
Steve Vai and Favored Nations / Mascot Label Group have announced his new studio album titled Inviolate will be released digitally and on CD January 28, 2022.
The LP will follow on March 18. Today, they present the song “Little Pretty” which can be previewed below. The recording is a dark-toned fusion-funk workout played almost exclusively on a Gretsch hollow body guitar. As for what led Vai to the unusual (at least for him) model, he says, “It’s on the wall with all the other guitars, and I’d always just look at it and go, ‘One day I’m going to play you…’” He continues, “In writing the chord changes for the solo section, and the solo itself, I dug deep into my academic music theory mind to create a set of chord changes where the harmonic atmosphere shifted on every change. The dense chord structures required a series of synthetic modes to navigate. This approach is along the lines of jazz and fusion players, but I knew I did not want it to sound anything like that and the solo had to be totally melodic. The results were pretty powerful in that the entire solo section evokes melodic atmospheric changes that shift dramatically but work together well.”
Over the course of a more than 40-year career, Steve Vai has routinely transformed what would appear to be outrageously impossible into something very, very possible… and still also pretty outrageous. From his days as Frank Zappa’s “stunt guitar” player to his more recent expansive and exploratory solo work, Vai has continually challenged notions of traditional guitar playing and composition – and on more than one occasion even reimagined the very instrument itself.
Steve Vai - Little Pretty (Official Visualizer)
Which, he’ll admit, is not necessarily his intention. “I don't sit around and say, ‘Okay, what can I do now that pushes the boundaries?” Vai explains about his approach to the guitar. “What I do say to myself is, ‘Okay, Vai – what are you going to do now that's going to interest you, that’s going to fascinate you, and that’s different than anything you've done before?” The answer to that question comes in the form of Vai’s newest and 10th solo album, Inviolate, a nine-song opus that (sorry Steve) does indeed push the boundaries of instrumental guitar music – this time out, Vai quite literally invented not just a new guitar, but also a new guitar-playing technique.
At the same time, Inviolate presents his most focused, streamlined and perhaps invigorating music in years. “It’s very ‘Vai,’ whatever that means,” he says, and then laughs. “Someone else might be better than me at explaining what that is. But it’s just very honest music. Because a lot of my records, they're long and there's a lot of concepts and playing around with stories. This one has none of that. This is nine pretty dense all-instrumental compositions that I wanted to capture and record so I could get out there and play them live for people.”
The album’s mesmeric opener, “Teeth of the Hydra,” a sinuous, Latin-fusion-tinged composition that Vai wrote and recorded with a one-of-a-kind custom guitar he coined the Hydra. But calling the Hydra a mere guitar is selling it way, way, way short. Built in conjunction with the designers at Hoshino and based on a “steampunk motif” idea of Vai’s, the Hydra is a beast of an instrument – a one-bodied, two-headstock-ed, three-neck-ed creature that encompasses, among other things: seven- and 12-string guitars; a four-string bass; sympathetic harp strings; half-fretless necks; single-coil, humbucking, piezo and sustainer pickups; floating and hardtail tremolo bridges; phase splitters; and much, much more. “It's an incredibly-built machine,” Vai says. “I told the guys at Hoshino, ‘Anything that you think is conventional, don't do that.’ This was an opportunity to exercise brutal creativity. And they went beyond.”
As did Vai in his performance. Throughout the track he employs the Hydra’s full range of tone and timbres to craft a guitar part that sounds, in its expansiveness and expressiveness, positively alive. “The interesting thing about the song and the guitar is that it all came at the same time,” Vai says. “It was one of those ‘inviolate’ inspirations – boom!”
That said, he continues, “I knew that I needed to create something with the Hydra that sounded like a real piece of music. It couldn’t be just a novelty. Because if you knew what my hands were doing, and how I'm using my left hand to create phrasings that work when I can't pick a note because my right hand is off somewhere else…my god. But the finished piece had to stand on its own. It couldn't sound like I was just trying to juggle stuff.”
Over the course of 2021, several of these compositions were shared publicly. Vai composed and recorded the song “Knappsack,” following his shoulder surgery, at a time when his right arm was in a sling (or, as his surgeon, Dr. Knapp, called it, a “knappsack”), and thus was able to use only his left hand when playing the piece. He released a one-handed performance video. He says with a laugh, “pretty soon after I started to see some clips of young kids pulling it off, too. It's really fascinating.”
