After earning his stripes in Frank Zappa's band in the late '70s, Steve Vai spent much of the following decade playing rockstar in David Lee Roth's band, and later in British rock staples Whitesnake.
Being a rockstar, though, comes with a bucketload of risks, and Vai has now regaled what he calls “The Tale of Two Davids” to highlight how he often put his body and pride on the line in the name of rock and roll.
“Throughout my teenage years, I was really into Led Zeppelin, Queen, Deep Purple. So I had the rock and roll thing in my soul,” he says of his stint in DLR’s band, which saw the singer trying to steal the limelight from Eddie Van Halen. “When Dave came along, it was an opportunity to stretch that muscle, and it resonated well.”
But, speaking to MusicRadar, the virtuoso has detailed the trials and tribulations that come with life on the road.
“One of the worst things that can happen to any guitar player is that your rig goes down and they don’t know what it is and can’t fix it right away,” he says.
“That’s only happened to me on a few occasions, but it’s never fun. I just leave the stage and say, ‘Sorry, something’s not working, I’ll be back when it’s fixed!’”
That feels like an easy solution – although someone should have suggested that to Richie Sambora when Bon Jovi opened for ZZ Top in 1983. But not all issues are as easy to navigate.
“There have been other challenges,” Vai continues. “Playing when it’s snowing is not fun, because you can’t move your hands.”
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Yet the Tale of the two Davids lingers most tellingly in his memory.
“One was with David Lee Roth. I was playing a big arena somewhere and people throw things occasionally,” he says. “When you see them coming — not a problem. You can play with it and dodge. You can even catch it.
“So I saw something coming at me and was about to catch it, then it blew up about six feet in front of me. There was a huge explosion and I went up in the air. I could see my feet and then I was totally out, unconscious on my back.
“I opened my eyes in front of 25,000 people and Dave was standing over me going, ‘Dude! Dude! You okay, man?’ And when I said I was okay, he told me not to get up.”
Joking that “Dave always knew how to keep things interesting,” the outlandish vocalist was quick to make the most of the opportunity.
“They carried me to the back [of the stage] and Dave said, ‘When you walk out there, act all fucked-up before throwing your hand up in the air!’
“Everyone in the audience was dying to see what happened. They were wondering if I was okay and if the show was going to carry on.
“So I did this funny walk, looking all messed up, and put my hand up. I gotta tell you, the place came apart and it was brilliant. And then we did ‘Jump!’”
In '89, Vai was chosen as Adrian Vandenberg's replacement in Whitesnake, arriving in time to lay down his guitar parts for the "Slip of the Tongue" LP. His spot in the band, however, meant he had to fill the sizable shoes of his predecessors, and following the late John Sykes was no easy feat.
“Whitesnake had gone through different permutations of guitar sounds throughout the years, [but] Sykes didn’t sound like any other previous Whitesnake guitarist,” he said of the challenge. “His thumbprint is an indelible part of the Whitesnake record he did. I knew I wasn’t going to sound like Sykes and I wasn’t going to try to.”
With recording in the can, he set out on the road with another David, this time Coverdale and the rest of Whitesnake, teeing up the second half of his tale.
“It wasn’t too different,” he says of the incident in question. “Fast forward a couple of years and I was playing Jones Beach Theater with Whitesnake, playing that big heart guitar [a garish triple-necked Ibanez] in the rain.
“I usually do pretty good footwork. I never go down. You get this foot radar, knowing where the pedals are so you can act like a rock star.”
That night, in the pouring rain, his radar couldn’t help him.
“I was backing up and knew the monitor was behind me, so I was moving to step over it, but I had these spurs on my boots,” he recollects.
“The spurs caught the monitor and again I was up in the air, staring at my feet and landing on my back, completely out. And this time I had this giant triple-necked heart-shaped guitar on top of me!”
Then history repeated itself.
“I opened my eyes and this time it was David Coverdale standing over me saying, ‘Steven, darling, are you okay? Are you alright?’ It’s funny what can happen to you on stage every now and then.”
His spell in Whitesnake was shortlived, and by 1990 he was focusing on a blossoming solo career, first releasing "Sex & Religion" with Devin Townsend and Terry Bozzio in 1993.
One year later he'd put his solo ventures on ice to help Ozzy Osbourne write and record "Ozzmosis", although Wylde would return to the fold to complete the album, and Vai would, for the most part, put band projects behind him until launching the Satch Vai Band last year.
Luckily, there are no Davids in his newly assembled outfit.
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