As one of the all-time standout electric guitar virtuosos, it’s fair to say that Steve Vai knows a thing or two when it comes to scaling the heights required to reach the top of the metaphorical technical and melodic guitar mountain.

As such, when Vai talks technique, we listen, and his latest nugget of wisdom – arriving courtesy of his recent conversation with Billy Corgan – has us listening intently.

While in deep discussion with the Smashing Pumpkins frontman about the level of the average guitarist today, Vai proclaimed it’s actually not as complicated as one might think when it comes to becoming a proficient shredder.

“I can tell you how to become a virtuoso very easily,” he says, before laying at a fool-proof – and, to be honest, completely expected – methodology.

“You have to practice nonstop and practice perfectly,” Vai explains. “You have to practice fast, and you have to get bulletproof intonation. This is an intellectual exercise, and when I was younger that's what I did. I set the clock and I set the metronome.”

Also in his chat with Corgan, Vai shed more light on the gruelling practice routine he adopted as a young aspiring shredder.

“My schedule back then, I was happy if I got nine hours a day,” he recalls. “I was very neurotic, very myopic. It just had such a pull, such a joy.

"Sometimes I would go to sleep early on a Friday so I could wake up and practice all the way till Monday, when I had to go to school. So I get like, 20–30 hours in. I’m not a very disciplined person; it was a passion. Because passion is a much more powerful engine of creation than discipline.

“Discipline implies you have to fight something, you have to push yourself to do something that you really don’t want to do. But passion says, ‘You're going to do this because you want to do it.’ There will be challenges along the way, but there's never the thought of giving up.”

Technical proficiency aside, an appreciation for melody – and how these technical skills can be channelled accordingly – is equally important.

“I love melody. The ability to shred is fine and good, but without melody, there's no shelf life in a performer's career,” he asserts.

Elsewhere in his Magnificent Others guest spot, Vai discussed his guitar battles with Yngwie Malmsteen and reflected on what it was like going up against Van Halen when he joined David Lee Roth's band.

Steve Vai has locked fretboards with a long line of elite electric guitar players over the years, be that through the various guest collaborations he’s participated in, the numerous G3 tours he’s helped head up, or the Generation Axe supergroup.

But one of the most challenging six-string adversaries he’s come across in all his years was Yngwie Malmsteen, with whom he formed Generation Axe back in 2016 – and ended up going toe-to-toe with him each night on tour for an epic guitar duel on Black Star.

Vai's epic guitar-off with Malmsteen was put to him by Corgan, who remembers seeing the pair share the stage in Dallas.

“I don’t remember the song you guys were playing, but you were out there with Yngwie and you guys were trading back and forth,” Corgan says. “And he played this one run… I can’t even describe it; it was probably the greatest 10 seconds of guitar playing I’ve ever seen in my life.

“He does his thing, and you’re supposed to go, and you literally went… ‘Okay, I’m done.’”

The exact moment that Corgan mentions can be found at the 4:10 mark in the video above, in which Vai can be seen laughing in disbelief at Yngwie’s guitar run.

When asked about ‘Vai versus Yngwie’, Vai recalls, “Yngwie is a special, special case. I loved the idea of being able to shred, as they say, and I honed that skill. But Yngwie, when he hit the scene, it was a different kind of a shred.

“He had a different kind of approach from the germination of his interest, and that was violin playing. His inner ear was hearing that kind of thing, which is, in a sense, not as guitaristic as somebody listening to Jimmy Page or that kind of thing.

“And when we get up on the stage together and we're trading like that, it's a great moment. Standing with another musician and actually trading licks like I do with all the G3, Generation Axe, all this kind of thing, it requires listening very intently and then responding in a way that you know is appropriate.

“With guys like Yngwie, you can't compete. If I'm with Joe Satriani or any of these guys, you can't compete with the best of them. They force you, if you're smart, to compete with the best of you.

“Like, I have to be more Steve Vai – that weird, quirky guy – than I have been before when you know somebody does something, that's the top of their game. So it's a wonderful opportunity.

“So when Yngwie does his monstrous thing, it's part of the show because it's fun. I can't, I don't do that.”

Elsewhere in his interview with Corgan, Vai recalled joining David Lee Roth’s band and spoke about what it was like to go up against Van Halen.

Steve Vai has opened up on his early experiences in David Lee Roth’s band, recalling how he felt destined for the role – and how he navigated inevitable comparisons to the singer's former guitar foil, Eddie Van Halen.

In 1985, Roth – fresh from leaving Van Halen – went about establishing his solo career. In his new band, an elite electric guitar player who could keep up with the level Roth experienced in Van Halen – and one who could hold down a spot previously held by the era’s greatest guitar player – was a priority.

For Vai’s part, though, he saw the Roth gig as one of the most hallowed spots in contemporary rock at the time, and viewed himself as tailor-made for the job – and it wasn’t long before Roth came calling.

Speaking about his experience in Roth’s band in a new episode of Billy Corgan’s The Magnificent Others podcast, Vai remembers, “When the word was out that David Lee Roth was putting a band together and he was looking for a guitarist, I mean, it was probably the most coveted rock guitar position.

“I was in my little apartment on Fairfax Street in Hollywood, and as soon as I heard that news, I turned to my roommate and I said, ‘That's my gig.’

“It was just this intuitive, little voice that said, ‘No matter what you do, even if you don't want it, it's your gig.’ It's just one of those things. The next day, the phone rings and it's Dave.”

Playing guitar for Roth, who had been working with Van Halen up until that point, naturally came with added pressure.

Furthermore, the perception of Roth’s band was one of competition, and although the singer had grand designs for a project that could match up to the might of Van Halen, Corgan ultimately notes, “Dave didn't do what he set out to do, which was beat Van Halen.”

“I just knew that I could make it work, because I had a rock and roll fire that I loved in me,” Vai elaborates of his experience in the band. “I knew that I wasn't going to try to sound like Edward or do anything like him, because people are very hip to that.

“We didn't have the songs. Van Halen had the songs for that kind of success,” Vai adds of the two group’s differing levels of success. “They're good songs, but Eddie, he's got his whole ear for writing. That's the secret. That's the secret sauce. You can't replace that.

“We had great music. I love the music, but when I say we didn't have the songs, I'm talking about those specific things that cross over at radio.”

