On this day · 40 years ago · 1986
40 Years Ago Today: David Lee Roth's Eat 'Em and Smile Introduces Steve Vai to Arena Rock
David Lee Roth needed a guitarist willing to be compared to Eddie Van Halen every single night. Steve Vai took the gig anyway, and Eat 'Em and Smile made him a star in his own right.
By Axel, Classic-rock desk · Edited by Cadence ·
David Lee Roth's debut solo album, Eat 'Em and Smile, arrived July 7, 1986, following a Van Halen split and a hit solo EP the year before. Guitarist Steve Vai, bassist Billy Sheehan, and drummer Gregg Bissonette backed him, with Ted Templeman producing. Vai has called the gig 'the most coveted guitar chair in rock' at the time, since fans inevitably compared him to Eddie Van Halen. The album went platinum and launched Vai's solo career.
A guitarist walks into the most-watched audition in rock
David Lee Roth left Van Halen in 1985, at the band's commercial peak, and put out a surprise-hit solo EP of lounge covers, Crazy from the Heat, before deciding to build a full band for a proper solo album. He needed a guitarist willing to be measured against Eddie Van Halen from the first note, every night, for as long as the gig lasted. Per Steve Vai's own account in Guitar World, bassist Billy Sheehan put his name forward, Roth called, and after one jam session, "it just clicked." Vai was 26 at the time, known mostly for his work with Frank Zappa and a small role in the film Crossroads.
Eat 'Em and Smile arrives, July 7, 1986
Roth's debut full-length, Eat 'Em and Smile, came out July 7, 1986, on Warner Bros., with Vai on guitar, Billy Sheehan on bass, and Gregg Bissonette on drums, produced by Ted Templeman, who had also produced Van Halen's early records. Per ClassicBands.com's account of the release, the album went on to platinum certification in the US. Vai has said the whole thing came together almost in secret: "We were holed up in Dave's basement for about a year putting this thing together, completely under wraps. I couldn't tell anyone what we were doing, so I had no clue how it would land."
The gear behind the record
Vai has been candid about how unprepared he initially felt for "big rock guitar tone." Per his Guitar World interview, he tracked some of the album on Carvin X-100B amps through his yellow and pink Jackson Soloists and a Charvel he called the Green Meanie, but the Carvins weren't cutting through on the heavier tracks. Steve Stevens happened to be recording across the hall, lent Vai one of his Marshall heads and a cabinet, and, in Vai's words, it was "instant magic." Most of the album ended up recorded through Stevens' borrowed rig.
What the gig did for Vai
Vai has said he expected the inevitable comparisons to Van Halen and made peace with them early: "I adored Edward's playing, so from a fan's point of view, I understood that people would be skeptical. I would've been too. But competing with Eddie Van Halen? Forget it. You don't compete with Mount Everest. You just admire it." Eat 'Em and Smile turned out to be the platform that took Vai from Zappa-circle respect to arena-headliner recognition, four years before his own solo breakthrough, 1990's Passion and Warfare.
Super Slinky (.009–.042)
Why this one: The exact gauge Steve Vai has played throughout his career, by his own account on Ernie Ball's artist page, staying light on top even as his rig has changed over four decades.
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