Tony Iommi reveals his reaction when he saw Eddie Van Halen play

The legendary Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi revealed his reaction when he saw Eddie Van Halen play for the first time. The guitarist talked to Eddie Trunk praising Van Halen and saying they are still good friends. He talked about him when he was asked about the last tour Black Sabbath did with Ozzy.

Eddie Trunk asked Tony Iommi: If you look back at the last run of touring that you did with Ozzy. Which I guess would’ve been ’78 or ’79. That was equally for different reasons a rough time for you guys. Right?

“Yeah, it was difficult. I think that the last tour, we took Van Halen out with us. The thing was: we’ve had opening acts, we didn’t pick opening acts that we’d say, ‘Oh, we’re better than them.’

“We wanted a good show, so they were really up and tight. We were really a bit dinosaur-y by that point, and they were new and would come out very energetic, and there’s some difference the way Eddie played, it was a whole new way of playing.

“It was great, and we got great with them. I used to have Eddie back in my room quite a lot, we used to record guitars and bass, and we had a great time. He’s still one of my dear friends, so yeah, that was very good, and you could tell they were gonna get somewhere.”

Eddie Van Halen technique

Early in his career, Eddie played the drums and the keyboard and Alex played the guitar and studied the keyboard. Over time Alex got better than Eddie on drums, and Eddie started to train the guitar, overcoming him.

Eddie is one of the most acclaimed guitarists in history. Receiving several honors and mentions from the most varied magazines specializing in the subject. He also ranks 8th on the list of the 100 greatest guitarists of all time by Rolling Stone magazine and 7th on the Gibson list of the 50 best guitarists of all time.