Steve Vai's New Instrument Is Inflicting Even More Pain On Him

Steve Vai's latest musical toy, The Hydra, is as hard to handle as its name would suggest.

The Hydra is multi-neck bass, guitar, harp abomination which Vai co-designed with Ibanez for his new album, Inviolate.

A few weeks after revealing that he is having a third surgery in two years to correct a chronic guitar-related injury, the musician showed his social media followers the way the Hydra is fighting him during practice.

Vai turned on his camera to show a pair of gnarly new blisters he's developed on each of his hands — the result of the Hydra's complex design.

He then took to the comments on the video to clarify that his adorable corgi, Phoebe, is not responsible for the "bites," although he did shoot the video while watching the puppy scarf down her dinner.

"The bites I was showing came from when I was working on the Hydra," he wrote. "It makes me develop callouses in places I'm not used to so the blisters pop... ouch. That's where the bite of the Hydra comes from. This is dangerous s--t!"

The Hydra is one monstrosity of an instrument that encompasses a 12-string guitar that is fretless above its eighth fret; a 7-string guitar with a Floyd Rose tremolo system; a 4-string bass in which the lowest two strings are fretless; and a harp — all on one ornate, scaly body.

Vai employs the instrument on his new song "Teeth of the Hydra" from the Inviolate album.

In the past two years, the guitarist has undergone two surgeries on his right shoulder and one on his left hand. He traced the origins of each instrument back to his obsession with the guitar.

The latest procedure forced Vai to delay the start of his more than-50-date U.S. tour to the fall. Get all Vai's tour dates here.