In the mid-1980s, Vai wasn't the only guitar player in the mix to join Roth's band. Recently, Steve Stevens revealed he too was approached for the gig.

Now the hysteria surrounding King Crimson offshoot Beat is dying down, Adrian Belew knows what’s next. “I want to get back to angry guitar and also fretless guitar,” he says.

It couldn’t be a better time for the Zappa, Bowie, and Fripp alum to revisit those styles – he’s just had carpal tunnel surgery and reports he’s recovering well. “The speed I’m playing at is as good as ever,” he says of his left hand’s progress.

“With some things, I had to practice hard to get back up to speed,” he explains. “The thing about being older is keeping yourself in shape and keeping yourself creative. I’ll keep making new records – making music is the most important thing to me. The performance is just the second half.”

What’s the prognosis for your left hand?

“It was an easy recovery and an easy operation; no problem at all. While recovering you can’t do much with it and it’s a little tender. Then you finally work back up to tempo. I’m playing as I always did – except there’s no more pain.”

What exactly had been going on?

“My hand started getting numb, and during part of the Beat tour it would stay numb from the moment I woke up until sometime during soundcheck. It was a little scary. I’d be like, ‘You better wake up soon here, hand!’”

Was there a moment you feared that you might not play again, or it might impact your playing forever?

“Yes – but also, not really. Steve Vai was able to walk me through the process since he’s had it done twice. He assured me it was a simple operation and it wasn’t going to go wrong. And he introduced me to one of the best surgeons in the US.

“Dr Azari is so good at what he does. He was one of the first surgeons who did a hand transplant successfully. So, carpal tunnel, for him, is like changing strings! I was actually going to ask him to put on a second left arm, to see what I could do with three hands on the guitar!”

Have you needed to circumvent the impact of age on your playing?

“The truth is I’ve never worked on the basis of notes, speeds, scales, and all that stuff. The physical aspect of it was never as important to me as the mental aspect. I imagined making the guitar do more than just what it does.

“A lot of guitar players just want to be like their heroes; but as you get older that gets harder and harder. But I can still get the sounds I’ve always gotten, so it’s not harder – there’s just more of them!”

You and Steve Vai both have histories with Fank Zappa. Has that helped you forge a working relationship together?

“The year I spent with Frank was the first and only time I’ve ever had serious instruction. Frank was a great teacher and very generous to me. He taught me a lot of things about music and the business of music. It wasn’t just how to play odd time signatures or do wild stuff, but how to behave and have a life as a professional. All those things were unknown to me.

“Steve and I agree that when you go through what Frank teaches you, you come out as a high-quality professional. You know you’ve got to play things consistently and correctly and that you can’t mess around. The main thing Frank wanted from you was to show up at every gig in perfect shape and do the music correctly.”

Without that Zappa training, could you have handled working with David Bowie thereafter?

“It would have been harder to some degree, but I think that music could have been done. But then you move forward a year or two, and I’m in King Crimson, where it’s all about playing in one time signature, and singing in another.

“I would have had a much more difficult time with that if I hadn’t worked with Frank. By the time I came out of that I was very comfortable with odd time signatures – I could write in seven, five, nine, or whatever was required. I understood it from a different basis than some people might have.”

What was Frank’s explanation of odd time signatures?

“It was that you felt the accents. If it’s a seven, that’s what you’re feeling. You’re not counting seven – that would be ridiculous. I’d been a drummer since I was 10, so once I understood that it rang a bell: ‘All I have to do is learn what those accents are, and then I can play in 15.’ I’ve been doing it ever since. Without Frank I would have just been guessing.”

Did that idiosyncratic thinking makes you appealing to Talking Heads?

“Absolutely. They needed someone to throw a lot of color on the painting, and someone who could break loose and do wild soloing. Those things were the perfect additions to their music, but they couldn’t do them. They were really nice to me; they loved what I did and were very supportive.”

Have you ever wondered how an off-the-beaten-track player like you keeps finding himself at the center of pop culture moments?

“I don’t know… You think of people like David Bowie, innovators, and I think I belong in that club. I certainly don’t belong in the club that's doing sessions every day, or the club that’s shredding, or any other club!

“But club I do belong to is the one where you do interesting things that no one else has done. As I said, I always wanted to express sounds with the guitar, more than just knowing how to play the notes. I guess that's how I’ve moved from one thing to another so quickly.”

What are some of your favorite off-kilter guitar sounds?

“The first one that comes to mind is a piece I wrote for my second solo record, Twang Bar King, called Ballet for a Blue Whale. I wanted to make the guitar sound like it was an actual whale. An expert informed me that it’s not the sound of a blue whale – it’s the sound of a humpback whale! But ‘blue whale’ sounds more artistic! Figuring out how to do that was a tremendous thing.

“You have to play through a synthesizer. Then I put it through a delay with an expression pedal. Then I made it so you weren’t hearing the original note – just the note that was being bent by the expression pedal. It could go all over the place. It was fascinating to hear and do that.

“Many times when I’m doing something it just catches my ear, and that takes me in a new direction which leads to new music and songs. Like, if you don’t have the tight, fuzzy sound on the song Big Electric Cat, you’ll never come up with the song Big Electric Cat!”

What pedal did you use for that?

“That’s a Foxx Tone Machine, a pretty underrated ’60s pedal that I found in a pile in a music store. Once I realized what it could do I did so many things with it.”

What’s the most interesting pedal you’re currently using?

“On stage with Beat I play an Electro-Harmonix Echo Flanger. Not many people realize this, but with the five-way mode selector switch you can catch it between two modes. If you do that with the feedback turned all the way up, you can get all kinds of crazy sounds.

“You can make it sound like big, flying metal insects, or make it so that it slows things down. It’s just a monster thing – but it really wasn’t supposed to be that. It was accidental, so thanks for the accidents!”

What sounds are you looking to mess with next?

“I think I’d like to do some tricky stuff with delays and pitches. I wrote a piece a long time ago called Variations of Wave Pressure in which I could play one note, get another note in harmony and a bass note as well.

“You can come up with some really interesting things if you do that. And you’re actually not playing much if you take away the effects – you can’t play a lot because it’ll be too busy. You’re making sure the notes fit properly, which can be really great.”

• Beat will release Beat Live on September 26.

