V.A.I. Prototype

[killerburst]

Tom,

Would you mind sharing the story behind this with us ?

http://www.vai.com/Machines/guitarpages/guitar070.html

Thanks,
Jon

[dpeterson]

I'd love to hear this story as well. I'll guess a little.... that Tom couldnt keep Steve burried in guitars, so he went with the 300lb gorilla which is Hoshino.

Dave

[killerburst]

Since we're guessing... it wasn't guitars Steve wanted to be buried with... Ibanez wrote Steve a check. As I said... guessing here.

[tom]

gather round the old tube and i'll try to remember the tale as best i can.
it would be 1987 i believe. i had been doing guitars for a friend, steve ripley. the ripley of kramer stereo guitar fame, and of the band the tractors. he also had a long history with leon russel and bob dylan. he was buddies with evh, ry cooder and many other big name la guys. he told me that vai was david lee roth's new guitar player, and was gonna be a hot guy, and he was looking for a guitar company. he had orchestrated the making of a duplicate red guitar for vai for the movie crossroads that he would through on the floor at the end of the famous guitar battle. he didn't want to wreck his red charvel. i helped with that project along with toru nitono, a fine local builder and repairer. vai came out to the shop and brought the guitars he was playing and we talked about what he liked and didn't like. we went forward and started a guitar. benny who worked with me then said he had a friend, kelly, who was an artist, who could come up with a cool graphic for the guitar. remember this was the 80's. he did, and we had benny's brother elwood silkscrean on the pattern(he did all our early t shirts too). i still have a duplicate of that body that was the test screening. an interesting rabit trail is that i had replaced the neck on evh's original guitar, and he and valerie came by the shop to pick it up and without any prompting, he saw the body and said "that looks like steve vai"! bizare. benny also came up with the Visual Assault Instrument lettering on the side of the headstock.
i called vai to tell him the guitar was ready. he offered to pay for materials or whatever, and i said i would be happy to give it to him if we were going to work together. i was this little unknown talking to a star, iwas in awe. he said he was not interested in the big companies that were courting him and he sounded sincere. he got the guitar and really liked it, and within days he signed a deal with ibanez. i was bummed, but they gave him more money than i'll ever see, so how can you blame him. i heard from a friend that worked with him that he used the guitar quite a bit in the studio, and even had corruthers who did a llot of the ibanez artist guitars, copy the neck. i never heard from him again.
years later i saw him back stage at the stones steel wheels tour, and like a stupid kid a went up to him and said hello and reminded him that i had made a guitar for him. he looked at me like i was from mars and kept walking. boy did i feel stupid.
so there you have it kids, or at least as much as i can remember.

[michaelomiya]

Originally posted by tom
gather round the old tube and i'll try to remember the tale as best i can.
it would be 1987 i believe. i had been doing guitars for a friend, steve ripley. the ripley of kramer stereo guitar fame, and of the band the tractors.

In 1982, I remember seeing this black Kramer Pacer w/ all of these knobs (like one for each string?). Later on, I had heard EVH used a Ripley on "Top Jimmy".

Originally posted by tom
an interesting rabit trail is that i had replaced the neck on evh's original guitar, and he and valerie came by the shop to pick it up and without any prompting, he saw the body and said "that looks like steve vai"! bizare.

WOW! Was this the time where Bruce also reset EVH's bridge on his 5150 Kramer?

Originally posted by tom
i never heard from him again.
years later i saw him back stage at the stones steel wheels tour, and like a stupid kid a went up to him and said hello and reminded him that i had made a guitar for him. he looked at me like i was from mars and kept walking. boy did i feel stupid.

tom, you'll always be "top shelf" in my book. For what it's worth, Vai's playing in the "Head Cutting Duel" sequence from the Crossroads was impressive. However, it was Ry Cooder's melody and arranging that was equally, if not more, impressive. Vai is talented. However, nothing says more about a person than someone who forgets to acknowledge those who helped to make them what they are today - be it teachers, mentors, or luthiers. It's always disappointing when "rock stars" ignore the people that put them where they are

[tom]

bruce wasn't aound then, i moved the bridge on ed's guitar, but it was before the 5150. it was the guitar used on the second record.
vai played both parts of the ending sequence.

[michaelomiya]

Originally posted by tom
bruce wasn't aound then, i moved the bridge on ed's guitar, but it was before the 5150. it was the guitar used on the second record.

WOW again. That's right, wasn't it the Lynn Ellsworth boogie body (frankenstrat - black and white, then red, black and white) with the quarter under the bridge?

Originally posted by tom
[Bvai played both parts of the ending sequence. [/B]

Either way, still no way to treat people. You're just being gracious.

[tom]

that was a charvel body, heavy ash, made from the tooling that dave schecter set up for wayne. had a quartr under the floyd, maybe to make it sit level. the bridge was a full quarter inch too far back, never could have intonated. i moved the bridge up to where it should have been, i left the quarter. we made a hocky stick neck for it. benny painted it to match the old one. when we put the guitar back together, i read the pickup to see what it was. it read open on an ohm meter. i about died, i thought i had broken the famous pickup. turns out it was fine, really weak, really bright. we took turns trying to sound like ed playing through my 410 bassman. we didn't get close.

[michaelomiya]

Originally posted by tom
that was a charvel body, heavy ash, made from the tooling that dave schecter set up for wayne. had a quartr under the floyd, maybe to make it sit level. the bridge was a full quarter inch too far back, never could have intonated. i moved the bridge up to where it should have been, i left the quarter. we made a hocky stick neck for it. benny painted it to match the old one. when we put the guitar back together, i read the pickup to see what it was. it read open on an ohm meter. i about died, i thought i had broken the famous pickup. turns out it was fine, really weak, really bright. we took turns trying to sound like ed playing through my 410 bassman. we didn't get close.

the stuff legends are made of!! or at least urban legends

[dpeterson]

awesome story.. you should write a book tom. I'd also like to see you do some kind of dvd like prs did, i found it very informative, and shocking at times (the bandsaw through the body part). It wouldnt be hard at all, or expensive.

Dave

[BrownDog]

Memories are a great treasure.

Tom - if I recall the "Roy lore - folk lore" correctly, when EVH came to pick up the guitar, he did so in his Lamborginni (or some other 2-seat high-end sprots car). But, with him and Valerie in a car of limited storage space, he found that there was no room for the guitar and case. He had to call and have a driver come out in a larger car to cart the guitar home. Or is this "Roy lore - folk lore?"

With tone and oneness, Mike.

[tom]

it was a countach(sp?) i believe it was yellow. val never got out. her brother i think was driving the mercedes behind them, they were on their way to santa barbara for a photo shoot.

[Scott Peterson]

Totally cool man. I love stories like this!

[John Price]

Tom, Thanks for sharing this info with us!

[pcbb]

very cool story tom.