Steve Vai

Zappa collaborator, heavy metal hired gun, experimental guitar virtuoso—no one else has a résumé like Steve Vai’s. Born in New York in 1960, Vai learned guitar as a teenager from Joe Satriani, transcribed Frank Zappa’s complex songs during his time at the Berklee School of Music, and wound up touring and recording with the famously out-there bandleader, to whom Vai mailed his work. Vai’s solo work is highly experimental itself—his 1984 solo debut Flex-Able covers frenetic sci-fi (“Little Green Men”) and swaggering guitar fireworks (“The Attitude Song”)—while 1990’s instrumental, dream-inspired Passion and Warfare does heavy and unsettling (“Erotic Nightmares”) as well as psychedelic (“For the Love of God”). Vai’s rare skills have made for an astounding body of solo material, but they’ve also made him an in-demand session player and pop-metal ringer for groups like David Lee Roth’s band and Whitesnake (1989’s Slip of the Tongue). He crafted some of his grandest compositions to date for 2022’s Inviolate, invoking none other than a Greek god for the booming “Zeus in Chains.”