Steve Vai

Alcatrazz is an American heavy metal band formed in 1983 by Graham Bonnet, Jimmy Waldo and Gary Shea. The band's initial line-up consisted of former... Rainbow frontman Graham Bonnet, young Swedish guitarist Yngwie Malmsteen who had recently left American band Steeler, Gary Shea and Jimmy Waldo from New England and Clive Burr of Iron Maiden fame. Burr was reportedly only in the band for a week, and left upon discovering that the band was going to be based in the United States, as opposed to his native England. Burr was soon replaced by former Iron Butterfly drummer Jan Uvena, who had just left Alice Cooper's backing band. Shea dubbed the group "Alcatrazz". For the first album, the bulk of the material was written by Bonnet and Malmsteen, with Waldo contributing writing to several of the tracks. The band's debut album "No Parole From Rock 'N' Roll" surfaced in late 1983 on Rocshire Records. MTV gave decent support to the lead single "Island In The Sun" which showed a heavy Rainbow influence. Despite the commercial nature of the song, it barely received any radio play. The album still spent 18 weeks on the Billboard charts and peaked at #128.
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Favored Nations Entertainment is a record label founded in 1999 by guitarist Steve Vai and former Guitar Center owner Ray Scherr. The first studio album released by the label was Coming to Your Senses by guitarist Frank Gambale in 2000. Soon afterwards, a variety of artists such as Eric Johnson,... Dweezil Zappa, Johnny A., Larry Carlton, Eric Sardinas, and Steve Lukather, Neal Schon, Johnny Hiland, Stanley Jordan, Allan Holdsworth, John Petrucci, Marty Friedman, The Yardbirds, Dave Weiner and Peppino D'Agostino had also signed to Favored Nations. Favored Nations was followed by separate branches called Favored Nations Acoustic in 2002 and Favored Nations Cool in 2004. Pro-Found is a sister label that is basically a promotional tool for Favored Nations artists through the Favored Nations and ProFound websites.
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Relativity Records, often branded just Relativity, is an American record label founded by Barry Kobrin at the site of his company, Important Record Distribution in metro New York. Early on, as an indie label, Relativity released music in a variety of styles, including dance, jazz, punk, and... progressive rock. As it grew and became associated with Sony Music Entertainment, it became more known for its popular metal and hip-hop releases. Although it was reportedly established in 1985, there is evidence that the brand actually began c. 1982 as an in-house IRD label. In the 1980s, Relativity was mostly focused on rock music, including heavy metal. Releases in this genre were split among Relativity and its sister label Combat Records, which folded back into the main Relativity label in 1990. Artists signed during this period include Death, Exodus, Megadeth, Napalm Death, Impelliteri, Corrosion of Conformity, Circle Jerks, Murphy's Law, Jet Red, Joe Satriani, Shotgun Messiah, Scatterbrain, Scott Henderson, Sick of it All, Steve Vai, Stuart Hamm, Tigertailz, Dark Angel, Lucy's Fur Coat and Forbidden. In 1990, new management took over the label and it began to sign more hip-hop acts.
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