Juggling vaginas

>> Guitalion stallion Steve Vai remembers the good ol' days

by ADAM GOLLNER

For those who used to rock, Steve Vai salutes you. Currently pushing the boundaries of adult contemporary guitar-based fantasy rock composition, Vai, progenitor of the seven-string Ibanez and former lick-meister with David Lee Roth and Whitesnake, has matured with age. Over the past decade, his musical (and sexual) horizons have broadened, allowing him to focus on what he does best: strokin' the fretboard. What with hair metal making a fist-pumping comeback (new albs out now or soon by GN'R, Ratt, Great White, Sebastien Bach, Dokken, Slash's Snakepit, etc.), Vai and his spectacular guitarzan axe-robatics are back in the limelight again.

Mirror: How's the tour going?

Steve Vai: Well, there's actually some women at the concerts, which is surprising.

M: That's fabulous!

SV: Yeah, fabulous.

M: How do these shows compare to being out there with Diamond Dave?

SV: That was a great time to tour, to be 26 and become famous overnight. Dave knew how to tour. We played arenas, had a huge light show. We're in the Guinness Book of World Records, actually. We had more [lighting] cans than any other show in history. We were young and naive and we were great musicians. Billy Sheehan and I, we were coined the "Power Twins." We played our instruments, man. We could wear funny clothes and do all sorts of wild things with our hair.

M: I bet you had a lot of women at those shows.

SV: Lemme tell you something. Back in the days, before AIDS and whatnot, it was pretty wild. I don't think this is an appropriate magazine to discuss that in...

M: Sure it is!

SV: It was wilder than you can probably imagine. I was in a band that used to rent out the entire floor of a hotel. Once, there were these two girls under the kitchenette who had slept there for two days dressed like maids because they snuck in and wanted to meet us. They were starving and smoking cigarettes (giggle). That night, there was this party and I saw one of the girls walking down the hallway--totally naked--on her hands, juggling champagne in her vagina.

M: Juggling?!?

SV: Yeah, trying to not let it spill.

M: Balancing?

SV: Yeah, I mean balancing. I can't tell you what happened after.

M: What is the sexiest thing a woman ever said about your guitar playing?

SV: It makes her want me to spank her bare ass really hard and not stop if she says "no" because it'll ruin it. But we're not horndogs now. This is just a Steve Vai concert, there aren't very many women at the concerts.

M: Did you used to be a horndog?

SV: What kind of impact will this have on the philosophical edge of our discussion? There've been women. The thing is, it's like a trap! There was a point where I wanted to have sex with everybody I looked at. I saw them as sexual tools. But now I'm a happily married, monogamous man.

M: Do people tell you that you look like Daniel Day Lewis?

SV: Yeah, actually, the director of Interview With a Vampire contacted me about being the Vampire LeStat, but it fell through. Most people tell me I look like Tommy Lee. My stock answer to that is that I got a bigger cock and better taste in women. :

Steve Vai plays with Michael Hartman at the Spectrum on Wednesday, November 17, 8:30pm, $19.50