THIS IS WHAT HAPPENED WHEN STEVE VAI SHOWED ME HOW TO PLAY THE HYDRA!

[Music] wow and welcome to the harmony HUD oh my goodness look kind like a glorified Guitar Center in here this is insane well I used to have all my guitars uh in storage and I have a lot of guitars not not really because I collect them so much but because people give them to me and I also work with ianz for like 38 years now so we're always kind of coming up with prototypes and whatnot so I had them all in storage and whenever I needed a guitar I'd have to look to see what I had and then send somebody to go get it so I thought one day one day I am going to build a room and put all my guitars in it and that day came and so how many do you think you have in here oh geez I don't know maybe couple hundred yeah yeah okay so this this is this a this is a little guitar isn't it little guitar like the Eddie like the Van Halen little guitar of I think his is more like a less Paul okay but that's sort of like a little Strat of sorts and I had to work on it but you'd be surprised what a big sound this little guitar has when it's in tune that is so cute yeah and okay this I actually use cuz I compose and uh I tune it to a violin and then I you play it use it to write for violin because it's a little different than guitar okay so how many strings is that four four okay God that's interesting isn't it this was the one that came in the early 90s when it when we introduced the white yeah and I had a whole bunch to choose from and we were experimenting with pickups so I named the guitars after harleydavidson engines of course cuz you're a big bike fan yeah bike fan so like you know had the Flathead the pan head you know so I named this one Evo after the evolution engine and it was just one of those emotional connections you have with an instrument that I made at my main instrument and it pretty much been the you know the the the girlfriend the girlfriend the mistress can I have a little ho so this is the monkey grip that's the monkey grip yeah makes sense and especially when you know you watch you on stage and how you know if you like from those early days before you had the monkey grip how you were throwing that guitar around it makes sense why you would want that well oddly enough that's the reason why I put it in yeah so that was that the ham is cooking you know and so the seven string cuz that's an iconic one as well just because here that's the seven string okay was that the first one this was one uh it's one of my last seven strings from the White Snake period so that one you played on the white no oh yeah I was playing the gem and I had a conversation with ianz because I was considering what would it be like to have a seventh string yeah you know a low string you tune it down get that heavy kind of so I told make me AEM with seven strings and that's what I got and I started using it and it sort of uh you it served its purpose it gave the Whit snake record a totally different kind of a atmosphere completely you completely changed it and of course you know a whole new genre new metal as well yeah it kind of birth birth the whole sub genre yeah yeah that's absolutely CU all the the younger guys started playing it yeah like corn and stuff playing Fear Factory and all those guys and this i' I recognize this one this is one of your F that's my first real guitar I got my first guitar was a Tesco Del re $5 I was 12 yeah and it was my everything actually you know they you hear stories about how uh Young guitar players say well I slept with my guitar yeah every night and uh eventually I I I I got some sort of other guitars I got a univox last Paul but finally I always wanted a real Strat I could never afford it and one day I went up into my room and my mom had laced uh I think it was like $145 for a strat or $120 and it was and she had the money laced in the strings I'm like so I went and I bought that at Matthews music uh on Long Island and I use it all through High School through college through Zappa and recorded a lot of uh my first solo record flexible with it it's so great that you kept it like you didn't give it away and no that was one that uh didn't get away one of the few vintage guitars I have and it was the first one I bought the ones that I keep out here have significance for me this was given to me by my dear friend Joe Satriani he used it on tour you're guitar teacher my guitar teacher and then he blow torched it and then he he made this wonderful little dedication so when did he give you this then oh my gosh what year it was on my birthday probably five six years ago oh I love it and this one is uh has a little interesting story behind it my friend Joe despagne who was my best friend growing up he helped you develop the guitars didn't well he made these yeah yeah and he he he was a luier and he'd make these outrageous guitars that's the the flame guitar the lightning bolt and this is the Swiss cheese guitar tasty too and uh I had this in rehearsals with Dave Roth and this along with five of my four of my other guitars got stolen oh no and then 30 years later which was just this year somebody contacted us and they found it so what happened so they well there was a a kid uh that lived in Tiana in Mexico and he was I think he's 21 and he was up in his parents attic his and he found this guitar in a case untouched it's got the same strings well no I think we changed the strings but he found it and he's he's looking at what how did this get here how what is it and then he discovered and he contacted us so it must have been stolen and then sold at a swap meat or something and it made its way to Mexico and sat in somebody's attic for 30 years oh my goodness and now it's back wow and uh God I could just lose myself in for hours yeah this