The legendary guitarist Eddie Van Halen refused to be compared to: “The complete opposite”
Eddie Van Halen had a distinctive guitar playing style, which made him a unique figure in the rock realm. He was an original who refused to walk in the shadow of anyone else.
To be a true great, no matter in whatever field this might be, there’s no use in being a poor replica of someone who came before. There needs to be an element of freshness, which makes people stand up, listen and take notice.
After Van Halen ushered in his style, many came in his wake and tried to follow in his footsteps. After all, he changed the approach to playing in the 1980s, making being a virtuoso cool, wherein technical proficiency was preferred over the emotive, blues-laden licks that had previously been the norm in mainstream rock.
His tendency for string-tapping was another distinctive part of his musical DNA, which others quickly copied. However, despite being an original, the music industry loves nothing more than making comparisons, which Van Halen didn’t welcome, even when he was likened to Jimi Hendrix.
As much as both men were rock pioneers who deserve the utmost respect for their services to guitar-playing, Van Halen and Hendrix were their own entities. While Hendrix did help lay the foundations for players like Van Halen who came after him, the same can be said for almost every single person who picked up a guitar in his wake. He played the guitar harder than anyone before him, combining natural technique with raw emotion and a penchant for the day’s cutting-edge effects.
However, Van Halen didn’t model himself on him. In fact, while speaking to Guitar World in 1981, he revealed the only part of his artistry that he stole from Hendrix, sharing, “Jimi Hendrix influenced me on how to hold the pick when I do the harmonics. I saw the Hendrix movie and discovered where the pick goes when it disappears. He holds it between the joints of his middle finger. I pick weird too. I use the thumb and the middle finger.”
Decades later, despite their vast differences, people kept comparing the two men together, and when speaking to USA Today in 2009, he was dubbed “the Jimi Hendrix of his generation”. To which he robustly replied, “I say it’s a hell of a compliment, but at the same time I’m really nothing like Jimi Hendrix.”
Elobarating on why it’s a redundant comparison, Van Halen continued, “I’m just saying I’m very different than Hendrix because I create stuff. He used so many effects and stuff that I was the complete opposite. I wanted the guitar to do things, but nobody built the guitar that I wanted. Hendrix didn’t do things like that.”
The guitarist continued, “He was an amazing player, but if you ever heard any live bootlegs of him, even some of the Woodstock stuff it’s hard for him to keep that thing even tuned.”
While Van Halen still used superlatives like “amazing” to be mentioned in the same breath as Hendrix, he was also far more critical of the rock ‘n’ roll icon than most guitarists would ever dare to be.
Evidently, there was a great level of appreciation for Hendrix, but Van Halen, in no uncertain terms, had no time for comparisons and wanted to be respected as his own man.