Adrian Belew is currently touring alongside fellow electric guitar behemoth Steve Vai – as well as bass and drums extraordinaires Tony Levin and Danny Carey – under the moniker BEAT to celebrate his King Crimson catalog.

However, one of his earliest gigs was with Frank Zappa. In a story for the ages, the avant-garde musician discovered him in 1977, while Belew was playing with Sweetheart at Fanny's Bar in Nashville. What would transpire was a year that Belew has often described as a “crash course” in music theory – and to an extent, in life.

“The year that I spent with Frank was the first and only time that I’ve ever had serious instruction,” Belew tells Guitar World as he reflects on that game-changing year. “Frank was a great teacher and very generous to me. He taught me a lot of things about many different things to do with music and the business of music.”

Belew clarifies that it wasn't just about playing odd time signatures, or doing “the wild stuff within his [Zappa’s] music”.

Rather, it was a full crash course in music business – specifically, “How to behave and have a life as a professional touring musician and recording artist who goes around the world. All of those things were absolutely unknown to me.”

Playing alongside Vai, who also went through what we might call the Zappa School of Music, Belew noticed some throughlines in their approach to both music and the business.

“I think that both Steve and I agree that when you go through what Frank teaches you, you come out the other end and are truly a high-quality professional,” he reflects.

“You know that you’ve got to play things consistently and correctly, and that you can’t mess around. The main thing that Frank wanted from you was to show up at every gig in perfect shape and do the music correctly.”

In more recent Belew news, the legendary guitarist shared his carpal tunnel syndrome diagnosis and how he's recovering post-surgery.

Adrian Belew has been busy celebrating King Crimson’s golden era with what can only be described as a legendary tour alongside Steve Vai, Tony Levin, and Danny Carey.

However, the tour came with its own health challenges, as the multi-instrumentalist recently had his left hand repaired following a bout of carpal tunnel syndrome mid-tour.

“What was happening was that it would get numb,” he explains in a new interview with Guitar World.

“My hand started getting numb, and during part of the [BEAT] tour, it would stay numb from the moment that I woke up, all the way until sometime during soundcheck. It was a little scary. I’d be like, ‘Oh, boy, you better wake up soon, here hand!’”

It got to a point where Belew feared he might not play again. However, thanks to Vai, he realized that not all hope was lost. “Steve Vai was able to walk me through the process since he’s had it done twice,” he imparts.

“He reassured me that it was a simple operation and that it was not something that was going to go wrong. And on top of that, he introduced me to one of the best surgeons in the United States, who had done this work.”

As for where things stand now, Belew replies with, “Oh, it's perfect.

“This was an easy recovery and an easy operation. No problem at all,” he reassures fans.

“It was on my left hand, and I’m back to full use of my left hand. While recovering, you can’t do much with it, and it’s a little tender. And then, you finally work back up to tempo. Now, I’m playing as I always did, except that there’s no more pain.”

In more recent Adrian Belew news, cult guitar hero Rob Fetters reflected on forming a lifelong friendship with the King Crimson guitarist – and the time they raced home to try tapping after seeing Eddie Van Halen.

Steve Vai has taken to Instagram to shine a light on a player who nailed the guitar solo from And We Are One – which the electric guitar hero considers to be one his crowning achievements.

Songs like For The Love of God, and the ultra-inspiring Crossroads shred battle, stand as two of the shred master general's most influential guitar moments. However, they supposedly pale in comparison to And We Are One when it comes to trickiness, but Japanese guitarist Tub has seemingly made light work of it.

“I never thought I would ever see anything like this,” Vai writes on Instagram, re-sharing Tub’s “extraordinary cover” to his 1.2 million followers.

“Frankly, this is one of my favorite solos that I’ve ever done, and he just nailed it. Seeing someone take the time, patience, and passion to recreate something like this put a huge smile on my face and in my heart. Truly outstanding, my deepest appreciation to you, Tub.”

There are no half measures from the performance, with Tub cosplaying as his hero in front of a psychedelic backdrop and wielding one of Vai's Ibanez signature guitars in Onyx black. There's even some nifty double-footed volume pedal action to accurately deliver Vai's violin-imitating leads.

Taken from the 1984 album Modern Primitive, Vai once told Guitar Player that he regards it as his Magnum Opus of soloing for one specific reason.

“I’ve never gotten as deep with my phrasing as I did on this solo,” he explained. “It may go right over the head of most people, and others might just hear it as Vai meandering, but, for me, this solo is my ultimate achievement of phrasing on the instrument.”

Vai’s post has racked up more than 16,000 likes at the time of writing, meaning that Tub’s humble follower count of 447 may be about to bloat considerably.

His posts are very Vai-centric, with the guitarist tackling guitar solos from across his career, including his David Lee Roth era (Elephant Gun) and some dextrous one-handed legato playing on Knappsack.

Away from social media, Vai has been discussing how his on-stage chemistry with Joe Satriani in the newly-formed StachVai Band works and why Pete Thorn's rhythm guitar playing is unrivalled.

John Mayer is one of the most universally acclaimed electric guitar players of our time, and now he has another shred icon to add to his ever-growing list of high-profile fans: Steve Vai.

The blues/rock/pop leanings of Mayer’s music may seem like a world away from Vai’s own catalog, but game clearly recognizes game, and as Paul Reed Smith has now revealed, the latter once singled out the PRS Silver Sky mastermind for very high praise indeed.

Speaking to Everything Mayer, Smith spoke of Mayer’s unique brilliance, and discussed how his abilities are all the more impressive when you consider he, unlike other guitarist, didn’t originally approach the instrument like other conventional players.

“He didn’t come from the guitar playing world,” Smith says, “He came from the singer-songwriter world. Steve Vai was in my booth one day, and he goes, ‘You know, I’ve been thinking about this a long time. He’s a really good guitar player.’”

Praise from an esteemed player of Vai’s ilk, though, struck Smith as somewhat strange, owing to the fact the two virtuosos originated from two very different ends of the six-string spectrum. However, that, Smith says, has worked to Mayer’s advantage and made him the player he is today.

“That’s unusual,” Smith says of Vai’s comments. “He [Mayer] came from a different place, right? And when he was here, he was singing melodies all day long.

“What was stunning was that, any tune he’d ever heard, if he’d never played it, he could sit down and play. He had a photographic memory for tunes and replay what the chords were in his head.

