Chris explains himself:

Firstly I have been a music journalist for a number of years and have had hundreds of articles published in Australia, therefore I know everything, Not!

Music journalists are usually less than great at writing words, and even less great at playing a musical instrument.

Not so of the journalists that have interviewed Steve Vai over the years, the quotes in this web page have been culled from the pages of Guitar Player and Guitar World unless otherwise noted.

The fact is that popular musicians are interviewed so often as to make them almost pointless, in my opinion. A typical schedule for an artist on press days is often 12 or more interviews a day for up to three days running. Which as you can imagine fries their brain somewhat and contributes to the general vagueness that can be found in most magazines.

Not every musical artist has something to say in an interview, Ben Harper personally told me that he plays music and nothing else is important, to paraphrase him, and he is one brilliant musician.
Why do people want more?? I don't really know.
David Bowie has said the same thing in all his interviews over the years disguised 100 different ways and dressed up for that days purpose - "I am an artist."

Anyway the point of this is that I thought Steve Vai had a lot to say about the guitar and music and I have pulled quotes from sources that defy my above statements, and hopefully in jamming them all together have constructed something useful, and public for review purposes only.
Plus, I really wanted to do this for my own sake, as a mini thesis after many years of researching Vai's playing.
And that said, I learnt more about Steve's playing from watching the G3 video than from any article, except the 10 hr guitar workout which Steve really presented whole to the magazine.

In closing I would like to paraphrase Dave Navarro from Janes Addiction and the Red Hot Chili Peppers when he said; "I didn't learn anything from reading guitar magazines, I got everything I know from sitting down and practicing."

If you have any comments feel free to contact me at: chrisjmcmahon@ozemail.com.au