With a release date of March 2025, the Wire & Wood book is already shaping up to be the Holy Grail for Vai’s obsessive fans, as it details his collection in depth and will even come with an exclusive Ibanez guitar!
Many great guitarists have gone on to amass impressive collections of instruments, but few can boast of amassing guitars as diverse, visually striking, innovative, and wild as Long Island virtuoso Steve Vai. So it was fitting that his instruments would eventually be the subject of a coffee-table book, at a time when the practice was becoming increasingly common (we’ve seen similar books for Johnny Marr and James Hetfield, among others).
The publisher of fine rock photo books Rufus launched the project, and Michael Mesker threw himself headlong into the making for no less than five years. Mesker is the art director for Vai, as well as for the DiMarzio brand, and he took all the photos, collected the stories, and even tracked down the guitars that fill the pages of Wire & Wood. Collected, because he didn’t just document Vai’s collection today: he also went looking for many guitars that the musician had given away or sold, which was a real treasure hunt to find the most important pieces.
The result is a thousand-page book divided into two volumes in which we find no less than 100 guitars, each one more eccentric than the other. There is a standard edition (already expensive, but that’s the principle of this kind of project.), a Deluxe edition (with a box signed by Vai, 10 guitar prints and “case candy” chosen from objects that belonged to Vai such as picks and strings), and even an Ultra edition with… a guitar!
The guitar in question is the Ibanez Jem77WFP (for “White Floral Pattern”), a Jem made in the brand’s Japanese Custom Shop, and the first Jem made in Japan in 5 years. There will only be 15 copies. The first will go to Vai himself, who will play the guitar on his next tour, and the next 14 are for sale, each one baptized with a name by Vai himself who will sign the certificates of authenticity. The price is enough to make you sweat (23,205 euros, no less), but when you’re a fan, you don’t count! And fans who have no choice but to count will already be very well served with the standard edition.
More information on the Rufus Publications website.
