The only band to completely blow Eddie Van Halen away: “The most insane thing I’ve ever heard”
There aren’t too many guitarists in the rock community that can do what Eddie Van Halen did for the instrument.
The amount of innovation he brought to how modern rock guitarists approach the guitar has been rivalled only by Jimi Hendrix, from his tapping licks to his airtight rhythm playing. Although Eddie Van Halen didn’t have many inspirations to draw from, he always held a few performers in high esteem.
When Eddie first moved to the US with his brother Alex, he got into music through the early days of rock and roll. With his father being a veteran of the swing band scene, Eddie plied his trade by listening to early instrumental tracks like ‘Wipeout’ by The Safaris. Once he had the cover tunes under his belt, he was stunned when hearing Cream for the first time.
Cream may have only been together for just over two years, but what Eric Clapton, Ginger Baker and Jack Bruce conquered in that short time will live on forever. The initial hype from the moment of their incarnation was unprecedented, as the trio was immediately dubbed as the first ‘supergroup’.
After a car journey shared between the legendary drummer Baker and the Guitar God Clapton, they ended with them deciding to form a band with Jack Bruce. The scene was set, and one of the most devastating live acts of all time was formed. Though the band wouldn’t stick around for long, the music they made and the influence they wielded during that time can still be felt today.
Before the supergroup started, Eric Clapton was one of the few guitarists to compete with George Harrison of The Beatles, creating tapestries of sound as a member of The Yardbirds. Once he found that he had exhausted most of his bluesy foundation, combining forces with Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker made the first hard rock songs on tracks like ‘Strange Brew’ and ‘Sunshine of Your Love’.
Of all the guitarists that have come before him, Eddie was left in shock and awe by what Eric Clapton could do. Even though Van Halen would take the instrument further, most of the classic licks that helped him build his dexterity were secondhand from Clapton, consisting mainly of the bluesy licks that filled those early Cream records.
When it came time to think about the guitar in the context of a band, though, Van Halen paid more attention to what Jack Bruce was doing on bass. Compared to Clapton’s fiery playing, Bruce was indebted to the world of jazz, which came through in the various walking bass lines and the lightspeed syncopation that he would lock in with Baker.
Reflecting on Bruce’s impact on his musical development, Van Halen thought that his performances on the song ‘I’m So Glad’ was on another level, recalling in Eruption: “Jack is an insane player. It’s just E to D on the entire song, but what Jack does sonically, how he plays around those two chords and keeps it interesting, is just out there. The bass playing is the most insane twisting and changing thing I’ve ever heard in my life, and it’s just two chords. It’s so out, but it’s brilliant. Clapton sounds lost.”
As Van Halen started to become one of the biggest bands in the world, Eddie would continue using the lessons Bruce taught him in his guitar playing. Although there are some blues antecedents left over from Clapton’s playing, a handful of Van Halen’s instrumentals come from the strange harmony that Bruce was gifted at. Even though Clapton may be behind the fire and the groove of Van Halen, Eddie penning something as complicated as ‘Cathedral’ or the intro to ‘Little Guitars’ wouldn’t exist without Bruce breaking down the walls of what traditional rock should be.
