The best guitarist of all time, according to Eddie Van Halen: “Best in my book”
Even the biggest rock icons of all time get their tricks from somewhere. It might seem like certain artists have been anointed by the musical gods to bring musical perfection down to Earth, but the most successful bands in the world only get there by practising day in and day out until they become great. Eddie Van Halen was no different when picking up a guitar for the first time, but in terms of other guitar players, he thought that no one could touch what jazz fusion players could do.
If you really think about it, Eddie was practically the kind of virtuoso jazz player that just happened to be in one of the biggest rock bands on the planet. He may have sworn up and down that he was a descendant of blues guitarists like Eric Clapton, but Eddie had the same mentality of doing as much as one could with just the 12 notes that he had at his disposal.
As the lead axeman for rock titans, Van Halen, he rightly is credited with developing techniques on the guitar that we now see ubiquitous in the harder forms of rock music. Everywhere from metallic hardcore to black metal and even pop music, you see flecks of his influence.
It was mainly the technique of two-handed string tapping that Van Halen became known for developing, taking it past the rudimentary form that the likes of Steve Hackett of Genesis and Harvey Mandel had used earlier. While shredders such as these came before him, at the time, Van Halen’s style was pretty unique. In this sense, he can be hailed as repackaging guitar virtuosity for the future, and consequently, he has influenced countless subsequent shredders. But that doesn’t mean he wasn’t influenced by others.
As Van Halen started to make waves on the scene, the band UK started hitting the ground running with a budding guitarist named Allan Holdsworth. While Holdsworth was born and bred in the world of jazz, the fury that came out of him whenever he played guitar felt like it came from the same playbook as someone like Jimi Hendrix or Jimmy Page.
Even when he was playing slowly, the different chords he would use would be enough to break someone’s hand. There may have been some easier pieces for him to cover, but just because he slowed up didn’t mean that any of the aspiring guitarists would be out of the woods trying to play them.
For Eddie, his turning point was listening to Holdsworth’s solo on ‘In the Dead of Night’, later telling Jas Obrecht, “I love him. He’s got a Rock sound. On UK’s first album, the song ‘In The Dead of Night’, I love the solo on that. I love him. He is the best in my book. I mean, I can kind of play like him, but it doesn’t fit our style of music. But he is a real artist.”
Unfortunately, the idea of playing the most mind-melting solos of all time didn’t always translate when the group tried to hit the big time. Even though Eddie motioned for them to be one of their openers on one of their first headlining tours, UK would bomb at nearly every show they played, probably because most fans didn’t know how to take in a band with serious chops when they were waiting for Eddie to do his thing.
Then again, maybe bombing was out of necessity for everyone in attendance at the show. Holdsworth could already make the guitar sing, but putting two guitar heroes on the same stage together may have been enough for Eddie to cancel him out half the time. Still, Eddie continued to sing the praises of Holdsworth and even wanted to collaborate with him later down the line if they could get their schedules together.
That’s not to say some of Holdsworth’s magic didn’t rub off on Eddie. From the time he was working on albums like Women and Children First, Eddie was already looking to push his guitar playing further because of what his colleague was doing, eventually going beyond guitar altogether to make way for the keyboard side of the band’s sound. Because when you see someone who’s miles better than you at your instrument, it’s up to you to either fade into the background or start creating your own lane.
