Steve Vai recently sat down with Chanan Hanspal and recalled working with Frank Zappa. The guitarist spoke at length about Zappa’s 1985 song ‘Alien Orifice’ from the album ‘Frank Zappa Meets the Mothers of Prevention,’ which he had ‘nightmares’ about.
The guitarist shared that ‘Alien Orifice’ wasn’t a track that you learned once and that was it, it was very compositional. Steve shared that he had to practice every day just in case Zappa decided to add it into the setlist. He recalled:
“It [‘Alien Orifice’] got rehearsed, it became part of the setlist, and he could call on it any time. That was one of the ones that you just never know — days could go by, maybe a week before it was put into the setlist again, but I had to play it every day. For me on the guitar, it’s not like, ‘Hey, do you remember ‘Alien Orifice’? Let’s play that!’ Yeah, no, thanks.”
Vai said Frank was known to change the set list just minutes before they were about to go on stage. The rocker revealed that ‘Alien Orifice’ was a track he didn’t want to see on the list. He added:
“That’s [‘Alien Orifice’ included in the setlist] actually a recurring nightmare that I’ve had for decades. It’s one of these funny situations where I find myself walking onto Frank’s stage, and there’s like ‘Alien Orifice,’ ‘The Black Page,’ ‘Moggio.’ And I’m, ‘Frank, it was 45 years ago, I don’t remember it.’ And he’s like, ‘Well, you got to play it,’ and then he starts, and then I wake up. [Laughs]”
Steve also told Hanspal in another interview that when he toured with Frank Zappa’s live band in the early 1980s, due to the busy schedule, he tried to learn some of the parts in his sleep. He explained:
“There are certain techniques I used to try to memorize the melodies because there was so much. One thing I used to do is kind of like sight-reading. I tried to get to the point where I could sight-read it slowly. Then I’d record it, and then I put on headphones and go to sleep.”
The rocker shared how he tried to get the melodies to settle in his subconscious by adding:
“I have a timer on the cassette to turn on in the middle of the night and play these melodies over and over in my head while I was sleeping. Because I figured well, ‘Maybe that’ll reach my subconscious.'”
You can watch Steve Vai’s interview with Chanan Hanspal and listen to ‘Alien Orifice’ below.
