Ry Cooter is playing Ralph Mocchio's parts ... The part of Steve Vai is played by Lucifer.
If Jim Brown was put on this earth to carry a football, Steve Vai was put here to play the guitar.
At age 17 he was offered a gig touring with Frank Zappa. The way he auditioned for it was he hand-transcribed each song off each of the 50-something albums (at the time) Zappa had recorded and sent the transcriptions to Zappa. Vai was hired sight-unseen (or unheard). When Vai met Zappa and asked him how he wanted him to play, Zappa pointed to the ceiling and said 'play up there'.
BTW - Vai should have won that duel ... he could rip those Paganini and Bach etudes with his teeth.