is a great seven string that I've used quite a bit it's called Bruno and this was a a swirl guitar that I took a blowtorch to and scraped well how do you come up with these designs the swirl pattern was something that existed yeah and that was something that my friend Joe despagne sort of evolved and then I just thought I love the way Wood looks when you put a blowtorch on it yeah so I thought ah see what happens you know and I I did that so much of the creativity is uh given by ivanz because they're a great company they have great uh very creative luers so they're very responsible for a lot of this and some of the guitars I I hand paint so this is like one that I oh this is you hand painted this yourself oh that's so pretty again very you with the whole nature and it's it's glorified doodling how did you get that on there well I asked them to send me bodies without the Finish yeah and then you pain so then I paint on them and then they put the finish on it it's difficult because I I like to use Sparkles and things like that so that it is a little precarious when they're shooting it they got to do a very careful job with it got a few Grammys up there so what was the first one the first one was for it was for the zap was it for Zappa sofa yes I think it was Zappa sofa was the first one this is your life isn't it you got your Grammys you've got the guitars where you've made all this mu Amazing Music what do you think well I feel very fortunate yeah because I have a space that I can decorate and make comfortable you know we like to uh allow our personalities to exfoliate into the environment so to speak and this is so much me I mean and my wife too because we uh you know we went downtown we picked all the Fabrics and I knew the kind of wood that we wanted to use and it's very acoustically sound you know and we've got the I've got mics in the ceiling it the room once you start you know playing it it really breathes nicely does it yeah you put a lot of compression on it and it's it sounds fantastic and this is your third Studio isn't it that's the thing you're a bit of a pro like people talk about you as a guitar player but actually you're you're an incredible producer you're a bit Jimmy pagee in that sense well I've always been fascinated with with the recording process and engineering and sort of even the audio science behind sounds and music and frequencies and Equalization and how to affect signals and you know it's like the stereo spectrum is like like your backyard you know it's like landscape it's got up and it's got down and it's got width and it's so uh it's creative and it's a it's a craft to be able to place instruments with their sound within stereo Spectrum to create the depth of a song yeah and and that Jimmy pagee was a master at that if you listen to like those Leed Zeppelin records he was um just genius at capturing atmospheres the drums I mean John bonum wouldn't have sounded as big as he did if hadn't been the way he miked all those drums and he always created space so that his guitars and if you listen the way they're they're placed the way they're layered it's it's miraculous you know so that was always interesting to me so besides playing and composing I knew that I wanted to be an engineer so I've always produced and engineered all my records I mix them I produce them the only thing I don't do is Master them yeah that's a different fish yeah yeah leave that to Bernie Grumman yeah I don't what is this mystical creature this is the Hydra I do this every night look at that yeah why did you call it the Hydra then it anything to do with the whole grief AB I'll tell you the whole story what happened was I wanted to create an instrument that could carry an entire piece of music so I needed a bass and seven string that's Ted down to drop a and the TW 12 string and it's got harp strings but it has all sorts of acuts it has a guitar synthesizer it has sample and hold it has pisos and sustainers and it has a Seducer a s a Seducer when you when you when you touch the Seducer it goes and then of course you need uh a climax regulator when you touch the Seducer and it took two years for the inspiration to come and it came in the form of a Mad Max movie you know that scene where they're going through the desert yeah and they're going through the desert and all of it but that guy's you know he's got that crazy guitar and he's blowing blowing flames and everything I said there it is there it is that's my guitar and originally the Hydra had these blowers on it that do smoke and stuff come on man yeah definitely look at you that's a good look for her don't you think does it work do I do I pull off Mad Max yeah well you you better pull off your E minor 9 to your F chord first oh sorry that's a bit of a d note go for it yeah I I can't play anything on here all there you doing at Ur an expert this isn't set this I've never played a 12 string you get to play a 12 string a seven string and a base at the same time yeah you got the harp notes what's there oh yeah where are they they're there and and this the Seducer right there how do I seduce oh that push that button already get ready to be seduced and then this is the uh the dragonizer okay where's that yeah hit that hey you got to have fun at my business oh my goodness well Steve thank you so much I've had the best time same here you are just the most amaz check out the full interview and a load more on Access TV [Music] oh

Channel: Kylie Olsson

Views: 244,009

Keywords: music, rock, metal, journalist, presenter, interviews, kylie olsson, steve vai, life in six strings, LISS, learn to play guitar, hydra, triple nice guitar, ibanez, fender, gibson

Id: CoWVMgSDk14

Length: 13min 5sec (785 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 05 2024