Those kids will likely face a greater challenge attempting to take on another Inviolate track, “Candle Power.” For this one, Vai not only set up parameters outside of his comfort zone (Strat-style guitar; clean tone; no whammy bar; no pick), but also – why not? – developed an entirely new guitar technique that he calls “joint shifting.” The core concept there, he explains, is to enact simultaneous multiple string bends in opposite directions, which “requires bending only the top joint of the finger independently from any other finger.” And while he acknowledges that bending multiple strings is not a new concept in and of itself, “I had not seen any of it done in the way I envisioned it,” he says.
Steve Vai - "Knappsack"
Like “Knappsack,” Vai released “Candle Power” an accompanying performance video earlier in 2021. But he added a little something extra to the version that appears on Inviolate, with a newly recorded drum track from fellow Zappa alumnus Terry Bozzio (to that end, additional crack players who lent a hand to the record include bassists Bryan Beller, Philip Bynoe and Henrik Linder, keyboardist David Rosenthal and drummer Vinnie Colaiuta).
Steve Vai - "Candle Power"
Or cue up “Apollo in Color,” where Vai’s soaring runs on his Ibanez PIA signature guitar (the newly-designed model’s first appearance on a Vai studio album, it’s worth noting) are surrounded by filigrees of sound played on all manner of exotic stringed instruments. “I thought, ‘Okay, what can I do to color this thing up?’ Vai says. “So, I pulled out all these little acoustic instruments I've collected through the years and I said, ‘I'm going to use every one of them somehow.’” These included a cavaquinho, a saz, a sitar, an oud and more. “Some of the instruments, I don't even know their names,” Vai admits with a laugh.
In essence, it all comes down to finding your own voice, and then having the courage and conviction to follow your musical and creative instincts wherever they may take you – something Vai has never been shy about in his playing. “One of the great things about the guitar is you don't need to be a virtuoso to express your creative vision,” he says. “I mean, Bob Dylan plays the guitar perfectly well for his expression. So does John McLaughlin. You just need to decide how much technique you want or need to get there. For myself, I came out of the chute wanting and needing it all. When it comes to my music, I don’t feel like I have to prove anything or conform to anything. I just love to think up creative ideas, and then use whatever skill I have to manifest them.”
“An inviolate inspiration is one that comes to you completely pure,” Vai explains. “It appears almost in its completeness, and there’s a recognition of it as being right for you – perfectly right for you. There’s no excuses in it. There's no fantasy in it. There's just a recognition of ‘yes.’ And then you capture that in a way that’s authentic to your unique creativity. Hopefully, that’s what I’ve done with this record.”
Steve Vai will begin an extensive tour of the U.S., with 54 scheduled appearances on January 27, 2022 at the House of Blues in Las Vegas. For tickets and a variety of EVO Experience VIP bundles available visit https://www.vai.com. Vai will be joined by his long-tenured ensemble members Dave Weiner (guitar / keys), Philip Bynoe (bass), and Jeremy Colson (drums). Vai shares, “A performer thrives on performing. It’s been my life for the past 49 years, with the exception of the last two years, so we are chomping at the bit to get out there and play for people. A music concert has the ability to dissolve the many challenges we face, and celebrate one of the good things in life, live music.”
Tour Dates
- 1/27 Las Vegas, NV House Of Blues
- 1/28 El Cajon, CA The Magnolia
- 1/29 Riverside, CA Fox Performing Arts Center
- 1/30 Phoenix, AZ Celebrity Theatre
- 2/01 Salt Lake City, UT The Rockwell at The Complex
- 2/02 Boulder, CO Boulder Theater
- 2/04 Oklahoma City, OK Tower Theatre
- 2/05 Austin, TX Paramount Theatre
- 2/06 Dallas, TX House Of Blues
- 2/08 Houston, TX House Of Blues
- 2/09 San Antonio, TX The Aztec Theatre
- 2/11 Birmingham, AL Lyric Theatre