“I was like, ‘Wow, that’s cool.’ I said, ‘You’re just a melody machine.’ He said, ‘Well, I hear them all the time.’”

After leaving the ranks of Fender, Mayer found a new guitar-building partner in Smith, with whom he designed the best-selling PRS Silver Sky. A number of offshoots – included the SE Silver Sky and Dead Spec Silver Sky – have since arrived, further cementing the influence that the pair’s partnership has had on the wider guitar world.

And, for those of you still wrapping your head around the Vai/Mayer connection, wait until you hear about Short and Sweet – the Spinal Tap song that the two guitar heroes worked on with Phil Collen.

In related news, Smith recently discussed why he isn't fussed about chasing Fender and Gibson and sat down with Guitar World to reflect on the making of the Standard 24.

Whitesnake evolved out of David Coverdale’s post-Deep Purple solo project, and fittingly, Coverdale has been the only consistent member across the band’s history.

There haven’t been two Whitesnake albums with the same lineup since 1982, and Coverdale’s revolving door of talent has included some of the finest rock guitarists of all time.

Blues luminary Bernie Marsden, shred god Steve Vai, and journeymen Reb Beach and Vivian Campbell have all filled out the ranks. Here are all 12 of them, in chronological order.

Micky Moody – (1977–1983)

Moody played on David Coverdale’s first two solo albums, White Snake (1977) and Northwinds (1978), meaning he was in Whitesnake before the band even had a name. Moody co-wrote three songs on the second album, starting one of rock’s classic songwriting partnerships.

Moody’s wicked vibrato, fat Les Paul tone, and excellent moustache made his partnership with Bernie Marsden the definitive Whitesnake guitar lineup for many. Live… In the Heart of the City (1980) in particular is considered one of the classic live rock albums, showcasing the early ’Snake at their finest. Moody also notably co-wrote Fool for Your Loving, a UK hit originally intended for BB King.

Post-Snake, Moody worked with Graham Bonnet and Roger Chapman before reuniting with Bernie Marsden under various names including M3, Company of Snakes, and the Moody Marsden Band. He also showed his pure blues credentials by performing with Mud Morganfield, son of Muddy Waters.

Bernie Marsden – (1978–1982)

Marsden’s early career saw him playing with a pre-Michael Schenker UFO, doing one infamous tour with Suzi Quatro, and then joining Deep Purple founders Ian Paice and Jon Lord in Paice Ashton Lord.

Marsden joined Whitesnake for their first EP as a band, Snakebite (1978), and remained in situ until 1982, when he was replaced by Mel Galley. Marsden’s approach was more melodic than Mick Moody’s, and they made a formidable combination. Marsden co-wrote Here I Go Again, playing on the original 1982 version and making bank from the 1987 smash hit remake.

Marsden has been recognized with both a signature PRS guitar and a limited edition Gibson Custom Shop run of his ’59 Les Paul, ‘The Beast’. He was also invited on Joe Bonamassa’s Blues Cruises, a symbol of his stature in the blues community. He died in 2023 of bacterial meningitis, aged 72.

Mel Galley – (1982–1984)

In the 70s, Galley had been in Trapeze with Glenn Hughes, and he also played on Hughes’ post-Deep Purple solo album, Play Me Out (1977). With Coverdale frequently raiding the Deep Purple talent pool, it was no surprise he ended up working with Galley.

Galley co-wrote the singles Give Me More Time and Love Ain’t No Stranger for Slide It In (1984), with the latter becoming an enduring live favorite. In 1984, though, the guitarist broke his arm, resulting in nerve damage that meant he could no longer play.

He left Whitesnake, but developed ‘the claw’, a device that enabled him to play again, and joined Phenomena in 1985. Galley died in 2008 following a diagnosis of esophageal cancer, aged 60.

John Sykes – (1984–1987)

Thin Lizzy alumnus John Sykes was still playing with Phil Lynott when David Coverdale came calling. Whitesnake were huge in Europe but unknown in the USA, and Cov had ambitions to change that.

For their next act, Whitesnake would combine British blues-rock with American glam metal. Sykes, whose style was part Jimmy Page and part Eddie Van Halen, was the perfect choice. The guitarist initially refused to join, but Coverdale kept offering more money until he could no longer refuse.

Sykes’ first Whitesnake job was re-recording guitars for a remixed Slide It In for the American market. With Whitesnake finally making a US breakthrough, Sykes and Coverdale co-wrote the band’s 1987 album (released as Whitesnake in the USA), including the uber-hit ballad Is This Love.

Their relationship was strained, though, and Coverdale claims that when he took time off for vocal recovery, Sykes tried to replace him with a different singer. Sykes vehemently denied these claims for the rest of his life, but either way, he and producer Mike Stone were sacked. Sykes and other Whitesnake refugees formed Blue Murder, whose 1989 debut album is the spiritual successor to 1987.

Although Sykes only made one full Whitesnake album, it sold over eight million copies in the USA alone. For many listeners, the Sykes era is the definitive Whitesnake.

The guitarist died in January 2025, after a battle with cancer. He was 65 years old.

Adrian Vandenberg – (1987–1998)

The Flying Dutchman refused to join Whitesnake in 1985, but accepted the invitation in 1987, joining the band just as they exploded in America.

John Sykes had been fired before 1987 was completed, and Vandenberg’s first job was to record the guitar solo for the new version of Here I Go Again. Vandenberg’s solo appears on the album and in the video. For US radio, session legend Dann Huff recorded a new solo.

Coverdale got on well with Vandenberg, and elected to write Slip of the Tongue (1989) exclusively with him. A wrist injury sidelined Vandenberg from recording, though, and Steve Vai played all guitars on the album.

Uniquely among former Whitesnake guitarists, Vandenberg maintained a good relationship with Coverdale into the 1990s. The two co-wrote the 1997 album Restless Heart, which was slated to be a Coverdale solo album until the label insisted on Whitesnake’s logo. Vandenberg also appeared on the 1998 unplugged live album, Starkers in Tokyo.

After Whitesnake, Adrian formed Manic Eden and eventually revived his original band, Vandenberg, in 2020.

“I definitely regret that the lineup with Steve [Vai] and I didn't get to continue,” Vandenberg told Guitar World in 2023. “But grunge came up, and I've always been the kind of guy who sticks to his guns and does what he does best.

