Picture 2 - body closeup
Picture 3 - original version
Picture 2 - body closeup
Picture 3 - original version
This Fender Stratocaster is Steve's first real electric guitar. Serial # S776154, bought for Steve when he was 15 from Matthew's Music at Roosevelt Field, Long Island.
"Visual Assault Instrument" - with Buzz Feiton Tuning system
Right before Vai signed with Ibanez (between the Eat Em & Smile and Skyscraper albums) Tom Anderson built Vai at least one guitar. Steve used it to record most of the solos for Skyscraper... read on. Rich writes in - I was talking w/ a customer service rep at Anderson about building me a custom guitar and asked about Vai's relationship w/ them. I was told Vai was the only person that was ever given a Tom Anderson guitar free of charge... Vai loved the guitar very much and used it on a lot of his early DLR music. The Anderson employee told me they were absolutely crushed when Vai announced the endorsement deal w/ Ibanez. From memory, the Anderson guitar they gave him was also green w/ maple neck. He also said they could build the exact guitar they gave to Steve Vai. I suspect it'll probably be very close to his Green-meanie charvel as far as neck radius/scale/depth/fretwire, etc. and body tone.
For most of the album [Sykscraper] i used the Ibanez JEM 777, but when I did the demos, I didn't have the JEM guitars. The solos that were flown onto the master tape were done with a Tom Anderson guitar. Tom is a real fine custom guitar builder in Los Angeles, and he built me a great one. It's sort of like the JEM guitars, but not quite. I used it a little bit on the road last year, but it was too bottom-endy - a little to much for playing live. (GP 5/88)
According to www.vai.com this is the first hand carved guitar ever made by by McSwain Guitars.
Pictured here is Vai's Jerry Jones Electric Sitar, Serial #1088. A similar one is played by Mike Keneally live at G3 during "For the Love of God".
