“It was the most coveted guitar chair in rock. I adored Edward’s playing, so I understood that people would be skeptical”: How Steve Vai lived his ultimate guitar rockstar fantasy on David Lee Roth’s Eat ’Em and Smile

Steve Vai and David Lee Roth perform with Vai's love heart custom guitar.

Despite having served under Frank Zappa, releasing one non-genre-conforming solo record (1984’s Flex-Able) and scoring a key – and now legendary – role in Crossroads, which hit theaters in March 1986, Steve Vai was still relatively unknown in the land of regular humans. But after joining the solo band of former Van Halen frontman David Lee Roth, he’d become a household-ish name.

“At 26, I got to live the ultimate guitar rock-star fantasy,” Vai says. “I wish every rock guitarist could experience a piece of that, but it would need to be the ’80s when that type of thing was flourishing.”