“So, if I could go back, I would have chosen to stay together and make at least one more album. I wish we had stuck to our guns, stayed together, and gotten back in the saddle like good cowboys.”

Vivian Campbell – (1987–1989)

The former Dio guitarist was recruited for Whitesnake’s mammoth 1987 world tour. It was a good decision for Campbell, who earned more money from that tour than he did in his entire time with Dio.

Campbell managed just one studio visit during his time in the band, recording a guitar solo for the single version of Give Me All Your Love ’88 which sounded as though he was using a Floyd Rose for the first time.

In 1989, Coverdale announced he would be writing the next album with Vandenberg alone, and Campbell got his marching orders from Whitesnake’s tour manager soon afterwards.

The guitarist busied himself playing on Foreigner vocalist Lou Gramm’s solo album Long Hard Look, and in Gramm’s new band, Shadow King, until he bailed in 1992 to join Def Leppard.

Campbell and Coverdale did eventually bury the hatchet, and in 2015, Campbell joined Whitesnake on stage in Sheffield, England to perform Still of the Night.

Steve Vai – (1989–1990)

Whitesnake's label wanted the band to have a superstar guitarist, and did not feel that Adrian Vandenberg was the one. The solution was to also employ Steve Vai, then the hottest name in shred thanks to his stint with David Lee Roth and his appearance as Jack Butler in that guitar-centered classic of '80s cinema, Crossroads.

With Vandenberg injured, Vai played all the guitars on 1989’s Slip of the Tongue, turning in a performance almost as over-the-top as Coverdale’s lyrics.

The recording started just as Vai received his prototype Ibanez Universe 7-string, and he used it on every track, making Slip of the Tongue the first mainstream rock album ever recorded with a 7-string electric.

Vai left in 1990 to pursue his solo career. Given how things turned out for hair metal over the next few years, this was probably wise.

“David was a prince! He had a lot of confidence in me and basically knew he needed to just let me do my thing,” Vai – reflecting on his time with the band – told Guitar World in 2020.

“David knew what I was capable of and didn’t really interfere with what I wanted to do. I just did it, and if there was something he didn’t like I was happy to change it because it was his thing.

“Working with David was great and there was something in his phrasing as a singer that I just adored.”

Warren DeMartini – (1994)

Steve Vai once named Ratt guitarist Warren DeMartini as one of the guitarists he most admired in the ’80s, so perhaps he was a natural choice as Whitesnake’s next axeslinger.

DeMartini never recorded with Whitesnake, but toured with the band in Europe and Russia, where hard rock’s popularity hadn’t taken quite the kicking it did in the USA. DeMartini reunited with Ratt in 1999.

Steve Farris – (1997)

Farris’ first brush with fame was playing the guitar solo on Kiss’ Creatures of the Night in 1982. He was asked to audition for the band, but lost out because he couldn’t sing.

Instead, he formed Mr Mister, scoring hits with tracks like Kyrie and Broken Wings. He played second guitar on the tour to support Restless Heart in 1997, though he had not played on the album.

“I was recommended to [Coverdale] by my friend Marco Mendoza,” Farris recounted to Guitar World in 2024. “David called me after hearing my tape and asked me to go on the road. So I met up with him and we went out drinking, then I went on the road with him.

“I could have stayed on and never turned down any gig with Whitesnake. We came off the road, and Whitesnake was going to be done. Of course, David has had multiple versions of the band since.”

Doug Aldrich – (2003–2014)

When Coverdale decided to reactivate Whitesnake in the early 2000s, Aldrich was the perfect foil. Like John Sykes, he combined a healthy respect for blues with a ferocious high gain tone, and if anything, his shred chops were even sharper than Sykes’. Even more importantly, he brought the Les Paul back to the band for the first time since 1987.

With Aldrich as musical director, the reinvigorated ’Snake were so aggressive that former bassist Neil Murray complained, “the modern Whitesnake play the old stuff in a very heavy-handed, rather bludgeoning way.” The live albums from this era are essential for anyone who thinks this sounds like a compliment.

Aldrich had made his name playing on the Transformers: The Movie theme in 1986 with Lion, and in Hurricane with future Foreigner vocalist Kelly Hansen. From 2003 to 2010 he managed to juggle being in both Whitesnake and Dio, recording with both bands. He left Whitesnake in 2014 to join the Dead Daisies.

Reb Beach – (2003–present)

Beach already had a pretty strong CV when he joined Whitesnake, having played in Winger, Dokken, and Alice Cooper’s band. Despite having some of the most impressive tapping chops in the game, he ended up somewhat playing second fiddle to Doug Aldrich.

Beach appeared on Good to Be Bad (2008) and Forevermore (2011). When Aldrich departed in 2014, Beach finally got to write with Coverdale, receiving credits for five tracks on Flesh & Blood (2019). He’s still in the band, making him the longest-serving Whitesnake member in history.

Reflecting on his unique place within the band in a 2021 Guitar World interview, Beach said, “You want to know something wild? I’m the 46th member of the band! Isn’t that crazy? There’s been so many incarnations of Whitesnake, and I’ve been a member for 17 years. That’s longer than anybody except David.

“If I can attribute it to anything, I think it’s because I’m very easy to work with. I don’t like to make waves. I have a strong singing voice, so that’s a good thing. It’s hard to find a guitar player who can sing in tune and has a pleasing voice. So I’ve got that going for me.”

Joel Hoekstra – (2014–present)

After Doug Aldrich, Whitesnake needed another heir to John Sykes: blond, toting a low-slung Les Paul, and equipped with terrifying chops. Enter Joel Hoekstra, who had demonstrated his shred abilities in Night Ranger, Trans-Siberian Orchestra, and in the Broadway production of Rock of Ages.

Where Aldrich was best known for his hammer-on licks and alternate picking, Hoekstra had a terrifying way with eight-finger tapping, taking Whitesnake even further from their blues roots.

His Whitesnake debut was The Purple Album (2015), a collection of re-imagined songs from Coverdale’s Deep Purple stint. He also co-wrote tracks and recorded on Flesh & Blood (2019), Whitesnake’s last original album to date.

On his decision to join the hard-rock juggernaut, Hoekstra told Guitar World in 2014, “David [Coverdale] is rock royalty, so any chance you get to work with him, you take seriously. Not to mention that the material in Whitesnake is also a guitarist’s dream!”

