When you’re a living guitar god who has proven his value to his endorsement company many times over by selling an incredible number of guitars and increasing the brand’s reach by a staggering amount, they’ll generally entertain whatever wacky idea you’ve got for a custom guitar. Steve Vai for sure has done this for Ibanez many times over, and so when he wanted to make a natural-finish version of his Jem, they sat down with master luthier Tak Hosono and really hashed it out.
The end result is Woody, a departure from Steve’s usual white Jems that has all kinds of mojo and panache. Oh, to have that kind of clout! I think most of us aspire to have that.
