Steve Vai has locked fretboards with a long line of elite electric guitar players over the years, be that through the various guest collaborations he’s participated in, the numerous G3 tours he’s helped head up, or the Generation Axe supergroup.
But one of the most challenging six-string adversaries he’s come across in all his years was Yngwie Malmsteen, with whom he formed Generation Axe back in 2016 – and ended up going toe-to-toe with him each night on tour for an epic guitar duel on Black Star.
Vai's epic guitar-off with Malmsteen was put to him by Corgan, who remembers seeing the pair share the stage in Dallas.
“I don’t remember the song you guys were playing, but you were out there with Yngwie and you guys were trading back and forth,” Corgan says. “And he played this one run… I can’t even describe it; it was probably the greatest 10 seconds of guitar playing I’ve ever seen in my life.
“He does his thing, and you’re supposed to go, and you literally went… ‘Okay, I’m done.’”
The exact moment that Corgan mentions can be found at the 4:10 mark in the video above, in which Vai can be seen laughing in disbelief at Yngwie’s guitar run.
When asked about ‘Vai versus Yngwie’, Vai recalls, “Yngwie is a special, special case. I loved the idea of being able to shred, as they say, and I honed that skill. But Yngwie, when he hit the scene, it was a different kind of a shred.
“He had a different kind of approach from the germination of his interest, and that was violin playing. His inner ear was hearing that kind of thing, which is, in a sense, not as guitaristic as somebody listening to Jimmy Page or that kind of thing.
“And when we get up on the stage together and we're trading like that, it's a great moment. Standing with another musician and actually trading licks like I do with all the G3, Generation Axe, all this kind of thing, it requires listening very intently and then responding in a way that you know is appropriate.
“With guys like Yngwie, you can't compete. If I'm with Joe Satriani or any of these guys, you can't compete with the best of them. They force you, if you're smart, to compete with the best of you.
“Like, I have to be more Steve Vai – that weird, quirky guy – than I have been before when you know somebody does something, that's the top of their game. So it's a wonderful opportunity.
“So when Yngwie does his monstrous thing, it's part of the show because it's fun. I can't, I don't do that.”
Elsewhere in his interview with Corgan, Vai recalled joining David Lee Roth’s band and spoke about what it was like to go up against Van Halen.