Joe Satriani and Steve Vai’s collaboration on the Satch/Vai tour has to go down as one of the great guitar team-ups of all time. It’s also a feel-good story in a time when we could use one. But with the set for the Satch/Vai Tour to be culled from both players’ catalogs, how does this momentous electric guitar spectacle come together onstage?

At least Pete Thorn knows what he has to do; he’ll be will be holding it down on rhythm guitar. But will we hear hear Vai playing the solo to Surfing With the Alien, or Satch handling For the Love of God?

Speaking to British gear retail giant GuitarGuitar, the latter explained how he and his old friend are sharing lead guitar duties, and why it's essential that they don’t get in each other’s way.

“We’ve had so much experience playing with each other over the decades, it really makes things very easy,” says Satriani. “However, some of Steve’s songs are better left to him performing them on his own. The level of technical difficulty and the importance of one clear voice playing the melodies and solos are things we take seriously, song by song.”

If Vai’s Teeth of the Hydra is on the setlist, then we can see why discretion would be the better part of valor. And if Vai himself admits that And We Are One, from 2016’s Modern Primitive, is his “greatest accomplishment” on the guitar, telling Guitar Player that it has “more phrasing and melodic intimacy” than anything he has ever recorded, then perhaps that’s best left for Vai to handle.

But Satriani doesn’t rule anything out. He tells GuitarGuitar that they soon discovered during rehearsals that their respective arrangements could be expanded to make room for them both.

They will certainly be playing together on The Sea of Emotion, Pt. 1, the first original composition the pair ever wrote together, and on the newly released I Wanna Play My Guitar, which premiered on Guitar World and Guitar Player last month and features Glenn Hughes on vocals.

Satriani wrote the track and originally intended for Hughes and Justin Hawkins of the Darkness to share vocals. Hawkins was unavailable. Hughes was all in. Satriani recorded his vocal idea on Voice Memos and sent it to Hughes. “I pray no one ever hears that demo of me singing into my iPhone!” he said.

Both tracks are thematically linked. Satriani might be 68. Vai turns 65 today, Friday, June 6 [many happy returns, Steve!]. But they draw upon the formative experiences of both of them growing up. Think of them as companion pieces, that Dazed and Confused social milieu of teenagers in the ‘70s, two of whom just happen to be the world’s preeminent guitar virtuosos.

“This song depicts all that Joe and I used to think about as teenagers. All of the things we loved about pounding rock ‘n’ roll and the glorious guitar,” said Vai. “It is phenomenal for us to be able to present to you now our teenage aspirations in this song.

“I remember those days and how absolutely exciting it was to play the guitar. Our whole world revolved around it as if it was a mysterious monolith, as it is, and I know that there are teenagers right now that are feeling the same thing about this sacred instrument when they play it.

“It feels like freedom and joy and I recommend everybody find some time in their life to play the guitar – enjoy!”

The Satch/Vai Band features the legendary Kenny Aronoff on drums, with Marco Mendoza on bass guitar.

The Satch/Vai Band's Surfing With the Hydra Tour arrives in the UK on June 13, at the Barbican in York. See Satch/Vai Band for full dates and ticket details.

It's hard to believe that it's been over a year since electric guitar titans Joe Satriani and Steve Vai dropped The Sea of Emotion, their first ever collaborative song.

Now, though, we finally have its follow-up. Titled I Wanna Play My Guitar, it's an ode to the titular instrument that traverses many eras of rock guitar – particularly the '70s, a formative decade for both players.

Adding to the '70s flavor is an epic vocal turn by Glenn Hughes, who made his name on bass and pipes with Deep Purple during the middle part of that decade.

Now, don't run to your streaming platform of choice just yet. I Wanna Play My Guitar can only be spun here for the time being (or on our sister website, Guitar Player).

You can check it out – in all its funky, swaggering, dual-guitar acrobatic glory – below. It's a fun ride!

I Wanna Play My Guitar has quite the backstory, which Satriani kindly keyed us in on.

“When I started writing this song I had no idea how important the contributions from Glenn and Steve would be,” he shared. “What they brought to the track made it all happen.”

Originally, the song was meant to not only be a dual guitar showcase of sorts, but a dual vocal one as well.

“My original idea was to have Glenn Hughes and Justin Hawkins do the vocals together,” Satriani said.

“I got this crazy idea on the Monsters of Rock Cruise where Glenn and Justin were both performing. Unfortunately, when I got back from the cruise I tested positive for COVID and I entered into a 10 day fog, forgetting if I had sent the invitations to collaborate.

“When I finally recovered, I heard back from Justin's people that The Darkness were going to be releasing a record at the same time and he wouldn’t be able to contribute to the song, so, I sent a rough demo to Glenn and he was into it. I pray no one ever hears that demo of me singing into my iPhone!”

According to Vai, the song is meant to take listeners all the way back to the guitarists' early days – before the sold-out crowds, platinum records, and magazine covers.

“This song depicts all that Joe and I used to think about as teenagers. All of the things we loved about pounding rock ‘n’ roll and the glorious guitar,” he explained. “It is phenomenal for us to be able to present to you now our teenage aspirations in this song.

“I remember those days and how absolutely exciting it was to play the guitar. Our whole world revolved around it as if it was a mysterious monolith, as it is, and I know that there are teenagers right now that are feeling the same thing about this sacred instrument when they play it.

“It feels like freedom and joy and I recommend everybody find some time in their life to play the guitar – enjoy!”

Rounded out by Pete Thorn on rhythm guitar, Marco Mendoza on bass, and Kenny Aronoff on drums, the SatchVai Band will hit the road for the first time starting next month.

For tickets and a full list of tour dates, visit SatchVaiBand.com.

Fusion virtuoso Matteo Mancuso has announced his first headline tour dates in the US and Canada, with over 30 shows scheduled across May and June.

The Yamaha-endorsed guitarist had electric guitar greats like Steve Vai, Tosin Abasi, and Al Di Meola purring over his talents long before he released his debut album. His lofty reputation has always preceded him, and now he's finally hitting the road for an extensive run of headline shows in North America.

Kicking off at Boston’s City Winery on May 20, and wrapping up with a June 30 spot at Le Festival International de Jazz de Montreal, the trip represents the first time that North American audiences will be able to witness Mancuso's guitar mastery as part of a broader headline tour.

