Stevie Ray Vaughan – "By playing, you can make yourself feel better"

In a 1988 interview, Stevie Ray Vaughan talked in depth about his life, his music and his guitars. “It’s about the excitement of playing,” he said. “Trying new things…”

- By Tom Nolan

In 1988, Stevie Ray Vaughan gave an interview to Guitarist magazine as he prepared to record the album In Step. At this time he was in recovery from alcohol and drug addiction, and with sobriety came a new sense of focus and positivity.

In a wide-ranging conversation, Stevie spoke of his early years learning to play guitar in the shadow of his big brother Jimmie, his admiration for Hendrix and Clapton, his most treasured guitars and amps, and his hopes for the future.

Sadly, In Step proved to be the last album released in his lifetime. But back in 1988, Stevie saw this album as a new beginning…

How long does it take you to record an album?

Well they’ve all taken different lengths of time. The first one took two days; basically, we had 28 years to get our first record together! The second one, six months. The third, six months. And the live album [Live Alive]… actually, I had wanted to bring a crowd to the studio but it made more sense to bring the studio to the crowd, and because of that we ended up doing a lot of the songs off the other records. Since then there have been a lot of changes going on; changes in my life as well as other people in the band, and we’re trying to take things at a more sensible pace. You know, this record will be the first one I’ve done sober, completely sober, so things are a lot different now and there’s a lot more to see and look at and be thankful for.

Can you tell me how those changes happened?