The Tapes Archive

Passion and Warfare:

Vai finished recording Slip of the Tongue in mid-1989, then turned his attention to the solo album he had been crafting on and off since 1982. Just as he had for Slip of the Tongue, Vai recorded most of the guitar parts for his upcoming solo album Passion and Warfare in his new Hollywood Hills studio “The Mothership.” Bits and pieces had been recorded five years prior at his previous studio Stucco Blue, but since, at the time, Roth had been against the idea of Steve releasing a solo album while in the DLR band, the album sat. (In 2016, The Mothership studio would sell to the rapper 2 Chainz for $2.5 million.)

Unlike Flex-Able, Vai now had a full-scale 24-track pro recording studio, seven more years of experience producing/recording/writing and playing the guitar, and the ego to not care if anyone would like or buy the album.

And on top of that, he had something that at the time no other guitarist had, his custom 7-string Ibanez Universe guitar, which helped give the album a unique heavy guitar tone. He also used his classic Green Meanie Charvel. (He would later give the Ibanez 7-string Universe guitar he used on the song “For the Love of God” to Prince.)

Passion and Warfare was mostly written around a series of dreams that Vai had when he was younger. Around the age of 12 in his own secret language, Steve started keeping dream journals. He experi­mented with making tapes and listening to them while he slept. Events started happening in his dream state — Steve described these events as “astral projections.” At 16 years old, he started trying to be more conscious during his dreams. He could see himself very vividly playing the guitar better than he knew he could in real life. Things made more sense in the dream state. The events that took place, the state of mind he was in, and the things that he felt are reflected on Passion and Warfare.

Vai said, “I took insights from these states of being and brought them into the audible world as songs, where each song had a specific concept related to this experience [the dreams] that took place. That’s the creative concept that I used to craft the melodic and harmonic atmospheres that made Passion and Warfare what it is.”

With the Whitesnake tour set to kick off in February 1990 and lasting most of the year, Vai only had a few months to wrap up the album.

So for the next five months, Steve worked feverishly to complete the record. The only people allowed in the studio were Vai, Stu Ham on bass, Chris Frasier and Tris Emboden on drums, Dave Rosenthal on keys, and his engineer intern Pascal Fillet. Pascal was a French exchange student studying engineering and was looking for an internship; he wrote to Vai, who eventually approved. Vai has commented on Fillet that “he was instrumental in helping get this record done on time.”

Sound Effects:

One thing Vai did that may seem like a time saver but instead actually took more time was the use of samples. Hundreds of audio samples are used on Passion and Warfare, from the obvious David Coverdale at the end of “Liberty” to samples only Vai himself knows where they came from. Vai was pushing the boundaries of a so-called guitar record with skilled playing and multi-layered production.

For instance, on “Liberty,” in addition to some horn and string samples, he also used AC/DC’s canons blasting from their song “For Those About to Rock.” But only after he tripled it and made it an octave lower. He had a slew of sound effects CDs, but none of them came close to the raw explosiveness of AC/DC’s gun blast.

On “The Audience is Listening,” he enlisted his favorite 8th-grade teacher and later very good friend Nancy Fagan. He had her improv into a recorder and used those bits in the song. Side note, she is not the same person in the music video. Vai did not want to subject her “to the type of crap you would have to go through to make a video.”

On “Ballerina 12/24,” Vai utilized an Italian interviewer who was interviewing him to say, “La ballerina si chiama la bella rosa.” Which reminded him of how his Grandma used to call him “my beautiful rose.” He also added his newly born son Julian’s debut vocal role by adding a sample of him.

For one of “The Riddle” samples, Steve may have used a sample that has never been used on any other album. Warning! This will be a bit gross so you may want to skip it…Here goes.. Back in his 4-track recorder days, he would record everything. He had a cat that was in heat and tearing up his furniture. He asked his vet what he should do. He said to relieve her with a thermometer. Steve could not do it, but one of his buddies did. This feline pleasure sample is on this track but backward and different speeds.

“The Riddle” also included samples from a reverend preaching that Steve had recorded off the radio when he was 15 years old. I think it’s fair to say Vai is a lifelong audio hoarder.

Ode to Frank Zappa:

His audio hoarder trait also applies to reusing melodies. The song “Answers” has a 7-note motif that was inspired by a riff that Frank Zappa had shown him years before but never used himself. Vai changed it slightly but kept the gist as an ode to Zappa.

Vai has used it on many songs, but it was first heard twice on the Flex-Able album. First on “Little Green Men” and then on “Junkie.” When he was with Alcatrazz, he added it to the intro of “Wire and Wood.” Vai said he likes the rhythmic tension of the melody and how it seems to push the songs forward. It also reminds him fondly of a specific time in his life with Frank, so why not reuse it?

Steve Vai the Producer:

When people talk about Passion and Warfare, it inevitably revolves around his unhuman-like guitar playing. But often missed is Vai’s sonically pleasing album production. You see this in his revolutionary use of the Eventide H3000 Harmonizer. Thanks to Vai, the H3000 was the first harmonizer with diatonic pitch change, along with other features Vai suggested.