A few years ago, Steve Vai called Mancuso “the evolution of guitar” while Tosin Abasi said he was “a virtuoso beyond virtuosos” and Di Meola says the “phenomenon” is “lightyears ahead” of his peers.

Since then, he's added to his impressive body of work, with a hugely acclaimed debut album, a blazing single last year – which saw him pay tribute to one of his guitar heroes on a Bacci baritone guitar – and much more.

Speaking to Prog about the hype that surrounded his debut album's release, he admitted that having a string of virtuosos shout your praises “puts a lot of pressure on you”.

“It’s a dream come true,” he added. “All I want to do with my life is play and make music, and that’s what I’m doing now” – and he's certainly done that since.

His unique style and genre-melding proficiency has seen him share the stage with Joe Bonamassa – “It felt like I was daydreaming,” he’d later reflect. He's also raised eyebrows by revealing that fake nails are the secret to his otherworldly finger-picking techniques.

Though his stock is rightfully high, he appreciates that modern players can’t afford a bad gig, which he uses as a motivator. Still, he is happy to embrace mistakes. Talented though he may be, he doesn’t want to let his technique overshadow the human aspects of his playing.

“I’m always trying to find that balance. I don’t consider myself one of the best technical players; there are so many good players who can play twice as fast as me, or they know more leads and have more vocabulary,” he told Guitar World last year.

“But people don’t care about your technical stuff; people care about the emotion of it. I’m always trying to search for that.”

Ticket sales for Mancuso's long-overdue first US headline tour will be staggered, so readers are advised to check with their local box offices for on-sale details.

Head to Matteo Mancuso for more.

Tour dates:

• 5/20 Boston, MA City Winery Boston
• 5/21 Brooklyn, NY Brooklyn Bowl
• 5/22 Ardmore, PA The Ardmore Music Hall
• 5/23 Red Bank, NJ The Vogel
• 5/24 Washington, DC The Hamilton Live
• 5/25 Cumberland, MD Allegany County Fairgrounds
• 5/27 Pittsburgh, PA City Winery Pittsburgh
• 5/28 Lansing, MI Grewal Hall at 224
• 5/29 Ferndale, MI The Magic Bag
• 5/31 Cincinnati, OH The Ludlow Garage
• 6/01 Kent, OH The Kent Stage
• 6/02 Indianapolis, IN The Vogue
• 6/04 Minneapolis, MN The Dakota
• 6/05 Milwaukee, WI Vivarium
• 6/06 Chicago, IL Garcia’s
• 6/07 Chicago, IL Garcia’s
• 6/10 Denver, CO Cervantes’ Other Side
• 6/13 Sante Fe, NM The Bridge at Sante Fe Brewing
• 6/14 Phoenix, AZ MIM
• 6/15 Tucson, AZ The Rialto Theatre
• 6/16 Solana Beach, CA Belly Up Tavern
• 6/17 Highland Park, CA Lodge Room
• 6/18 San Juan Capistrano, CA The Coach House
• 6/20 Berkeley, CA The UC Theatre
• 6/22 Portland, OR Aladdin Theater
• 6/23 Seattle, WA Neptune Theatre
• 6/24 Vancouver, BC Rickshaw
• 6/25 Victoria, BC Wicket Hall
• 6/28 Syracuse, NY Syracuse Jazz Fest
• 6/29 Buffalo, NY Electric City
• 6/30 Montreal, QC Le Festival International de Jazz de Montreal

When Joe Satriani and Steve Vai announced they were forming a new band together, the news came hot on the heels of a G3 reunion run alongside Eric Johnson, not to mention their own Satch/Vai tour. So, naturally, we were left wondering: just how different would this new project be?

As it turns out, it may end up sounding quite unlike any other performance the pair have been involved with throughout their lengthy careers, as the very first SatchVai Band rehearsal footage shows.

The one-minute clip, posted to Satriani’s YouTube channel and captioned “Something’s stirring behind closed doors…”, finds the pair not only performing their own classics, but taking on the leads and melodies of each other’s.

So, you can hear Vai soloing over Satriani’s If I Could Fly, before both guitarists tackle the iconic two-hand-tapped run in Always With Me, Always With You.

But the highlight has to be hearing the two guitar heroes harmonizing Vai opus For the Love of God’s legendary leads with pitch-perfect precision. It’s breathtaking stuff.

The clip ends with the duo busting out the main riff of Metallica’s Enter Sandman – a staple on the G3 reunion tour that carries extra nostalgia given Joe Satriani’s role as Kirk Hammett’s guitar teacher (as well as Vai’s, of course).

It’s also our first chance to see the band’s rhythm guitarist, Pete Thorn, in action. You can spot him deploying a Fender Acoustasonic Jazzmaster for the acoustic parts in If I Could Fly, while you know that Suhr backline is getting cranked for the higher-gain numbers.

Speaking of, Satch appears to have brought his 3rd Power DRGN 100 rig – which was specially designed to tackle Eddie Van Halen’s tone in Best of All Worlds – into the instrumental arena, rather than his typical Marshall JVM410HJS setup.

All of which is very exciting: it looks as if Satch and Vai – alongside Thorn, bassist Marco Mendoza and longtime Satch drummer Kenny Aronoff – could be trading solos for the entire show’s duration, as opposed to the separate sets and closing jams that typically feature in their live collaborations.

We’ll find out when the SatchVai Band tour kicks off in York, United Kingdom on June 13 – head over to SatchVaiBand.com for full dates.

Steve Vai has offered invaluable advice to guitarists wanting to improve their guitar tone during a new interview with Guitar Center to promote his new signature Spark Mini amp.

The electric guitar virtuoso, who recently announced he's starting a new band with Joe Satriani and Pete Thorn, concedes that gear does indeed matter, but focusing on technique makes the biggest difference to an individual's sound – and technical experimentation should be your first port of call.

“People say the tone is in the amp, the tone is in the guitar, the tone is in the neck, the tone is in the body or the pickups,” he begins. “On one level, yes. There is a tone in all of those things, but you’re the boss of the tone because you’re the one playing it, and you’re the one hitting the note.”

He stresses that players who are unhappy with their tone needn’t rush out and replace their guitar amp outright. Instead, players should look inward before opening their wallets.

“The tone of the note has so many moving parts to it,” he instructs. “One of them is just where you hit the string.

