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I designed a guitar for Ibanez and then they started manufacturing it - it's called the Jem - it's 26 years old and I still play it. As a kid I liked Les Pauls and Strats, but they had limitations for the kind of playing I wanted to do.

Steve Vai

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Steve Vai
Age: 64
Born: 1960
Born: June 6
Actor
Composer
Guitarist
Musician
Record Producer
Songwriter
Carle Place
New York
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Liked
Play
Guitar
Kind
Playing
Years
Started
Jem
Called
Manufacturing
Kids
Limitations
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Designed
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When Frank Zappa would get an idea for a song, he just did it. He didn't wait for anybody or expect anyone to do it.
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The cool thing about playing is that the more you do it, the better you get.
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I loved the idea of recording. The idea of sound-on-sound-recording captured me as a young kid, and once I realized what it was I had an epiphany. Before I was even playing the guitar, I would create these lists of how I would record things and overdub them, like Led Zeppelin song, 'I could put this guitar on this track...' and so on.
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What I look for in music is artistry, sincerity, and simplicity, and Tom Waits has all of that. I want to make a connection to the creator.
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That's the thing about great artists: They find the thing that's most obvious to themselves, what's most conscious and natural, and they put it out there and the audience comes.
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When I was growing up, the blues did seem too simple to me. I was just a muso.
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Ray and I do not draw salaries. Any profits will be re-invested into marketing the music we believe in.
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I awake, I meditate, get the kids off to school, go to the gym, go to the Favored Nations office, and usually at around 1 pm I'm home and do music the rest of the day.
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A good solo is like a book. It will start out in a phrase, it will go on in paragraphs, and then it will have a great ending.
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I knew that I was going to have a life as a musician, because I always felt the pull. I don't remember ever having to make a choice.
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I wanted to be a composer before anything else. And my sister was listening to Led Zeppelin in the other room! When I heard that, it was a game-changer.
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As a musician, I look for certain things that stimulate me. And what I look for is something that's an evolution on a particular genre that I never heard before.
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Reps once took chances on art, History's most treasured musicians were believed in and cultivated to reach their potential. Today, it would be difficult for those musicians to get deals.
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I loved the guitar, and I had all of this music in my head. My passion for the guitar and the ideas for what I could create musically were equal. So that's where I was.
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So that's the challenge for me and that has always been the challenge - finding that melody, that riff, that thing that just lights me up and makes me feel like it's Christmas.
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You know, there's times when you should play and there's times when you gotta hold back.
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I'm a big fan of cultural music, and that's how I try to expand my playing, by listening to music that is not conventionally American.
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Find what you're best at and exaggerate it.
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