The guitar style Eddie Van Halen loathed: “To me, a solo is to highlight the song, not to show off”
‘100 best solos of all time!’, ’10 solos that will melt your face off!’ – Eddie Van Halen would hate them all.
To some guitarists, it’s all about the fast fingers. When people first pick up a goddamn guitar and take that first step to learning the instrument, the idea of one day being able to shred through a big solo feels like a goal to strive for. It feels like a pinnacle to reach, as if being able to do that is the height of skill as a player. Bar chords and finger picking be damned, it’s all about showing off.
But that’s exactly what Van Halen saw it as – showing off. Despite being held up as one of the greatest players in musical history, the obsessive desire some guitarists have to steal the spotlight only to stand there are break up the song with a bit of noodling was something he could never get behind.
“To me, a solo is to highlight the song, not to show off,” Van Halen said, believing players should be aiding the big picture of a track, not trying to steal a moment in it.
However, there is a degree of hypocrisy here. When Van Halen first burst onto the scene, led by their guitarist’s power, it was his crazy solos that brought them attention. That’s what they were known for, as he was able to pull off some absolutely insane musical moments with one hand frantically moving over the strings while his other hand was moving so fast on the fret board that it was like he wasn’t even touching it or playing, he was merely mind controlling big, rowdy solos from it.
The band rose to fame because of that, and because of the guitarist’s reputation as a wild one. But it seems that as the years went on, his perspective on it all changed. As his own playing seemed to launch a thousand copycats, all of which could solo just like he could, he knew he needed to change his approach and shock people once more, this time by toning it down.
He said, “A lot of people just do all kinds of crazy shit,” adding, “That’s fine and dandy when you’re young, but playing as fast as you can doesn’t really hold much water for me.”
“What’s important to me now isn’t how fast I can solo; it’s the whole picture. With the whole band thing, the songs are what’s important,” he said in the 1990s when he started to view it all seemingly more maturely, wanting to become a team player in the band rather than the star. He added, “Big egos are very unhealthy,” continuing, “Everybody needs an ego, obviously, but when it starts getting in the way of the overall picture, you know, what a band is and what a band is supposed to be doing, too much ego is bad news.”
Suddenly, his approached changed. It changed for good, though, adding him to the class of guitar players who knew that it wasn’t about how shiny and impressive a single solo could be, but it was all about the whole picture of the song. Similar to Keith Richards’ ethos of riffs not solos, preferring to write a hooking riff rather than merely stealing the spotlight for a random solo section that disrupts the flow, Van Halen fell into the same thinking, beginning to work to aid the song, rather than crafting it around himself.
