"The '80s saw electric guitars come in all different kinds of shapes and sizes," reports Greg Prato for Ultimate Guitar. "But certainly, one of the most over-the-top creations was Nitro guitarist Michael Angelo Batio's "quad guitar," which can be witnessed in all its awesome glory in the band's now-classic 'Freight Train' music video.

"In my 2017 book, Shredders: The Oral History Of Speed Guitar (And More), Batio was kind enough to discuss the guitar's creation in detail and which famous shredder inadvertently inspired its design."

Says Batio: "The quad guitar was actually something that I said as a joke. Here's what happened: I'm friends with Steve Vai now, but the 80s was very competitive. I had my double guitar. I was really known for it, but it was only in LA and through my instructional video. And again, in the 80s, I didn't know how many countries my videos got circulated in. They were everywhere. It's incredible.

"So I had my double guitar, I met Steve Vai at a studio when he was in David Lee Roth, I watched them rehearse. And what happened was literally days after I was talking to Vai, MTV debuts David Lee Roth [the 'Just Like Paradise' video], and here's Steve Vai with the heart guitar. I was in the band Nitro, and we were signed to Rhino/Warner Bros. So we had this billion-dollar company behind us.

"And the president of our label was pissed! And then Steve, at the time, kind of reluctantly gave me credit for it. He said, 'Well, I got the idea from Michael Angelo, but I didn't mean to take the wind out of his sails.' Our label was livid at him, because they felt like he stole my idea."

Read more at  Ultimate-Guitar.com.