Steve Vai ‘Won’t Be Able to Play for a While’ After Finger Surgery

Guitar great Steve Vai will be temporarily out of action after recently undergoing surgery to repair his trigger finger. The musician revealed that he currently recovering.

“I was doing this fun thing, and I had to put my thumb in this really weird position,” he told the Guitar Villains podcast (seen below). “I had to kind of hold this chord really for a long time — I was meditating on it. And I knew it was a hard position, and I just kept sitting there and playing it and playing and playing, and 20 minutes later, I’d kind of come out, and I [felt pain in my hand]. So I kind of sprained this.”

He continued, “Then, all of a sudden, I developed trigger finger… My wife said, ‘Don’t show anybody,’ ’cause they did that operation and they cut in there, and the guy’s fooling around with everything in there, and it’s really bizarre. But it’s all fine — it’s something very simple that they can fix. But I won’t be able to play for a while.”

The timing has worked out with performances mostly shut down during the pandemic. The guitarist revealed last month that he also had shoulder surgery prior to his trigger finger surgery. However, even with shows on hold, Vai has remained busy.

At present, he has an “acoustic vocal” record in the works, while also working on three instrumental releases, compiling a Generation Axe live album and adding to his Sound Theories orchestral series.