Since they were kids, Eddie Van Halen and Alex Van Halen were taught how to play music by their father, Jan. Their mother, Eugenia, dreamed of her children becoming respected pianists, but everything changed when they discovered Rock and Roll. Eddie initially played the drums, and Alex the guitar, but they soon realized they were better suited to swapping instruments.
Eddie went on to become one of the most influential guitarists of all time, inspiring countless generations of artists. He had the chance to meet many musicians he admired, and in the early days, he even felt that some of them didn’t like him.
Eddie Van Halen once thought Joe Perry and Blackmore hated him
By the time Van Halen released their groundbreaking debut album in 1978, guitarists like Ritchie Blackmore (Deep Purple, Rainbow) and Joe Perry (Aerosmith) already were some of the most influential musicians in the world. Eddie’s playing impressed everyone in the Rock and Roll scene. As the band got bigger he had the chance to meet many of those artists, including Ritchie and Joe.
But as he recalled in an interview with Jas Obrecht in 1982, he felt at first that those guitar players hated him. “There’s one thing that bothered me so much in the very beginning, in ’78, our first tour, is how people like Joe Perry and other guitarists would just give me the shaft with their eyes. Wouldn’t say hello. Wouldn’t be nice. No nothing. I’m not that way.”
“I don’t give a fuck if I’m playing a Holiday Inn lounge, I enjoy playing. But I can’t stand to see a person with Allan’s (Holdsworth) talent, because of mismanagement and people fucking him around. You know, he was ready to sell his guitar and everything and work in a factory. And that is fucking sickening. So I just think about people like Joe Perry or Ritchie Blackmore, who all hate my guts anyway, they wouldn’t go out of their way to help anybody ’cause they would feel threatened.”
“Hey, the way I look at it is I wish there were more people that were innovative so I would have somebody to copy licks from. It might sound a little ego’d-out. But there are very few guitarists that I can listen that make turn my head and go, “Whoa! How did he do that?” And Allan is about the only one,” Eddie Van Halen said.
Joe Perry thinks Eddie reinvented guitar playing
Although his first impression of Blackmore and Perry was not that good, he had the chance to meet them again over the years and they always praised Eddie.
In an interview with Van Halen News Desk back in 2013, Perry praised Eddie, saying: “Eddie’s playing was just phenomenal. He took everything that he’d heard and put his own stamp on it. I thought ‘Oh my god, this is great!’. There were a lot of things he did where I was scratching my head and wondering how he did it, little tricks and things.”
“I was blown away by what he was doing. Eddie came along like a breath of fresh air. It was fresh and hard, and I just felt this was the start of something new. It was kind of like when you first heard Nirvana or Sex Pistols. Eddie’s playing was revolutionary”.
“Eddie is a gifted, natural talent. He’s unstoppable. A musician like that comes along once in a decade or two, if you’re lucky. He reinvented guitar playing,” Joe Perry said.
Blackmore said Van Halen was the ultimate guitar hero
Although their first encounters were not so good, maybe because of Blackmore’s difficult personality, they always respected each other as musicians. Eddie was influenced by Deep Purple and after he passed away in 2020 at the age of 65, Blackmore shared a special tribute. The Deep Purple and Rainbow guitarist called Van Halen the ultimate guitar hero.
“Eddie Van Halen was a brilliant guitarist who started a technique of guitar playing which was emulated by a whole generation of guitarists. He was one of the nicest musicians I ever met in the music business.”
“Very shy and not at all conceited about his ability as a guitar player. Frank Zappa said he reinvented the guitar. I agree. He will be sadly missed. But his brilliant legacy will always be remembered. The ultimate guitar hero,” Ritchie Blackmore said.