From playing Van Halen with David Lee Roth to replicating Robert Fripp's prog wizardry in Beat, Steve Vai has often taken on demanding gigs. But his toughest tonal challenge came during his Whitesnake days.
Roth famously singled out former Frank Zappa guitarist Steve Vai to be the lead guitarist of his new solo project, believing he could outgun the one and only Eddie Van Halen. More recently, the physicality of Fripp's playing has been a huge undertaking for Vai.
In both cases, he pulled through – but to this day, the task of following in the footsteps of John Sykes in Whitesnake was a completely different challenge.
“I discovered that it would be harder to try to replicate his tone than anybody else,” Vai says in conversation with Eddie Trunk. “When he recorded those Whitesnake records, all the stars aligned for him. He really delivered, not only the writing and the construction of the parts, but the tone.”
Sykes, who also played on Thin Lizzy’s final album, Thunder and Lightning, passed away last year. He played on two Whitesnake albums, 1984's Slide It In, and their self-titled LP three years later. Vai took his place for Slip of the Tongue in 1989 as a new-look Whitesnake closed out the decade. Sykes was a tough act to follow.
“It was uber fat, you know?” Vai says of Sykes' guitar tone. “I tried to think of his harmonizer [pedal], and how it spread, because it didn't sound like [there was] a lot of doubling. But it was spot on; it seemed to cover a lot of audio real estate.”
Vai’s experiments and research led him to accept that this new-era Whitesnake was a very different proposition. So, instead of copying Sykes' tone and style verbatim, he had to get more creative.
“When it came time to play those classic John songs live, I would hit a preset, and it would widen up a bit,” Vai says. “But I’ve got to hand it to him. What he did on that [self-titled] record is stupendous. His tone, attitude, vibrato, the choice of notes, and the songs themselves; he delivered in a big way.”
Sykes, the man who once dived into a burning car to save his 1976 Les Paul, was one of rock’s most underrated players, with Guns N’ Roses among those paying tribute to him in the wake of his passing. Vai was also among his admirers.
In related news, Doug Aldrich has revealed the guitar he found best replicates Sykes’ tone, having played with the group in the early 2000s.