- 2/12 Macon, GA Hargray Capitol Theatre
- 2/14 Atlanta, GA The Eastern
- 2/15 Clearwater, FL Bilheimer Capitol Theatre
- 2/16 Orlando, FL The Plaza Live
- 2/17 Ft. Lauderdale, FL The Parker
- 2/18 Ponte Vedra Beach, FL Ponte Vedra Concert Hall
- 2/19 Charlotte, NC The Fillmore Charlotte
- 2/21 Charleston, SC Charleston Music Hall
- 2/22 Alexandria, VA The Birchmere
- 2/23 Glenside, PA Keswick Theatre
- 2/24 Red Bank, NJ Count Basie Theatre
- 2/25 Huntington, NY The Paramount
- 2/26 Port Chester, NY The Capitol Theatre
- 2/27 Providence, RI The Strand
- 3/01 New Haven, CT College Street Music Hall
- 3/02 Boston, MA The Wilbur
- 3/03 Albany, NY The Egg
- 3/04 Rochester, NY Kodak Center
- 3/05 Harrisburg, PA Sunoco Theatre
- 3/06 Greensburg, PA Palace Theatre
- 3/08 Warren, OH Packard Music Hall
- 3/09 Detroit, MI Masonic Cathedral Theatre
- 3/10 Morgantown, WV Metropolitan Theatre
- 3/11 Louisville, KY Old Forester's Paristown Hall
- 3/12 Nashville, TN CMA Theater
- 3/13 St. Louis, MO The Pageant
- 3/15 Chicago, IL Copernicus Center
- 3/16 Milwaukee, WI Pabst Theater
- 3/17 St. Paul, MN The Fitzgerald Theater
- 3/18 Kansas City, MO The Uptown Theater
- 3/19 Lincoln, NE Bourbon Theatre
- 3/20 Des Moines, IA Hoyt Sherman Place
- 3/22 Sioux Falls, SD The District
- 3/23 Fargo, ND Fargo Theatre
- 3/25 Billings, MT Alberta Bair Theater
- 3/26 Bozeman, MT The ELM
- 3/27 Missoula, MT The Wilma
- 3/28 Seattle, WA Moore Theatre
- 3/29 Portland, OR Roseland Theater
- 3/31 Turlock, CA Turlock Community Theatre
- 4/01 Napa, CA Uptown Theatre Napa
- 4/02 Los Angeles, CA The Theatre at Ace Hotel
- Rig Rundown - Steve Vai - Premier Guitar ›
- Steve Vai Releases Alien Guitar Secrets #9 and Launches Patreon ... ›
- 10 Things We Learned from Steve Vai - Premier Guitar ›
Roger Waters is set to release a Super Deluxe Boxset of The Dark Side Of The Moon Redux on March 14, 2025. The Boxset includes a live album from his sold-out London Palladium shows, gold vinyl, CD, Blu-ray, and a track-by-track video interview.
The Super Deluxe Boxset includes:
- The Dark Side Of The Moon Redux on gold vinyl (2LP), CD, Blu-ray: Dolby Atmos Mix, 96/24 Audio.
- The Dark Side Of The Moon Redux Live on gold vinyl, CD, Blu-Ray, 96/24 Audio
- Roger Waters Track by Track video interview on Blu-ray
- Four 4 x 10-inch Vinyl from the original Redux album cut at 45 RPM for: Money, Time, Speak To Me/Breathe and Us & Them, each with an artwork etched B-side.
- A 40 page Commemorative Book of Photographs from The Making of the Album, Rehearsals, and Roger Waters Redux Live at The London Palladium.
- Initial Boxset orders from the official store include a signed print by Roger Waters
Waters Quote:
“All that is gone, all that’s to come? Looking back or looking forward, Dark Side of the Moon offers you choice. The choice is yours. Darkness or the Light”.
Track listing:
The Dark Side Of The Moon Redux studio album and Roger Waters Live album:
“Speak to Me”
“Breathe”
“On the Run”
“Time”
“Great Gig in the Sky”
“Money“
“Us and Them”
“Any Colour You Like”
“Brain Damage”
“Eclipse”
The Dark Side Of The Moon Super Deluxe box set Redux credits include: Roger Waters: Vocals / Gus Seyffert: Bass, Synth, Backing Vocals / Joey Waronker: Drums, Percussion / Jonathan Wilson: Guitars, Synth / Johnny Shepherd: Organ, Vocals / Via Mardot: Theremin, Vocals / Azniv Korkejian: Vocals, Percussion / Jon Carin: Keyboards, Lap Steel, Synths, Organ, Vocals / Robert Walter: Piano, Harpsichord, Synths / Strings: Gabe Noel: String Arrangements: Gabe Noel
Recorded live at The London Palladium // Produced by Gus Seyffert and Roger Waters // Mixed by Sean Sullivan, Darrell Thorpe, Roger Waters and Gus Seyffert // Mastered by Dave Cooley, Elysian Masters // Art Direction and Design: Sean Evans // Photography: Kate Izor.
For more information, please visit rogerwaters.tmstor.es.
Roger Waters - THE DARK SIDE OF THE MOON REDUX SUPER DELUXE BOXSET - YouTube
Guest Picker - Ariel Posen
The past year was full of new sounds and discoveries. Ariel Posen and Jeremy Jacobs join the PGteam to highlight what popped out to them over the last 12 months.
Q: What was your biggest guitar discovery of 2024?
