The one guitarist Eddie Van Halen though could make his song better: “I wish somebody would take that technique”
Trying to improve upon an Eddie Van Halen guitar solo is like an aspiring painter saying that he could improve on the work of Vincent van Gogh. If you’re thinking that is dramatic, then you need only scroll through your favourite guitarist’s opinions ot note that they all counted Van Halen as an unmatchable talent.
He was, and still is, considered one of the greatest guitarists of all time. A technician that nobody could come close, Van Halen didn’t just change his own band’s fortunes, he changed how people viewed guitar. It moved away from feeling and moved toward prowess.
Even though Eddie had his fair share of issues with his own playing when working in Van Halen, he was responsible for reshaping what the guitar would sound like for years to come, including pioneering the tapping technique that every hair metal band would later emulate. While Eddie was recognised for working on a song until it was in good shape, he thought one tune could have been expanded upon a bit more.
By the time Van Halen had started out, Eddie had already found his voice on the instrument. Compared to the massive number of players storming onto the scene behind him, Eddie took the basis of the blues players that came before him and went in a different direction, making for lush chord voicings alongside virtuosic soloing across the band’s first few albums.
While the band’s self-titled debut sent shockwaves through the music industry, the song ‘Eruption’ would kick things into high gear. Even though the song only lasted a little under two minutes, Eddie reshaped what guitar would sound like for the next few years, playing a sample of his live guitar solo featuring the tapping section that stunned most aspiring guitarists.
For all of the walls of distortion going on on the final tape, though, there may have been some question as to whether or not Eddie could truly deliver without any of his toys. As if to prove every sceptic wrong about his technical finesse, Van Halen II would feature the second showcase for Eddie’s skills on the track ‘Spanish Fly’.
Played on an acoustic guitar, Eddie flies through every lead guitar break he can think of, including a handful of licks that sound like they could have come off a flamenco guitar record. That didn’t stop him from weaving his magic into the back half of the song, featuring him wailing away in the final few seconds by tapping on the fretboard before ringing out different harmonics to close the song.
While the song remains a fixture of Eddie’s lick library, he admitted that the piece may not have been captured correctly on the final recording. As opposed to Eddie’s chops as a rock player, he thought other guitarists could expand upon what he had done with the original track.
When discussing the track’s power, Eddie claimed that he would love to have seen the song redone by someone who had a bit more experience, saying, “‘Spanish Fly’, just because it’s the same thing [as ‘Eruption’] except it sounds like Segovia doing something, it’s on flamenco guitar. I wish somebody would take that technique and do something with it. I had no idea it would trip people out to the point that it did”.
Even though Segovia may have inspired the song’s structure, no one would touch what Eddie brought. He may not have been the most skilled flamenco player, but ‘Spanish Fly’ proves that the guitar was an extension of himself whenever he played it.
