“My guitar was slightly out.Steve Vai walked past and said,‘Your low E was four cents flat.’And he’d been in the green room!” Meet Derek Day, the swaggering virtuoso who went from busking on the streets to touring with his hero

Derek Day.

Derek Day can be forgiven for having swagger – that’ll happen when Steve Vai tags you as the next big thing. But if Day has a big head too, you’d never know it.

“Two record contracts back in 2021, Steve graciously called me to give me some advice,” Day tells Guitar World. “He said, ‘At the end of the day, you gotta sit your ass on one horse’ – amongst other really cool phrases!”