A signed STEVE VAI signature Ibanez UV70PBIC guitar is now up for grabs through Sweet Relief Musicians Fund, a charity that provides financial assistance to all types of career musicians who are struggling to make ends meet while facing illness, disability, or age-related problems. The Charity Buzz auction ends Dec 11th, 2013. Go to this location to check it out.

Vai is featured in a new interview with You Hear This. An excerpt is available below:

Q: As a guitarist of your experience and skill level, you aren’t likely to be shown a new chord or scale that teaches you anything new. With that said, what are the challenges for you as a musician these days?

Vai: "As far as music theory goes, you can get pretty tapped out. You’re right – I love music theory and composition and I have studied it and studied it and studied it. It’s like learning a language but it’s just a language – it’s not the words themselves. You can learn English, but are you done writing all the poetry that can be written? No, you’re not. So that’s the challenge for me and that has always been the challenge – finding that melody, that riff, that thing that just lights me up and makes me feel like it’s Christmas. Music theory can be an aid or a hinderance. If you identify everything you do in music theory, then your music is going to sound very intellectual and theoretical. I like melody, I like stuff that picks my ears up and that will never stop happening."

Go to this location for the complete interview.

Vai recently released Life on the Road – Behind the Steve Vai Story Of Light Tour, filmed and edited by Chris Huber. Both parts are available below:

For Vai's complete tour schedule go to this location.