Besides changing the guitar tone game with the H3000 and his 7-string Ibanez, Vai’s mastery in the studio also included well-developed listening abilities, deep musical knowledge, effective project management, and leadership skills. As a producer/engineer, Vai proved he is on par with the previous producers he had worked with, from Templeman to Zappa. The way the guitar cuts through your speakers yet never drowns out the pounding bass, punching drums, or Pia’s one chord on the song “Answers” is a tremendous feat of audio frequency balancing.

For the Love of God:

All of the songs on Passion and Warfare have a special connection and meaning to Vai. But one song was treated differently than all the rest. After recording and mixing all the other tracks, Vai turned his attention to “For the Love of God.” By the time he got to the song, it had been almost two weeks since he had touched a guitar. On top of that, he was in the middle of a ten-day fast and towards the end of a manic work schedule.

While taking a day or two to get his chops back, he realized his once thickly calloused fingertips were thin-skinned and out of shape. They were painful to touch, and he could see blood clots below the surface. “I was trying to push myself to the limit,” Vai said. “When it came time to record ‘For the Love of God,’ my fingers were totally gone. I needed to be in that state of mind to record this song, and I was in absolute pain because of my fingers.”

But his first attempt at the complex song was scrapped. He tried to do the song in parts to minimize the pain. But when he listened to it, he thought it sounded choppy. So he redid the whole piece in one take, turned the lights out, and left the studio. Later he said “When I was done, I said, ‘That’s it. That’s the best I can do.’”

When he completed the record, he still didn’t have a title and attempted to “put all of these thoughts and experiences into [an album title].” He believed the whole human race is very passionate about a similar, sin­gle goal, though most don’t realize what it is. But you’re constantly fighting with forces, certain entities that try to keep you from your goal, and that’s the warfare. He sat down and wrote the words “passion and warfare.”

The timing of the completion of Passion and Warfare and heading out for the Whitesnake tour happened on the same day. He even stopped at the mastering lab on his way to the airport. This would be Vai’s only second time in his recording career that he could create an album exactly how he saw fit without outside influences or commercial concerns. He wanted to make an intense musical statement. But first, he needed to change record labels.

Changing Record Labels:

Back in 1985, Vai had been given a solo record contract from Capitol Records. But once David Lee Roth came along, the album’s production was delayed. Now in late 1989, Vai wanted to submit his new solo record for release.

When he handed his album to Capitol records, many of the personnel at the label had changed and Steve found himself in an environment where he didn’t know anybody at the label. He was informed by Capitol records that upon listening to his new offering, they did not understand it at all, and had no idea how to sell it. They also told Steve they were not going to put anything into the marketing and were also going to cut his advance in half. Not being one to panic, this gave Vai an opportunity to get released from the deal with Capitol as they were in breach of the agreement.

Vai Said:
“I called Capitol Records to tell them I was ready to turn in the record and finally get paid, but the entire staff had turned around.

“My new A&R rep not only didn’t know I was signed to the label, but he didn’t even know who I was. He requested I send him a tape. Later we got a call from Business Affairs who said not only do they want to change the deal and give me only half of what the contract advance should have been, but they were just going to put this record out and not promote it.

“I was very confident in this record, and even though their offer was only half of my original deal, it was still a good chunk of change, but that wasn’t the point. The point was that I was a sensitive artist that felt like he had an important piece of work, even though the rest of the world would probably not care for it.

Vai sent the record to his old friend Cliff Cultreri (who took Flex-Able and sold it years before), and Cliff replied that Relativity Records would love to release it. Knowing that Cliff was a music lover and would do his best with this piece of his heart, Vai signed the deal.

The end result is an eclectic group of songs with a common thread of Vai imposing his guitar dominance. From the Van Halen-esque “The Audience Is Listening” — which Vai self-admits is “a piss-take on ‘Hot for Teacher’” — his tip of the hat to Hendrix with “Sisters” — to the accidental nod on the poppy “I’d Love To” from Jeff Beck’s Blow by Blow, this album has a range that most guitar albums fail to muster.

The album came out in May 1990 right in the middle of the Whitesnake tour. (As it turned out, Coverdale suggested Vai take center stage during the tour and play snippets from the album. Vai loved the idea of being able to introduce Whitesnake fans to his own work.)

Rock critic Hugh Fielder summed it up best: “Vai transforms what is essentially a heavy metal instrumental album into a sublime guitar extravaganza with some judicious shredding, well-constructed solos with copious amounts of effects, broken up by the occasional ballad that can stir the heart while eschewing the obvious clichés.

Vai summed up the Passion and Warfare album as “Jimi Hendrix meets Jesus Christ at a party that Ben Hur threw for Mel Blanc.” He sold close to a million and a half units. (It sold well everywhere, except Walmart which refused to sell the album due to its cover artwork.)

But even after Vai was done with Whitesnake, he did not tour for the record, partly because he wasn’t comfortable as a frontman at the time, and probably more so, because he had been touring for the previous four years and had a one-year-old son at home he wanted to spend time with.

One month after the release of Passion and Warfare, Steve Vai turned 30 years old. He had accomplished the impossible dream of so many 12-year-old kids who pick up the guitar and fantasize of one day being a rock guitar god. And for the most part, he did it on his own terms, backed with the dedication to put in the work ahead of the success and to never let up.

[Closing text]
“I believe that every single thing that has happened to me has been perfect in its own right, that every single thing has led to something even if it looked at the time like I was declining or losing status or whatever, it was still perfect.” — Steve Vai