Grab a friend to meet award-winning virtuoso guitarist, visionary composer, and consummate producer Steve Vai for lunch in Los Angeles. Plus receive an autographed Jem Jr Guitar.
At age 12, Vai started taking guitar lessons from Joe Satriani. At 18, he began his professional musical career transcribing for and then playing with, the legendary Frank Zappa. More than three decades, 15 million in album sales, and three GRAMMY Awards later, Vai has proven himself, in his own right, one of music's true originals. He is renowned for sculpting musical sound with infinite creativity and technical mastery. Vai’s work has been recognized with a long list of awards and honors, including over 15 from Guitar Player magazine alone. He was also voted the 10th “Greatest Guitarist” by Guitar World magazine and consistently lands among the best in various lists of the top guitarists of all time. The TEC Foundation honored him with the prestigious Les Paul Award, which salutes those who have set the highest standard of excellence in the creative application of technology. Past winners of the Les Paul Award include Paul McCartney, Neil Young, Herbie Hancock, Steely Dan, and Bob Clearmountain.
Vai has toured the world as a solo artist, as a member of G3, and with Frank Zappa, David Lee Roth (just after Roth left Van Halen), Alcatrazz, and Whitesnake—at the peak of its popularity. Vai’s full discography encompasses more than 60 albums, including many with Zappa, others from stints with Roth and Whitesnake, as well as live releases, collaborations, compilations, and orchestral works. As an accomplished audio producer, Vai has written, produced, and engineered all of his solo albums, and released many via Favored Nations Entertainment, his own independent record label that has also released over 70 albums by legendary musicians such as Tommy Emmanuel, Steve Lukather, Eric Johnson, Billy Sheehan, Larry Carlton and many more. In the film realm, Vai has credits including Executive Producer for the acclaimed 2008 Hank Garland biopic Crazy, in which he also appears as Hank Williams. In the 1986 feature Crossroads, inspired by the legend of blues icon Robert Johnson, he appears as Jack Butler, "the devil's guitarist"-and collaborated with Ry Cooder on the music scenes.