“It’s the way you pick. How hard are you holding the pick? The intonation is dictated by how hard you push, how hard you pull this way, what your vibrato is like. All of these things go into discovering your unique tone. There are so many parameters in creating the tone that comes off your fingers.”

Indeed, it’s easy for players – especially those at the start of their journey and eager to hear tangible results as quickly as possible – to overlook the amount of nuance that comes from hand positioning and pick attack.

Play towards the bridge, and the tone will get snarly and trebly; play towards the neck, and the tone mellows out. Even without changing the dials on an amp, players can achieve different sounds by interacting with their instrument differently.

Vai speaks from experience. In the early 1980s, he revamped his picking style because he was unhappy with the tone it gave him. He got fed up with buying shiny new amps and not seeing results, too, so he dragged himself back to the drawing board.

“I just was getting tired of not having a great tone,” he confesses. “I went through all these amplifiers. I was searching for something that sounded like some of the things I was hearing at the time. Edward Van Halen had hit the scene. You had Yngwie. So many players. And I could never figure out why I don’t sound good.

“I started to experiment with the way that I pick, where I pick, how I pick, the angle, all of these things. You get to a point where you hear it and you know it, and then the work starts.”

Vibrato has also proven to be a key skill for Vai, and it can make or break a player’s tone. He underlined the value of intonation with MusicRadar in 2022, having had that particular lesson drilled into him by Joe Satriani when he was much younger and far less experienced.

“Joe Satriani has an ear like none other,” he said. “When I was a kid, he would say, ‘No, don’t vibrate it out of tune. You’ll sound like an idiot!’”

Meanwhile, Vai recently revealed that he also received picking advice from Robert Fripp to help him nail the trickiest parts of the BEAT tour last year. Even the pros need pointers every now and then.

Synergy has unveiled a tiny-but-versatile 20-watt amp head with a unique calling card – its preamp modules can be interchanged at will, meaning it can harness the tones of some of the world's biggest amp builders.

The SYN-20IR utilizes Synergy’s patented all-tube modular system, meaning its preamp modules – of which Steve Vai has a signature model – can be swapped out quickly and easily.

That’s resulted in the firm citing its latest invention as “the world’s most flexible, convenient, and tonally versatile all-tube amplifier head”.

It boasts a built-in American-style clean channel, with space for two other channels in its tiny housing, allowing players to fill the blanks with their preferred preamp modules.

Moreover, while there are seven Synergy modules to choose from, there is also Steve Vai's signature offering and officially licensed modules from Peavey, Soldano, Bogner, Friedman, and many more beyond, giving authentic slices of several classic amps in one super-transportable package.

The function makes the all-tube head a great option for those who don’t want to give up on real amps but are perhaps a little envious of the sheer versatility of amp modelers. No wonder Synergy is hyping the amp up as “a tonal beast ideal for every player, every style, and every situation”.

It’s brought to life by an EL84-loaded power section, while 12AX7s also feature, and onboard Impulse Response tech means players don’t have to play through a cab if they don’t want to. Thus, these tiny bad boys can plug straight into venue PAs or recording devices.

There’s latency shorter than 1ms, a selectable power amp structure, an effects loop, a silent playing option, and various output options to boot. It’s fully MIDI compatible; it’s trick bag is dense.

Of its IRs, there are 13 options baked in, with the library manageable via sister software amid talk of “unmatched realism” from its cab simulation flavors.

Each channel can be assigned one of three power structures. Selections can be saved and recalled via the included three-button MIDI footswitch. Such companion pieces aren’t always included in the retail price, so credit to Synergy there.

Beyond that, there are various options for the response of the all-analog power section via the Structure feature, helping “significantly alter the contour and feel” of the amp.

In practice, Mode A offers “balanced negative feedback for a clear yet punchy sound”, Mode B is a “vintage-style phase inverter with relaxed mids and a bright, shimmering high end”, and Mode C serves a “modern HiFi-style phase inverter and low negative feedback for a modern, tight feel with solid lows and a darker high end”.

The SYN-20IR might be unassuming in size, but it’s built to take a beating thanks to its “road-worthy steel construction”. But its tour-friendly features have one more trick up its sleeve.

For those tired of facing different power requirements in each country they play, the SYN-20IR also has a voltage selector on its back panel. This eliminates the need to re-bias the amp or mess about with transformers.

“Why play one great amp, when with Synergy, I can play them all,” Vai said of his signature module.

"What Synergy is doing is pretty remarkable because they are taking the specs, in some cases the exact specs from these wonderful boutique amplifiers, taking the pre-amp section, which is really, the preamp section is where the sound is in your amplifier – all of the sound, the EQ, the resistors, the levels, the amount of distortion, the gain, this is all in the pre-amp section.

“It’s not modeling, it’s actually the authenticity of tubes.”

The SYN-20IR is available for $999.99, while preamp modules start from $399.99 apiece.

Head to Synergy Amps to learn more.

Last year, Joe Satriani assembled the original G3 trio and hit the road with Steve Vai and Eric Johnson for what turned out to be one of 2024’s most notable guitar tours.

The tour saw the three electric guitar greats reunite under the G3 banner almost three decades after Satch first initiated the long-running format back in 1996. As per tradition, each show saw the three players headline their own sets, before joining forces for a finale jam.

G3 2024 was recently delivered to the masses via the new G3 Reunion Live album, and to celebrate the highly anticipated record’s release, Guitar World has teamed up with Vai, Johnson and Satch for three personal lessons breaking down some of their favorite instrumental tracks.

While Johnson offers a whistle stop tour of the verse section of his Ah Via Musicom acoustic classic, Desert Rose – particularly the crucial muting technique he deploys – Vai serves up a bespoke insight into Avalancha, from his most recent studio record, Inviolate.

“I was looking for a song to open the show with,” Vai says of Avalancha’s origins. “This melody is like a Clarion Call of sorts. That’s what I was looking for.”

For his own lesson, Satch breaks out both his Ibanez JS1CR and Ibanez 12-string to walk through the micro-tonal hook, main melodies, and accompanying lead sections of Sahara.

“Playing the melody on top of that was the real challenge,” Satch says of the opening motif, before giving players a close-up look at the wild whammy bar techniques he uses to amp up the central lead line.

Head over to the Guitar World YouTube channel to watch all three lessons. G3 Reunion Live is out now via earMusic.