Steve Vai: pyro music interveiw

Spiritech: How does it feel then when people tell you that you've inspired them to pick up a guitar for the first time?

Steve Vai: I mean, it's a great honour to be able to inspire somebody to pick up an instrument and play it. That's a thrill and every time somebody tells me that they started playing guitar because of me, it's a real honour, it's a real thrill. You know, for years I didn't believe it; I know it sounds weird but I never felt I was ever good enough. From the moment I picked up the guitar I always felt that I would be looking for new things to do and ways to improve 'till the day I die. And I still feel that way - there's this endless kind of a treasure playing the guitar, because I've never... I'm very satisfied with the way I play, I'm very happy and it fulfills me very deeply. But when I think about playing, I always feel there's something new to discover and there's something more interesting that I have to go and find. So as a result, I never really felt like I was there. I know it sounds odd. And when people would come up to me and say, "I really like your playing, you're really great", I used to always think, "well, first of all, if I can do it, anybody can do it!" (laughs) I've never had that kind of self-esteem where I thought that what I was doing was so elite or brilliant, I just thought, well, it's just the way I do it and if I can do it, anybody can do it. I felt that, they don't really know, they say that they think I'm good but they don't know how much better I feel like I need to get. And then you know, I don't know, 13 Grammy nominations (laughs), you pick your head up and you think, well wait a minute, not everybody is doing this and these people are really serious and this does mean something to them. Obviously I'm not a rock star or a big pop star, but there is an audience that like any other artist that I've found that finds my work vital to them and that's a responsibility too. It wasn't really until the last, maybe four or five years of my career that I actually realized that there are people who really do feel that your work is important.

Pyro Music full interview