Steve Vai

Steven Siro Vai was born June 6, 1960 at Nassau County Hospital in New York, the fourth of five children born to John and Theresa Vai. Growing up in Carle Place Long Island, NY, He was influenced at an early age by his sister's love of music. Steve started playing organ at age 6 and at 10 years old started playing accordion. When Steve was about 13 years old, he picked up a guitar, and wanted to learn how to play it. Knowing that he wanted to play guitar like Jimmy Page but not knowing how, Steve turned to local guitar hero Joe Satriani. Satriani was also young, only four years older than Steve, but he already had a local reputation as a great guitarist and Steve started taking guitar lessons from Joe at $5 each. In the beginning, Steve and another friend both took lessons from Joe at the same time so they could better afford it at $2.50 each. Steve continued to take lessons from Joe for about three years, and Joe Satriani was a very big influence on Steve Vai in the mid 70's. Steve played with several different bands during these years, including performances at Carle Place High School and with his bands "Circus" and "Rayge", and also teaching guitar to students of his own. In 1978, Steve packed up and left Long Island for Boston's Berklee School Of Music, where he would form the bands "Morning Thunder" with Randy Coven and "Axis Bold As Love" with Stu Hamm. He later met his future wife, Pia Maiocco. In 1984 Steve Vai made his solo debut with Flexi-Able, then joined the local metal band Alcatrazz. In 1986, he joined former Van Halen frontman David Lee Roth's backing band for the Eat 'Em and Smile album. After the recording of Roth's 1988 album Skycraper, Vai temporarily joined Whitesnake, filling in on guitar on their 1989 effort, Slip of the Tongue. Steve also stared in the movie, Crossroads, in 1987. He then returned to his solo career, recording 1990's Passion and Warfare. Several more all-instrumental solo albums followed and his most recent, 1996's Fire Garden, is the first to add vocals. Vai's latest project is G3, an album and series of tours with fellow guitar wizards Joe Satriani and Eric Johnson. At this moment he is currently on tour in Asia with Joe Satriani and Yngwie Malmsteen. I chose Steve Vai for my report because I think he is one of the best guitar players alive.