

Overall, Vai had what he called a tight-knit typical Italian Catholic family unit. This would later give Vai plenty of reasons to stay away from booze and drugs as an adult. At that time, his father kicked the habit for good cold turkey. His father was a liquor salesman and a bartender and for a while, drifted into alcoholism until Steve was 12 years old.

He had a loving mom that gave him security and kindness and a father, who, by example, showed him the value of hard work and having a sense of humor.

One of five siblings, Steve Vai, was born on June 6, 1960, in the Long Island Hamlet of Carle Place. His name is Steven Siro Vai, and this is the history of his first 30 years.
Steve vai passion and warfare songbook pdf free movie#
He’s played with top-selling acts like David Lee Roth and Whitesnake, built his own guitar, made arguably the best solo guitar album ever, and stole an entire movie without saying a word. He’s one of the world’s greatest guitarists - lucky enough to have taken lessons from Joe Satriani at age 12 and gifted enough to play in Frank Zappa’s band by age 20. Brad Tolinski, Guitar World magazine editor “Steve Vai’s guitar wizardry is so profound that in earlier times he would have been burned as a witch.” Thanks to Ronald Cunsolo and Steve Vai for allowing me to share this incredible piece of Vai history. When he first got to California, he stayed with his cousin Stephani and Mark Horowitz for six weeks and then moved into his apartment at 1435 North Fairfax Street in Hollywood. In June of the same year, he would move to California to work and be closer to Frank Zappa. In 1980, Vai returned home after dropping out of Berklee College of Music. Ronald Cunsolo, in January of 1980, took six lessons from Vai and recently said, “those six lessons gave me the basics that I needed (along with several years of piano lessons) to enjoy a lifetime of playing music.” Backstory belowĭuring my research for the Steve Vai documentary, one of his former students reached out to me to let me know he still had his original guitar notebook that Vai had written in. You can download, for free, six lessons Vai gave to his former student Ronald Cunsolo. By the way, it’s really quite amusing how people are always moving from one company to the another so swiftly in the record industry.Do you wish you could have taken guitar lessons from Steve Vai in 1980? The A&R person is usually the liaison between the artist and the label, the one that works with the artist giving creative and and emotional support. A&R stands for, among other things, Artist Relations. The A&R guy assigned to me was Simon Potts. I called Capitol Records to tell them I was ready to turn in the record and finally get paid but the entire staff had turned around again and now Joe Smith was no longer the President. The record was finished between completing the guitar parts for the Whitesnake record and doing the Whitesnake tour.

I was reaching into that secret part of the brain that we all go to for inspiration, and was curious as to if I could make those visions an audible reality.Īfter parting ways with Roth, I was determined to finish this record. I enjoyed the music I was doing with Dave but he and I started moving in different directions and I felt like there was a larger, other world of music to explore. The concepts were bubbling over and driving me crazy. He rewrote the deal for a substantially better offer. He seemed very enthusiastic about getting a record from me but also understood the DLR situation. I went back to Capitol Records to inform them of the additional delay but by then their entire staff had changed and the President of Capitol was now Joe Smith. After many delays, I would sneak a few hours in here and there on the recording but I was losing focus so I shelved it and concentrated on the Roth band. I was thrilled at the idea of having a label push my record and I started to work on it, but shortly after that I joined the David Lee Roth band and the solo record was put on hold. Most of the record company was at the gig and after the show the President of the label, Don Grearson, asked me if I would like to make a solo record for Capitol. We were signed to Capitol Records at the time. Sketches and concepts for the overview started as early as 1982.Īs fate would have it, I was touring with Alcatrazz and we were doing this gig at the Country Club in Reseda, California. STEVE TALKS ABOUT THE ALBUM Notes: “Passion And Warfare” This album was summed up pretty well in Guitar Player magazine as “the mother load.” It took many years to make, considering that I started before even joining David Lee Roth.
