"Speed," Steve Vai's third VaiTunes is now available for download.
Tuesday, June 29, 2010 | By Anonymous
Release Date: June 11, 2010
Written, Produced, Engineered by Steve Vai
Song Juice:
I had just finished the Sex and Religion tour and was considering my next record. I always get ideas when I go running so I headed for the Hollywood Hills and sure enough I was flooded with inspiration.
At that time I had already started the planning stages for what was to become Fire Garden but I knew it was going to be a huge undertaking and I was pining for a simple project that had some stripped down, kick-ass guitar tracks.
During that run in the hills I decided I would record an instrumental trio EP and while I was running I came up with the idea for one of the first songs, which later turned out to be “Kill The Guy With the Ball”. I started working on the track the moment I returned to the studio from the run in the hills. The song was broken down into three parts. The first part ended up being a piece called “Speed”, the second part “Kill the Guy With the Ball” and the third part “The God Eaters”.
I decided not to release “Speed” and eventually sent this track to the late Munetaka Higuchi, who was the drummer for the Japanese metal band Loudness. Although Deen Castronovo was the original drummer on this track, Munetaka re-did the drums with Dream Castle – for the album Free World [1997].
When I was looking for tracks to fill Archives Vol. 3, I took the original version of “Speed” with Deen on drums, spiffed up the guitar track and released it under the name “Speeding.”
In the winter of 2010 I received a license request from Guitar Hero for this track. As much of a documentarian and audio pack rat that I am, we could not find the completed multi track masters for this track. I believe I may have inadvertently sent them to Sony with the other Alien Love Secrets masters. I had to actually re-record the guitars because all we could find was the drums and some rhythm tracks. I changed the form a bit and here it is, relatively similar to the version that came out on Archives Vol. 3, but different enough.
This song is about traveling so fast that it feels as though your lips are being peeled back around the top of your head. Just like in this picture here.
I had just finished the Sex and Religion tour and was considering my next record. I always get ideas when I go running so I headed for the Hollywood Hills and sure enough I was flooded with inspiration.
At that time I had already started the planning stages for what was to become Fire Garden but I knew it was going to be a huge undertaking and I was pining for a simple project that had some stripped down, kick-ass guitar tracks.
During that run in the hills I decided I would record an instrumental trio EP and while I was running I came up with the idea for one of the first songs, which later turned out to be “Kill The Guy With the Ball”. I started working on the track the moment I returned to the studio from the run in the hills. The song was broken down into three parts. The first part ended up being a piece called “Speed”, the second part “Kill the Guy With the Ball” and the third part “The God Eaters”.
I decided not to release “Speed” and eventually sent this track to the late Munetaka Higuchi, who was the drummer for the Japanese metal band Loudness. Although Deen Castronovo was the original drummer on this track, Munetaka re-did the drums with Dream Castle – for the album Free World [1997].
When I was looking for tracks to fill Archives Vol. 3, I took the original version of “Speed” with Deen on drums, spiffed up the guitar track and released it under the name “Speeding.”
In the winter of 2010 I received a license request from Guitar Hero for this track. As much of a documentarian and audio pack rat that I am, we could not find the completed multi track masters for this track. I believe I may have inadvertently sent them to Sony with the other Alien Love Secrets masters. I had to actually re-record the guitars because all we could find was the drums and some rhythm tracks. I changed the form a bit and here it is, relatively similar to the version that came out on Archives Vol. 3, but different enough.
This song is about traveling so fast that it feels as though your lips are being peeled back around the top of your head. Just like in this picture here.
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