STEVE VAI has issued the following update:

"One of my favorite experiences while on tour is when I first walk into soundcheck. We have a policy that by the time I get there the band has done their soundcheck and are ready to play. Before we do our final tweaks for the house sound and monitors, I walk in and my guitar is sitting on a stand plugged in and ready to go. I pick it up and just start playing and the band follows and we record whatever happens. I usually have no idea what’s going to come out. Sometimes it’s a mess but many times cool things happen. Usually these jams go on and on and on. Eh... they’re jams. After massive editing this one came in at around 7:18.

On this particular day I just started playing these chord changes and the band followed. It evolved a bit as we jammed and eventually the form of the song took shape. We try to do this at soundcheck before every show so you can imagine how many pieces there are lying on the 'Infinity Shelf'.

Sometimes it’s years before I get a chance to unearth these little jewels and when I hear them, I can’t even remember the jam itself. The track feels like an old friend I knew for a short period when I was younger. This friend brought something valuable into my life but was long forgotten until a photograph of him/her lit up a nostalgic glow within.

When I found this track I did just that: I lit up. I used the track for a while to jam to in the studio and decided to build a song out of it. I revived the song in the Harmony Hut in March 2010 by editing the track, writing lyrics and recording various sound FX.

I had given the song the tentative title of 'Flying Over The Stars' because of its subtle, racing undercurrent and the ethereal quality of the chord changes.

When it came time to do the solo I wanted to play things I had never played before so I really took my time and built this solo idea by idea. I set out making sure that virtually every riff had some kind of variation to what I might normally play. For instance, this is the first time I pulled and bent octaves with the whammy bar into workable and diatonic target notes, or used fast picking on the fret just above the notes being fretted. For me, discovering new riff concepts like this is what it’s all about. It’s the most fulfilling aspect of being a musician.

In all of this riffing, I would keep at the forefront in my mind the intimate feeling of the scene created by the story of the song. I would try to make sure that all of the final riffs sounded like enjoyable pieces of music in their own little worlds.

I find that if you get forensic with an idea you will uncover a world of uniqueness and then those ideas can be worked into your technique to be instinctual. When the execution of those new ideas is solid, they can be used as the foundation for other building blocks to be formed on top of them. And thus we expand the Universe.

When I was 20-21 years old I went through a very deep kind of depression. It was a dark night of the soul, so to speak. One of the great reliefs I would get would come to me in a particular type of dream that I would have perhaps once every 3-4 months or so.

Usually these dreams came when I was at the lowest point imaginable. I don’t put a lot of credibility in dreams. I don’t analyze them or try to figure out what they mean to me in my life. I see them as just mental entertainment while I sleep.

Although I always seem to have great dreams, this particular type of dream was a very vivid kind and would have in it grandiose scenes of crystal clear planetary closeness. It’s hard to explain obviously. The scenes were usually from Earth’s orbit and the stars and planets were very bright, colorful, huge, and close. Standing out in front of all of it was our moon. It was the closest and most vivid image. Every detail could be made out. It radiated an enormous vibration of well-being, goodness, and pure contentment.

When this moon was shining on me I was in a mental state of bliss, gratitude, and ecstasy. This pure state of euphoria would take away all mental angst. Elements of this feeling would stay with me for a few days and help to lift me out of the muck-and-mire I was in at the time. The lyrics are written about this moon."

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