The infamous meeting of Eddie Van Halen and Ritchie Blackmore
The entire world of rock and roll guitar tended to look like the Wild West during the 1970s. Even though artists like Jimi Hendrix had reshaped what the instrument could do in the previous decade, every musician that came after tried to take everything one step further, making outlandish strides to sound heavy or using atonal noise to create their signature sounds. Although many had brought the guitar to different areas throughout the decade, Eddie Van Halen was unsurpassed in his field from when he was pressed to vinyl for the first time.
Growing up on the sounds of guitar legends like Eric Clapton, Eddie started to hone his craft in his bedroom after trading instruments with his brother, Alex, taking his drumkit. By watching acts like Led Zeppelin play in the California area, Eddie would eventually be inspired to make his guitar speak in a way no one else could, taking his right hand and tapping notes on the instrument on tracks like ‘Eruption’.
As Van Halen was cutting their teeth on the California local scene, another band named Deep Purple were already riding high as one of the biggest hard rock bands in the world. Before Eddie had developed his classical-sounding arpeggio runs throughout ‘Eruption’, Ritchie Blackmore had been shaping the vocabulary of what the guitar could do within a rock context, blending the sounds of Mozart and Led Zeppelin under one roof.
While Van Halen was known to play covers of various Deep Purple songs throughout their early years, Eddie remembered not getting the warmest welcome when he met Blackmore for the first time. Being introduced by fellow guitar legend Gary Moore, Eddie was given the cold shoulder from Blackmore at first as he was talking with Led Zeppelin drummer John Bonham.
As keyboardist Don Airey recalled to Mulatschag TV, “Eddie wanted to meet Richie. I suddenly saw Richie coming, and I said ‘Hey Richie! I want you to meet two people. This is Gary Moore, and this is Eddie Van Halen’. Richie kind of stormed off. I don’t know what he thought. (That maybe) I was trying to set him up to make fun of him or something”.
While Blackmore may have indulged in typical rock star behaviour with fans, he may have also been a bit wary of what Eddie was capable of. When looking at what Blackmore brought to the guitar, Eddie was making the logical next step, making technological strides to make every new Van Halen project sound like the rock and roll of the future.
Despite Blackmore alluding to Eddie at the time, the guitarist wasn’t going to stop that quickly, eventually acquiring his phone number through fellow guitarist Lita Ford and relentlessly drunk dialling him to ask him why his hero blew him off. Even though Blackmore may have only seen Eddie as an insecure fan then, he had to admit that he was witnessing greatness in retrospect.
When talking about what he brought to the guitar, Blackmore thought that Eddie rewrote the rulebook on guitar, saying, “He was one of the nicest musicians I ever met in the music business. Very shy and not at all conceited about his ability as a guitar player. Frank Zappa said he reinvented the guitar. I agree”.
