Steve Vai – or more accurately, Steve Vai's hands – are set to make a cameo in Studio 666, an upcoming feature-length comedy horror movie starring all six members of the Foo Fighters.
In a new series of tweets – which he posted after attending the film's premiere at the TCL Chinese Theatre in LA on February 16 – the electric guitar virtuoso shared the story behind his somewhat amputated role in the movie.
“Last night I attended the premiere screening of the new [Foo Fighters] movie Studio 666,” he writes. “What a hoot! The movie is just off the charts gory and funny. Our favorite Foos are cast in a haunted house where Dave [Grohl] becomes possessed and starts doing strange things.”
He continues: “There's this one scene where Dave is trying to explain to the band what he wanted them to play, but he is half out of his mind and starts wailing wildly. Dave doesn't actually shred as a guitar player, and I actually live a three-minute walk from where they were filming.
“So Dave called me and asked if they could shoot my hands and shredding for the scene. It was a glorious blast of demonic shred pleasure and when I saw it in the theater, I had to throw my head back and laugh out loud.”
He concludes: “It was really great to hang with the Foos that day. With BJ McDonnell as director and a host of other fine folks, The Foos made a fantastic movie that their fans are going to ‘eat up raw’.”
Vai's cameo in Studio 666 isn't the first time he's lent his guitar playing skills to the big screen. Among a string of other credits, he was perhaps most famously cast to play the role of Jack Butler – a metal-blues guitarist who sold his soul for his musical ability – in the 1986 movie, Crossroads.
“I think people responded to Jack Butler because I was projecting so much insensity into the character,” Vai explained in a 2004 interview with Guitar World. “Kids respond to that kind of thing... I believe the music in Crossroads and the whole idea of the duel was energetic and well laid out, and kids respond to that too.”
Studio 666 sees the Foo Fighters setting up to record their 10th album in a dilapidated mansion in Encino, LA, only to find supernatural forces threatening “both the completion of the album and the lives of the band”.
Earlier this month, in conversation with Howard Stern, Grohl revealed that his character finds a creepy basement, and that's when things go awry. “I go into the basement,” he said, “and I find this tape by a band [Dream Widow] from 25 years ago that [was] recorded there. And there's this song that, if recorded and completed, the fucking demon in the house is unleashed, and then all hell breaks loose.”
Last week, after sharing March of the Insane, the first track from Dream Widow, Dave Grohl revealed that he has recorded an entire album's worth of metal music to coincide with the movie's release on February 25.
As he explains, in Studio 666, Dream Widow's singer “went insane, murdered his entire band over creative differences and then kills himself in the house”.
“It will be the lost album,” he says. “It'll be the album they were making before he fucking killed the entire band.” He adds: “I work fast, but fuck, this deadline is going to kill me. Yes, I'll get it out for the movie. By February 25, there will be a Dream Widow record.”
