The one guitarist Eddie Van Halen thought was “beyond” everybody else: “The master of riffs”
Although the world of metal is now one of the most multifaceted and a beast far removed from its rudimentary, blues-heavy form, its quintessential guitarists remain unquestionable. Eddie Van Halen is one of those who had a tremendous hand in establishing some of the instrument’s most ubiquitous features in the genre.
Famous for his searing two-handed string-tapping technique and his penchant for mammoth dive bombs, the late metal legend laid down many highlights that would go on to see the metal formula change for the increasingly unrelenting modern world. From fan favourites like ‘Eruption’ to hits such as ‘Jump’, listeners don’t have to look far for evidence of his ground-breaking efforts.
As Eddie Van Halen is so closely linked to the story of metal – and Ritchie Blackmore was a significant influence on him – it’s only natural that there are other early players from the genre that he counted among his favourites. One of the most important for Van Halen was Black Sabbath’s Tony Iommi, a man widely credited as the first true metal player. In fact, the Birmingham native is such a genius that to Van Halen, he was worthy of the title “master of riffs”.
When speaking with the Black Sabbath legend in 2010 for Guitar World, Van Halen revealed how much he loved Iommi’s work and that he initially wanted to call the band Van Halen ‘Rat Salad’. Famously, this is the name of a classic song from Sabbath’s 1970 album, Paranoid.
Van Halen explained: “Yeah, that’s right. We played just about every Black Sabbath song. I used to sing lead on every Black Sabbath song we did – things like ‘Into the Void’, ‘Paranoid’ and ‘Lord of This World’. When we toured with Black Sabbath in 1978, they scared the shit out of us. I’ll tell you a funny story that I’ll never forget.”
He continued his account by talking about the power of Iommi’s work on the fretboard: “To me, Tony is the master of riffs,” he said. “That’s what I loved. I’m not knocking Ozzy or his singing, but listen to ‘Into the Void’. That riff is some badass shit. It was beyond surf music and jazz. It was beyond anything else I had ever heard. It was so fuckin’ heavy.”
When Iommi was asked to pick his own favourite riffs he had some intriguing answers, “There are so many great riffs out there from the past and up-to-date stuff. But you’ve got to have Deep Purple’s ‘Smoke on the Water’. And of course, there are a lot of [Led] Zeppelin songs. Jimmy Page has some great riffs.”
But when pushed for his own, the first track he reached for was the same as Van Halen, “Oh my god, that’s difficult. I like ‘Into The Void’. And I like some of the stuff we did with Dio – ‘Heaven And Hell’ was a good riff, ‘Neon Knights’. There’s so many I like. I like pretty much all the stuff we’ve done.”
Listen to Sabbath’s ‘Into the Void’ below.
