Steve Vai had a unique style of playing. Steve Vai didn't sound like anyone else: Steve Vai sounded like Steve Vai.
I think people like Steve Vai are so boring.
I started playing guitar because of seeing Steve Vai.
I wanted to go to Berklee College of Music because that's where Steve Vai went - I was total tunnel vision.
When I first start writing a song, I usually write the title first, then the song, and I'll sing the song in my head and think of a visual of the song. If I can't think of a visual behind the song, I'll throw the song away.
If it was bi-polar disorder in '3,' I have delved into intuitions in 'Vai Raja Vai.'
I used to be totally into Steve Vai and Joe Satriani and other shredders, and I tried to emulate what they did and really grow as a guitarist.
'Vai Raja Vai' is a racy, out-and-out commercial entertainer. I had to step out of my comfort zone to make it.
I don't play a lot of instruments so when it comes to the song writing process I don't have a lot to do with that. A lot of times it's just acoustic guitar and a small riff that produces a song. Ultimately you want to write a song that people are going to enjoy and that you love to play, most importantly you have to write it for yourself first.
You couldn't make a Steve Vai. That's a one-in-a-billion type of personality that comes out together with an incredible talent facility. You grow it; you help them grow it. Hopefully, it matures, and they don't hit any roadblocks along the way.
The first line of the song is always the hardest thing to write. And then after that, the song should - unless it sucks - it should write itself.
There's so many players that I love and admire. Joe Satriani, Steve Vai, John Petrucci, Mike Landau, Robben Ford, Lee Ritenour, Jay Graydon, John Scofield, Warren Haynes - the list goes on and on.
To write a love song that might be able to make it on the radio, that is something that is terrifying to me. But I can definitely write a song about that chair over there. That I can do, but to sit and write a pop song out of the clear blue sky, that is very difficult and I admire the people that can do it.
I always try to write the best song I can in the moment, and those songs are often going to end up on Death Cab for Cutie records. I don't set out to write a solo song or write a band song. I just write, and where that songs ends up is kind of TBD.
When you sit down and write a song, you kind of have the idea for the song, and you sit there at the piano and you kinda just write it. And then of course later there's some dinking around with it and changing some stuff. But there's this thing that happens when the song first comes out, that sort of magic when it first comes out of the ether, and you can't even really explain where it comes from. That happens so much with music, and people understand that with music. But I really think that a lot of movie and TV should be the same way.
We're running in a primary election. What do you do? You go out and seek support. When you're getting support, that's good. When you're not getting support, that's bad.