2 guitarists Eddie Van Halen said impressed him in the 80s

The possibilities of guitar playing were expanded in 1978 when Van Halen released their self-titled debut album and the world discovered what Eddie Van Halen could do with the instrument. At first, people tried to figure out how he managed to play the way he did and later hundreds of musicians emulated his sound, creating a whole new movement.

With the band’s growing success, it was rare to find a famous Hard Rock guitarist in the 80s who didn’t play like him. But as Eddie himself once said, there were two guitarists who impressed him during that decade.

2 guitarists Eddie Van Halen said impressed him in the 80s

Steve Vai

The first one is Steve Vai, who curiously ended up playing Van Halen’s music during his career since he was a member of David Lee Roth‘s band from 1985 to 1989. He was the first one he mentioned in an interview with Guitar World magazine in 1990 (Feb. issue), calling him an excellent player.

Although fans might imagine there was some bad blood between them due to the fact that Vai’s musical approach was similar to Van Halen’s style, they actually became good friends. In fact, they had already met and jammed together when Vai was part of Frank Zappa’s band, as Zappa lived near Eddie and was a friend of his.

In 1995, while talking with Shaun Baxter, Eddie was asked about Roth’s solo career and praised Steve, although he also offered some mild criticism. “I’m going: ‘this guy is better at what I do than I am’, you know. But (whispering) he lacked the vibe… the feel. He was technically very proficient, but stiff.”

“It always made me feel bad in a way. Because it made me feel like, ‘Wow, is that how people perceive me?’, ‘Cause, to me, listening to him it didn’t sound like me, but he took my chops, so to speak. And made them very robotic and did them twice as fast,” Eddie Van Halen said.

Eddie called Steve Vai after he left David Lee Roth’s band

After Steve Vai decided to leave David Lee Roth’s band in 1989, Eddie gave him a call. The musician recalled that in an interview with Rolling Stone, after EVH’s passing at the age of 65. “The day after I left David Lee Roth’s band – I don’t know how Edward found out – but he called me.”

“That was the start of a nice relationship and friendship. For about six months, we actually hung out a lot together, and I got to know the guy. I saw his studio. He played me all these tapes and was constantly writing and playing. He played me stuff that was never released. But it was so Edward. I said, ‘Why don’t you make a solo record?’ And he always felt that the Van Halen records were his solo records. But this stuff he was playing me was really quite nice. It was all the things we loved about the way he played.”

He continued:

“This would be a very interesting story for guitar players, I think. I was at my house in Hollywood, and in my studio, I was using my guitar, my rig, my pedals, my amps. And Edward came in. We were just hanging out and talking, and he says to me, ‘Let me show you this one thing I was working on. And he takes my guitar and he starts playing and I realized instantly that it was Edward Van Halen. It didn’t sound anything like me. It had that ‘brown sound,’ it was everything we love about Ed’s tone. He was playing my exact gear, and it sounded like him,” Steve Vai said.

During the interview, Vai noted that only an “idiot” would try to play like Eddie because it was impossible. So he says never tried to play exactly like the musician.

With Roth, Vai recorded the albums “Eat ‘Em and Smile” (1986) and “Skyscraper” (1988).

Joe Satriani

The second guitarist mentioned by Eddie was Joe Satriani, who, like Vai, also ended up playing Van Halen’s music during part of his career. He worked multiple times with the band’s former vocalist Sammy Hagar, performing many of the group songs in live shows. Satriani was even invited by drummer Alex Van Halen to be the guitarist for Eddie’s tribute show, which ultimately did not happen.

Unlike Vai, Satriani didn’t have the chance to hang out a lot with the late musician. They only saw each other once in the early 90s when Vai was recorded at LA’s Record One his album “The Extremist” (1992). “It was brief. I was in LA at Record One. I was in the last set of sessions for The Extremist album. Andy Johns was producing. Unfortunately, that morning we had put up a track that was really bothering me.”

“It was just one of those songs that was a bit of a puzzle. I’d worked on it for two-and-a-half years and I still couldn’t figure it out. It was one of these songs where – if I could get specific for a second – I was blurring the line between rhythm section, riff and melody, and I had this idea that, instead of it just being like, chords, melody, like a typical instrumental… it was more like a chugging melody that seemed to sit with the band.”

He continued:

“(…) All of a sudden, this was like 11 in the morning, Eddie walks into the studio. I had no idea he was coming and I was totally shocked. He’s got a cigarette and a beer, and he’s just racing a million miles an hour. He’s like, ‘Hey, Joe, what’s going on? Play me what you got.’ I was like, ‘this is the last song that I wanted to play [for] Eddie Van Halen,’” he laughs.

“But there it was, so we just sat there and we listened to the song. He made some comments and he picked up on the fact that it was really jangly at the moment. I didn’t see him again after that, unfortunately,” Joe Satriani told Ultimate Guitar in 2024.

Joe Satriani invited Eddie to tour with the project G3

It’s curious that Satriani and Vai were the two guitarists he mentioned to Guitar World back then since Joe was Steve’s guitar teacher before they both became famous. Satriani told Ultimate Classic Rock‘s podcast in 2025 that he tried for years to convince Eddie Van Halen to tour with them with the G3 project which always featured Satriani with other two special guitarists as guests. Multiple times one of them was Steve Vai.

“I called Eddie’s number, office, whatever, almost every time. I didn’t want to be a pest, but I didn’t know him. So I couldn’t just call his house or stop by, because I don’t live in the same city. I would go through channels, you know. I tried every angle to say, ‘We’ll take care of everything.’ Which we do, myself and my management, we took care of all of the technicalities of putting on this show. We made it so it was the easiest thing for the artist to come.”

“In terms of Ed, we always made the offer that we could put the band together. He could play whenever he wanted. He could play for as long as he wanted. This was basically the structure of the show and I literally never heard back. So I suppose, maybe after six or seven G3 tries, I just thought, ‘Well, it’s cool.’ Because not everybody is comfortable standing next to two other guitar players every single night,” Satriani said.