Tosin Abasi Gifts Satriani and Vai Custom Eight-String Guitars

At the close of the Surfing With The Hydra Tour, Tosin Abasi gave Joe Satriani and Steve Vai instruments that connect his current design work to their own back catalogues. The Animals As Leaders guitarist presented both with custom Abasi Concepts ēmi 8 guitars, each finished in collaboration with Dave Bonvillain.

Satriani’s model borrows the mirrored chrome look of his Ibanez Chrome Boy signature. For him, the eight-string is a first. The multiscale, fanned-fret layout sent him back to earlier conversations with Novax Guitars’ Ralph Novak, who once built him a fanned-fret JS model that Ibanez declined. “I don’t know any chord shapes,” Satriani said at the presentation backstage in Virginia.

Vai’s guitar carries a psychedelic swirl drawn from the Ibanez Universe seven-string on the Passion and Warfare cover. “I wanted one of these guitars so bad,” he said. “I never wanted to ask.”

Abasi has made this gesture before; in 2023 he gave John Petrucci an ēmi 8 with a finish based on the Ibanez JPM 100’s Picasso graphic. The pattern is consistent: Abasi Concepts instruments that nod to the players’ own design history, not just his. Satriani’s reaction at Wolf Trap—checking the weight, asking about okoume, admitting the setup will take time—was less about novelty than about a guitarist genuinely assessing a new tool. That’s more interesting than the gift itself.