How MICHAEL ANGELO BATIO's Quad Guitar Came To Be, And What STEVE VAI Had To Do With It

"The '80s saw electric guitars come in all different kinds of shapes and sizes," reports Greg Prato for Ultimate Guitar. "But certainly, one of the most over-the-top creations was Nitro guitarist Michael Angelo Batio's "quad guitar," which can be witnessed in all its awesome glory in the band's now-classic 'Freight Train' music video.

"In my 2017 book, Shredders: The Oral History Of Speed Guitar (And More), Batio was kind enough to discuss the guitar's creation in detail and which famous shredder inadvertently inspired its design."

Says Batio: "The quad guitar was actually something that I said as a joke. Here's what happened: I'm friends with Steve Vai now, but the 80s was very competitive. I had my double guitar. I was really known for it, but it was only in LA and through my instructional video. And again, in the 80s, I didn't know how many countries my videos got circulated in. They were everywhere. It's incredible.

"So I had my double guitar, I met Steve Vai at a studio when he was in David Lee Roth, I watched them rehearse. And what happened was literally days after I was talking to Vai, MTV debuts David Lee Roth [the 'Just Like Paradise' video], and here's Steve Vai with the heart guitar. I was in the band Nitro, and we were signed to Rhino/Warner Bros. So we had this billion-dollar company behind us.

"And the president of our label was pissed! And then Steve, at the time, kind of reluctantly gave me credit for it. He said, 'Well, I got the idea from Michael Angelo, but I didn't mean to take the wind out of his sails.' Our label was livid at him, because they felt like he stole my idea."

Read more at  Ultimate-Guitar.com.