Guest Picker - Ariel Posen
A: Twenty-twenty-four was a year of discovery and re-discovery for me. I tend to come back to records and artists that I haven't listened to in a long time and get back into them with a new-found excitement. In regards to guitar discovery, at the end of 2023 I got into Paramore for the first time, specifically their last album, This is Why. I don't really listen to guitar music these days, but I'm always infatuated by the extreme detail of finely crafted guitar parts that help serve the song, and that album is full of that stuff. In terms of rediscovery, I spent a lot of time digging back into early George Harrison, Christopher Cross, and some specific Steely Dan records. Seems to be a theme there. I love all that stuff but haven't really given it time in a while; that changed this past year.
Obsession: Doechii. Watch her Tiny Desk video. She's incredible and the band is too. I get goosebumps every time I watch it, and I watch it once a day.
Reader of the Month - Jeremy Jacobs
A: I was turned on to Mk.Gee after seeing his performance on SNL and immediately fell in love with the vibe. I’m always trying to keep an ear to the ground for new, innovative guitar sounds, and his unique approach to creating guitar tones was really refreshing and inspiring. I love the blend of retro ’80s synth sounds and modern digital guitar production.
Obsession: Jim Lill’s video series on YouTube experimenting with guitar tone. He’s like the Mythbusters of the guitar community and it’s really shaking things up! He’s taking a very scientific deep dive into commonly held beliefs about what makes certain equipment “sound good” and has returned some truly shocking results. I’m thinking about guitar gear in a totally different way thanks to his work.
Managing Editor - Jason Shadrick
A: Big delays and reverbs finally got to me in 2024. Typically, I would favor a modest spring or room setting, but a few gigs this year pushed me into more ambient territory. It’s incredible how the sound of space affects your touch on the instrument. My playing has become more melodic and intentional—but I’m still not digging the shimmer vibe.
Obsession: Noel Johnston’s YouTube videos from his Creative Fundamentals class have been warping my brain. Fair warning: They do require a bit of theoretical knowledge to get the most out of them. However, his triad workouts are a great way to start to visualize different shapes all over the neck—no matter what key.
Assistant Editor - Luke Ottenhof
A: Last year, I discovered germanium. This isn’t strictly true; I’ve used germ pedals in the past, but I never connected with the transistors until I picked up the Death by Audio Germanium Filter. Now, all I want is sweet, gnarly, splatty germanium grossness on whatever I play. The problem is it doesn’t really fit with my band’s sound. I predict many arguments in 2025.
Obsession: Figuring out ways to make, share, and celebrate music outside of the too-powerful platforms that have monopolized our arts and culture. Thankfully, there are loads of people way smarter than me working with each other to build new networks and meanings for music, including some that would be musician-owned. The future is bright—if we want it!
Oni’s guitar duo cover 16 strings between them with a pair of Neural Quad Cortexes and some choice patches.
Jared Dines had been writing for Canadian metalcore outfit Oni—fronted by Jake Oni—for a few years before Jake invited Dines to join him onstage. Dines had just two days to learn the entire set before rehearsals began. But Eric Palmer can one-up him. He was teching for the band when Jake conscripted him—with just one day to pick up the set before a performance. Palmer rose to the occasion, and he and Dines have formed Oni’s two-guitar tornado for the past year.
Ahead of their gig at Nashville’s Brooklyn Bowl in December, Dines and Palmer walked PG’s Chris Kies through their spartan, one-guitar rigs—no backups, no mercy.
Brought to you by D’Addario.8 is Great
Eric Palmer is used to playing 7-string axes, so this limited-run 8-string Jackson Concept Series MDK8 HT8 MS Modern Dinky didn’t take long to get used to. The Korea-made flamethrower has a basswood body, a 3-piece maple/wenge/mapleneck, and a compound radius ebony fretboard (12" to 16"). It also boasts a dual scale length—25.5" to 27.5"—and is loaded with Fishman Fluence Modern pickups, which feature two voicings selected by a push-pull switch. Palmer had this one upgraded to a 5-way switch to access split-coil sounds, and he got rid of the tone knob. “All gas, no brakes,” as PG’s Perry Bean would say.
Petrucci Power
Jared Dines also needed an 8-string for Oni, so Ernie Ball sent him this Music Man Majesty 8, a John Petrucci signature model. It’s got Fishman’s Powerbridge piezo system, which sees action on the song “Control.” Dines attached his own string clamp behind the nut to halt noise.
Double Quads
Dines and Palmer both rely on Neural DSP Quad Cortexes on this Oni tour. Their units are mounted on Temple Audio pedalboards, and both guitarists use the Architecture: Gojira X patch for their heavy sounds, and a Roland Jazz Chorus sound for cleans. Both Dines and Palmer employ a MIDI switching system that they pulled from Aaron Marshall’s Rig Rundown, and run their signals from direct to front of house.
