Known as a soulful guitar player who poured emotion into every note, David Gilmour was a fundamental part of Pink Floyd‘s success. The band’s most famous and influential albums were released after he became a member of the group and they remain highly relevant today.
Although he was always more focused on that style of music, Gilmour has a broad musical taste and kept track of what was happening in the music world, including Hard Rock. He spoke about many groups from that genre, among them Van Halen, which featured the late legendary guitarist Eddie Van Halen.
What is David Gilmour’s opinion on Eddie Van Halen
“These days I don’t listen to other people with the objective of trying to steal their licks. Although I’ve got no objections to stealing them if that seems like a good idea. I’m sure that I’m still influenced by Mark Knopfler and Eddie Van Halen as well.”
“I can’t play like Eddie Van Halen, I wish I could. I sat down to try some of those ideas and I can’t do it. (But) I don’t know if I could ever get any of that stuff together. Sometimes I think I should work at the guitar more. I play every day but I don’t consciously practice scales or anything in particular,” David Gilmour told Guitar Classics magazine in 1985.
He was then asked if he adopted any of Eddie’s techniques and his answer was: “I can’t play like Eddie Van Halen. I wish I could, I sat down to try some of those ideas and I can’t do it. I don’t know if I could ever get any of that stuff together. Sometimes I think I should work at the guitar more. I play every day but I don’t consciously practice scales or anything in particular.”
So he was already a big admirer of Eddie Van Halen’s guitar playing. He continued to follow his work, although they were quite different musically. Gilmour was asked by Guitar World in 1993 if he was not keen on the modern technical schools of guitar and he mentioned Van Halen as one of the few he liked. “No (I’m not very into it). It’s probably sour grapes, because I’ll never be able to do it.”
He continued:
“Eddie Van Halen has done a few things that I like a lot. But for the most part, no, that kind of thing doesn’t interest me. Guitar just happens to be the instrument I can best express my feelings on. I’m not very fast on it, but you don’t have to be. You hear something like John Lee Hooker doing ‘Dimples’. Between the vocal lines he just hits the bottom string on the guitar – boom! – that one note says it all. My guitar influences are people like Pete Seeger, Leadbelly, Hank Marvin and Jeff Beck. But there hasn’t been anyone recently that I’ve been turned on by,” David Gilmour said.
Van Halen released their groundbreaking debut album in 1978. It was during that year also that Gilmour released his first solo record. By the end of that year he would start to work with Pink Floyd on their last really successful album “The Wall” (1979).
Although David Gilmour liked Van Halen, he didn’t really listen to the band very much
Even though he was a fan of Eddie’s playing, he didn’t listen to Van Halen as he revealed to Guitar Player magazine in 2009. “I’ve met him a couple of times, and he always seemed to be a very nice guy. I have to confess I don’t listen to an awful lot of Van Halen, but Eddie is fantastic. His moments of sheer, unbridled, joyful playing – as he did on the Michael Jackson track – can’t help but make you want to jump around on a dance floor.”
“He was a major influence on a lot of people, wasn’t he? He changed Rock music. (Eddie) made a lot of very average players think they were a lot better than they actually were!” David Gilmour said.
The Michael Jackson track Gilmour referred to was ‘Beat It’, which featured Eddie Van Halen’s highly praised guitar solo. The hit song was part of Thriller (1982), one of the best-selling albums of all time. Although Eddie was pleased with the final result, he later revealed that he never got paid for the recording. Also that his brother Alex was angry with him, since he believed they should only work within their band.
Gilmour said he didn’t have the fingers to play like Eddie
After the success of Van Halen, many guitarists began to emulate Eddie’s style. It was the rise of a new ‘shredding’ movement, which the musician himself was not entirely happy with. Although Yngwie Malmsteen has always stated that his greatest influence was Classical music, many people have compared his playing to Eddie’s. When asked by Guitar World magazine in 1988 if he had ever heard the Swedish guitarist, Gilmour said he had not, but said he admired Eddie Van Halen. “I do like Eddie Van Halen’s playing a lot. Of course, I can’t do that at all. I don’t have the fingers for it,” he said.
Eddie Van Halen was 9 years younger than Gilmour and sadly passed away too soon at the age of 65 in 2020 after years battling cancer. The Pink Floyd musician didn’t post any messages or special tributes to the late guitar player. He is widely regarded in the music world as the guitarist who, after Jimi Hendrix, revolutionized the instrument.