The 2 Heavy Metal bands that Eddie Van Halen liked

After Eddie Van Halen found his own style, the musician said he wasn’t that influenced by anyone else and was always more focused on Van Halen’s music, not paying much attention to other groups. However, he did like the music of bands that appeared after Van Halen and admired other guitar players, praising some of them over the decades.

He was a fan of Heavy Metal and mentioned during his career two bands he liked, one from before his era and another more recent, whose guitar players he felt a particular connection with.

The 2 Heavy Metal bands that Eddie Van Halen liked

Black Sabbath

“There was nothing like it before them, Black Sabbath was like (makes astonished expression). They started the whole riff thing, you know. They came up with licks instead of just strumming the guitar, it wasn’t your typical songs with a chorus. (…) I thought it was funny that they called Led Zeppelin Heavy Metal, (a lot of their) stuff was acoustic. Rock and Roll today wouldn’t exist without them (Black Sabbath),” he told Biography channel in 2010 (Transcribed by Rock and Roll Garage). The late guitarist always loved Black Sabbath and since Van Halen was Black Sabbath’s opening act in 1978 he maintained a friendship with Tony Iommi, who he said was the father of Metal music.

Originally, Van Halen was even going to be called “Rat Salad”, name inspired by the instrumental track from Black Sabbath’s ‘Paranoid’ (1970) album. When they were still playing in bars, the American band used to cover many of their songs and many of them featured Eddie on vocals. “We played just about every Black Sabbath song. I used to sing lead on every Black Sabbath song we did. Things like ‘Into the Void,’ ‘Paranoid,” and ‘Lord of This World,’ he told Guitar World in 2013. He once said that “Into The Void”, from “Master of Reality” (1971). was in fact one of his favorite guitar riffs of all time. (Good riffs are ) Just the power. It just engulfs you. You just feel it, you know? It makes you vibrate,” Eddie Van Halen said in an interview with Billboard in 2015.

Tony Iommi told Eddie he was playing “Into the Void” the wrong way

He used to go see Tony and Black Sabbath play whenever he could and there is even a photo of him backstage with the guitarist during Sabbath’s final reunion tour in the 2010s. According to Iommi, on one occasion Eddie started playing the riff of “Into the Void”, but he had to correct him because he was playing it the wrong way. “He said, ‘We used to play ‘Into the Void.”  We started playing ‘Into the Void’ and I said ‘No, you’re playing it wrong.’ (Laughs). He said, ‘I’ve been playing it like this all these years. And, of course, I showed him how to play it. I didn’t ask him how he played any of his because I wouldn’t be able to do it (Laughs),” Tony Iommi said on Whitley Bay Film Festival in 2018.

Curiously, Eddie co-wrote one Black Sabbath song in the 1990s. When Van Halen was in England, he went to visit Tony during the recording of the album “Cross Purposes” (1994) and he helped the band to write “Evil Eye”. He had also recorded the guitar solo but his version was not used. “When we were doing Cross Purposes, they were playing in Birmingham. Obviously, I went to see him, and we were rehearsing. I said, ‘You ought to come down to rehearsal if you want.’ ‘Oh, can I?’”

He continued:

“I said, ‘I’ll pick you up from the hotel.’ I said, ‘Let’s go and get a guitar.’ We went down to the music shop in Birmingham. I said, ‘Can you lend us a guitar for Eddie?’ And of course, they went, “Oh, oh, wha’?” (Laughs). So Eddie came in with me, and we got one of his guitars, his own model. And he came to rehearsal. We played some of the Sabbath stuff for him. One of his favorites was “Into the Void,” strangely enough. We played that and we went back to writing. I think it was “Evil Eye,” and I said, ‘Go on. You play the solo on this.’ He did and it was really great. When we recorded it, of course, I tried to duplicate that. But I couldn’t (laughs),” Tony Iommi said in an interview with Rolling Stone in 2020.

Pantera

Pantera was another Metal band that Eddie Van Halen liked, and he considered the late guitarist Dimebag Darrell a true “original”. He had the chance to meet him shortly before his tragic death and they instantly had a connection. Back in 2004 Eddie went to Vinnie Paul‘s strip club in Dallas, Texas in 2004 and as the late Pantera drummer told Noisecreep, at the time he received a call from his night manager saying that the guitarist was there and wanted to meet him.

“So I dropped what I was doing and went straight to the club. I meet Eddie and we start talking about music right away. After about 5 minutes into the conversation, he says to me, ‘Man, I feel like I’ve known you for a lifetime. We have so much in common!’ I couldn’t believe it. Later that night, I put Eddie on the phone with my brother. They spoke for over 90 minutes,” Vinnie Paul said.

Van Halen was going to perform in the city in the following day, but Damageplan already had show booked in another place, so they couldn’t attend. But a few days later, they received an invitation to see VH in Lubbock and Eddie sent a limousine to pick them up at the airport. “So we do it and get to see Van Halen do a sound check from the stage. Me and my brother were like kids in a candy store. I remember being on the plane, on the way back home from the Van Halen show. My brother (was) saying to me, ‘Man, if this plane crashed, and I died tonight, I would be OK with it, because we got to meet Van Halen,” Vinnie Paul said.

What Eddie said at Dimebag’s memorial service

A few weeks after the musician was killed on stage by a fan who reportedly could not accept Pantera’s break-up, his family asked Eddie for a replica of his “Bumblebee” guitar to be buried with Darrell, who was a big fan. It turned out that Eddie appeared at his memorial service with the original one and gave it to the family so they could bury it with Dime, saying: “Dime was an original. He deserves the original,” he told the family and friends.

During his speech at the ceremony, he said: “I’m here for the same reason as everyone else: to give some love back. … This guy was full of life. Dime was the epitome, he lived, breathed and is Rock ’n’ Roll”. Then he held his phone and played a voice mail from Dime that he had kept. The late musician was saying: “Thank you so much, man, for the most awesome, uplifting, euphoric, spiritual rock ’n’ roll extravaganza ever!”

The current Pantera drummer, Charlie Benante (Anthrax), was there the day Eddie arrived and he recalled his kind gesture. “Eddie was carrying a guitar and came right over to us and he crouched down. (He) put the guitar down on the floor and crouched down. (He) was talking to us, just saying how sorry he was. And I noticed on the guitar case it had a piece of tape that was there for like, forever. And it said VH II on it.”

Eddie Van Halen continued:

Curiously, the Abbott brothers wanted to record something with Alex and Eddie, according to Neil Daniels’ book “Reinventing Metal” (2013),  “They (Dime and Eddie) got on so well that it was suggested they make an album together with drums by Eddie’s brother, Alex, and Dimebag’s brother, Vinnie. According to Walter Trachsler, they had even a date set for when they were due to start work on what would have been the first full album that Eddie and Alex made outside of Van Halen,” Neil Daniels said.

In the early days of Pantera, the band used to cover many Van Halen tracks and Dime used to play his own version of “Eruption” live in concert. On Pantera’s second album, “Projects in the Jungle” (1984), the guitar instrumental “Blue Light Turnin’ Red” is frequently cited as being influenced by “Eruption.” According to the book, if the brothers were asked to pick their favorite album of all time, they would probably say it was Van Halen’s “Women and Children First” (1980).