The one guitarist Eddie Van Halen always looked up to
It’s not easy for most guitarists to catch the eye of Eddie Van Halen.
He always came off like one of the sweetest artists to walk the Earth, but it’s not like every single one of the copycats that jacked his style was going to get an approving nod from him by any means. But when looking at the kind of guitarists that came before him, Eddie did have a certain place in his heart for those that actually managed to put their ego on the shelf whenever they stopped playing music.
If anything, those that didn’t check their ego was the entire reason why Eddie was so pissed off at David Lee Roth during the 1980s. Roth was a great presence and was able to get the crowd moving every single time they got onstage, but it’s not like every single thing they were doing was supposed to be a sideshow. Eddie wanted to be a musician, and when he hooked up with Sammy Hagar, it was a match made in heaven for a good decade before they decided to call things off.
But in terms of the biggest names in guitar, it’s not like Eddie was in love with every single person that walked the Earth. In fact, when looking at the biggest names that he hung around with, a lot of them were ones that usually hung outside of the spotlight a lot of the time. Toto may not have worked a lot on their PR campaign in their prime, but even if no one knew the faces behind tunes like ‘Rosanna’ and ‘Africa’, Eddie was more than happy to consider Steve Lukather a good friend.
That’s also probably because Eddie had been burned too many times by meeting his idols. He wasn’t shy about saying that Rick Derringer stole almost every lick that he played when he toured with Van Halen, and despite Eric Clapton being one of the reasons for why he picked up a guitar, the fact that he went out of his way to bash the collaboration single ‘Blues Breaker’ the tapping wizard made with Brian May didn’t exactly endear him to his idol.
Then again, the biggest names in the guitar industry are usually those who don’t need to say much. There’s no shortage of larger-than-life personas in the music industry, but it’s not like Jeff Beck or Jimmy Page went out of their way to tell the press they were the greatest. They hung in the background, and Tony Iommi knew he could do a lot of talking with his menacing riffs than he could in front of a microphone.
And while Iommi was a bit dubious about Van Halen stealing a few tricks from Black Sabbath back in the day, that never soured Eddie’s relationship with him, saying, “Out of all the people I’ve ever met – all the celebrities and rock and roll stars – I fuckin’ love this guy. He’s the sweetest, most humble, down-to-earth, normal guy. He has no attitude, and look at what this guy has done! I could name a handful of people who I still respect but no longer look up to. So many people are a bunch of pompous fuckin’ pricks. [But] Tony is still like a brother.”
While no one would mistake a Sabbath riff for a Van Halen riff most of the time, it’s not like Iommi’s touch hasn’t rubbed off on Eddie from time to time, there are moments where he can make the guitar sound menacing the same way that he did, but above all else, them jamming together was never about trying to mug for the cameras or outdoing the person next to them.
Throughout all of their ups and downs in the industry, they were still in it for the pure love of making music, and given what they’ve gone through, that was more than enough. All the screaming crowds were awfully good to hear every single night, but they would be just as comfortable playing to an empty room half the time they got onstage.
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