The author found this one-of-a-kind tremolo/vibrato/sound-altering modulation box at Quattro Music Company in Thomas, West Virginia.
Producer and roots-guitar veteran Michael Dinallo pens his unabashed love letter to tremolo, with fond recollections of vintage Fender and Gibson amps, Dunlop’s TS-1, and a one-of-a-kind mystery modulator.
Tremolo is my favorite effect to modulate a guitar’s sound (and I love vibrato, too). I love it so much that it’s part of the moniker of the production team I had with the late Ducky Carlisle—the Tremolo Twins—as well as our Trem-Tone Records label. You might recognize Ducky from his many engineering credits, including Buddy Guy, or our work together on albums like Stax veteran Eddie Floyd’s heralded Eddie Loves You So, from 2008.
For me, the golden period of tremolo was the early 1960s. The brown-panel Fender amps of that period have astounding harmonic tremolo, as do the Gibson amps from that period. I have a 1963 Gibson GA-5T Skylark that has a tremendous tremolo circuit. I used that amp for all the guitar parts I cut on my new album, The Night’s Last Dance,as well as all the records I’ve worked on over the last four years, either as producer or player. My favorite, though, is the 1963 2x10 Fender Super—also a brown-panel amp. It can be so soupy that, if multi-tracked, it can almost induce seasickness.
But there are so many choices and classic sounds. The Magnatone and Lonnie Mack jump to mind, or the use of a Leslie cabinet for guitar, which is another sound I love as both player and producer. Two of the most distinct and famous uses of tremolo, to my ears, are Link Wray’s “Rumble” and Reggie Young’s arpeggiating opening chord on “The Dark End of the Street” by James Carr. There is a shimmery quality to big chords drenched in a slow tremolo, especially if the part is doubled. From a production standpoint, it adds depth to a track, even if it’s mixed way in the back.
Let’s talk about doubling a tremolo part. Once in a while you can get lucky and have the amp cycle the wave at just the right time as you hit the record button. But most often not. Usually this is not a big deal and adds to the depth of the bed part being recorded. Sometimes, though, it has to be a tight double. That’s when I’ve spent much time guessing at the cycling and trying to hit it just right. It’s a blast when you do.
One of my favorite experiments with tremolo was setting up two amps—a brown-panel Fender Vibroverb and a brown-panel Fender Concert—in a V-shape. The amps were set to the same volume and approximately the same tone settings. Using a stereo mic in the middle of the V, we recorded it to one track. We had to keep tweaking the individual tremolo settings in an effort to not have them cancel each other out. But what a huge, lush sound!
“There is a shimmery quality to big chords drenched in slow tremolo, especially if the part is doubled.”
There are many tremolo pedals and recording plugins these days, and they’re all good, but nothing quite captures the sound of an internal tremolo circuit. You can avoid chasing their cycles, too, if a pedal has a tap-tempo function. But what fun is that?
The one tremolo pedal, for me, that comes the closest to an in-amp circuit is the now-vintage Dunlop TS-1. Thirty years ago, I needed a tremolo pedal for my road amp—at the time, a 1994 Fender tweed Blues DeVille. I found Dunlop’s big, honking purple metal box with “tremolo” written across the front in wavy yellow letters. You can get wide, sweeping tremolo or set it to a hard, choppy setting where the volume completely disappears. I’ve used both applications effectively. The hard trem is great for the last chord of a song, especially live, hitting like a boxer sparring with a weighted, hanging bag—especially if you’re diving into a psychedelic ending. And, of course, mixing in other modulation effects, such as flanging or phasing, adds another twist.
I found the most unique tremolo/vibrato/sound-altering modulation box I have at Quattro Music Company in Thomas, West Virginia. It’s not a pedal per se; it’s circuitry housed in a cigar box with so many knobs and switches and variations that I still have not exhausted all the possibilities. It’s a one-off. I was told it was the only tremolo box the inventor made. Combining it with a front-end boost and diming an amp produces otherworldly sounds. I’ve used it on a couple of recordings: “Never, No More (A Reckoning)” by Keith Sykes and me, and “Time Machine” by the Dinallos (where we were joined by Nashville’s famed singing siblings, the McCrary Sisters). With the latter, it’s most obvious as a tremolo device, and on the former it’s as a sound-altering gizmo that enhances the guitar leads.
Of all the toys in the arsenal that guitarists have, I’ve gotta say, long live tremolo!