Steve Vai

"There’s a funny story here. When I was with Dave Roth he would always talk about Tom Waits in a very respectful way which was rare. I never heard Dave speak reverently about anybody and I didn’t even know who Tom Waits was. I had never come across his music. But all through the years, Dave would always say, ‘Yeah, like Tom Waits’ and I’d just say ‘Yeah, yeah!’ And then I was on tour with Whitesnake and there was this band opening up called Bad English whose singer was a guy called John Waite and I thought “Wow, this was what Dave was talking about? Hmm, it’s kind of strange because it’s not the kind of singer that Dave would be reverent about.” And then I realized I had the wrong guy… So I went to the store and bought about twenty Tom Waits albums and (one of them was Mule Variations), and I remember that I was listening to all these records, getting three tracks in and literally throwing them away. Then I put Mule Variations on and stopped dead in my tracks. It completely leveled me and I can say – out of everybody I’ve talked about – Tom Waits is my favorite artist now. I completely resonate deeply with his music, his voice and his lyrics; I buy everything he ever does. He’s one of those guys who are totally at one with the creative element with no excuses or concerns about what’s going on around him – totally uncompromising.A lot of people think they’re uncompromising, but they’re not…"

"I was always interested in classical music but not conventional classical. When I was in seventh grade I had a music theory teacher who was teaching me how to write music while playing me Mozart, Beethoven and Bach – the classic, romantic –styled composers and I got it. Actually, I didn’t get it. It was too simple, too predictable and I didn’t resonate with predictable music. What really pushed my buttons were things that were completely unpredictable, so when I went through college and finally heard Stravinsky, I thought he had dropped acid or something. This was a guy who for many years of life had composed relatively traditional music and then he wrote the ballets and they were monumental pieces of music for the Twentieth Century. They were pivotal pieces within a genre. Of course it’s impossible to mention Stravinsky without also mentioning some other composers like Varese, Ligeti and Berio who all really excited me. These guys all functioned on a different level, but Stravinsky…he had the biggest dick."

"I found Devin when he was around seventeen years old and I needed a singer for my band. So when I heard tapes of him singing I thought there was really something there but the music he was playing was bizarre; it was really heavy and industrial and I thought, “It’s really good but I’m not supposed to like this because I like this…” But when he was working with me the poor guy was stuck under my thumb because my music is not a democracy, it’s a dictatorship. I want things a certain way. Devin wasn’t writing at that time but when he went off and did his own thing and when he did… I’m going to use the ‘G’ word here… I think he’s a genius, I really do. He’s so passionate, so intense and – at times – so tormented, but there’s this redeeming quality of deep, deep beauty about everything he does. I think that in the future when people evolve, if they go back and actually listen to musicians of the past, when it comes to metal, he should be number one. There’s stuff in his catalogue that nobody else would have the balls to venture into."

"My brother had that record and it was one of the first I heard outside of what my parents were listening to and I just couldn’t believe how great it was. If you’ve ever listened to that record, every single song is a smash. It has groove, it has colour, it has melody and there’s so much dimension and depth to it. I don’t recall the last time I listened to it but after talking to you I might just go and do it..."