Fire Garden

Untitled

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AllMusic

Fire Garden is the fourth studio album by guitarist Steve Vai, released on September 17, 1996 through Epic Records. It reached #106 on that year's Billboard 200 chart.

The album, as described by Vai in the liner notes, is divided into two "phases": "Phase 1" comprises tracks 1–9 and is entirely instrumental (with the exception of Devin Townsend's backwards vocals on "Whookam" and some more vocals toward the end of "Fire Garden Suite"), while "Phase 2", the remainder of the album, features Vai on vocals on every song except the instrumental "Warm Regards". Fire Garden was intended to be a double album, but during mastering Vai heard about the new 80 minutes CD format (instead of 74 for a standard CD), which meant that both sides would eventually fit onto a single disc.

"Dyin' Day" was co-written by Ozzy Osbourne during the writing sessions for Osbourne's 1995 album Ozzmosis. Another song from those sessions, "My Little Man", made its way onto Ozzmosis and is credited on that album as being co-written by Vai.

Track listing

All tracks are written by Steve Vai, except where noted

"Phase 1"

No.	Title	Length
1.	"There's a Fire in the House"	5:26
2.	"The Crying Machine"	4:50
3.	"Dyin' Day" (Vai, Ozzy Osbourne)	4:29
4.	"Whookam"	0:36
5.	"Blowfish"	4:03
6.	"The Mysterious Murder of Christian Tiera's Lover"	1:02
7.	"Hand on Heart"	5:25
8.	"Bangkok" (Benny Andersson, Björn Ulvaeus, Tim Rice)	2:46
9.	"Fire Garden Suite" "Bull Whip" "Pusa Road" "Angel Food" "Taurus Bulba"	9:56

"Phase 2"

No.	Title	Length
10.	"Deepness"	0:47
11.	"Little Alligator"	6:12
12.	"All About Eve"	4:38
13.	"Aching Hunger"	4:45
14.	"Brother"	5:04
15.	"Damn You"	4:31
16.	"When I Was a Little Boy"	1:18
17.	"Genocide"	4:11
18.	"Warm Regards"	4:06
Total length:		74:05

Personnel

• Steve Vai – lead vocals, guitar, all other instrumentation (except where noted), arrangement, engineering, production
• Devin Townsend – lead vocals (tracks 4, 9)
• Will Riley – keyboard (track 14)
• John Avila – bass (track 2)
• Stuart Hamm – bass (track 3)
• Fabrizio Gossi – bass (track 14)
• Chris Frazier – drums (track 1)
• Greg Bissonette – drums (track 2)
• Deen Castronovo – drums (tracks 3, 5, 7, 11, 12, 15)
• Mike Mangini – drums (tracks 8, 9)
• Robin DiMaggio – drums (track 14)
• C.C. White – background vocals (tracks 12, 17)
• Tracee Lewis – background vocals (tracks 12, 17)
• Miroslava Mendoza Escriba – background vocals (tracks 12, 17)
• Kimberly Evans – background vocals (tracks 12, 17)
• John Sombrotto – background vocals (track 17)
• Mark McCrite – background vocals (track 17)
• Jim Altan – background vocals (track 17)
• Julian Vai – spoken vocals – track (18)
• Marcelo Gomes – engineering assistance
• Sergio Buss – engineering assistance
• T. J. Helmerich – engineering assistance (track 17)

• Bernie Grundman – mastering

Chart performance

Year	Chart	Position
1996	Billboard 200	106

External links

• In Review: Steve Vai "Fire Garden" at Guitar Nine Records