Steve Vai recently appeared on Australian Music, where he discussed his career, gear, a couple of his records, and more. During the interview, he admitted that grunge could have destroyed him back at its peak.
During the heydays of grunge, Vai released his album ‘Sex & Religion,’ which received a lot of criticism causing him distress. In the recent interview, he talked about his latest album ‘Vai/Gash’ and speculated on how it would have been received if it had been released during the grunge era. The guitarist, also sharing the audience’s first impressions of ‘Sex & Religion,’ said:
“Can you imagine if I released the [Vai/Gash] record back then? I would have been buried. The ‘Sex & Religion’ record- the funniest thing about that record is it wasn’t well received when it came out. The press just destroyed me.”
He then shared what’s different than the earlier days of him. He said:
“Today, every time I talk to fans, they tell me their favorite record of mine. I see so many people. It was really different than what was going on at the time. A different set of teeth.”
As previously mentioned, Vai faced criticism after the release of ‘Sex & Religion’ due to the changing music scene and the rise of grunge at that time. During another interview, the guitarist reflected on this criticism. Despite receiving much acclaim for ‘Passion and Warfare,’ his following album did not receive as much praise. Vai said the following:
“Grunge came along, and I released ‘Sex and Religion.’ I would bet anybody $1 that they cannot find more negative, vicious criticism written about a guitar player in a three-year period than about me because the fashionable thing at the time was to attack anybody that knew how to play an instrument. And I was that flashy guy, so I was a great object of attack, and boy was I attacked, especially with ‘Sex and Religion’ because it was a totally different kind of a record.”
He also added he didn’t deal with the criticism well, and there was a lot of suffering for him.
See the latest interview below.