Eddie Van Halen’s opinion on Jimi Hendrix

When people ask who were the greatest guitarists of all time, Jimi Hendrix and Eddie Van Halen are often mentioned as the two greatest ones because of the huge impact both of them had in guitar playing. They were so influential that already in the first album they released during their careers, the impact was huge and impressed everyone from the Rock and Roll scene.

Hendrix sadly died too soon at the age of 27 back in 1970 and didn’t have the chance to see Eddie Van Halen play but what was the opinion of the Dutch guitarist on Hendrix?

Eddie Van Halen’s opinion on Jimi Hendrix

Eddie Van Halen had some mixed feelings about Jimi Hendrix, although he said he respected the guitarist and praised him he also criticized some aspects about him. During his career he was tired of always being called the “Hendrix of his generation” and to be compared with the late American guitar player and singer. Eddie believed they really didn’t have anything in common.

“I say it’s a hell of a compliment (to be compared with him). But at the same time I’m really nothing like Jimi Hendrix.” He notes that he doesn’t mean any disrespect and continues: “I’m just saying I’m very different than Hendrix because I create stuff.”

Eddie Van Halen continued:

“He used so many effects and stuff that I was the complete opposite. I wanted the guitar to do things, but nobody built the guitar that I wanted. Hendrix didn’t do things like that. He was an amazing player. But if you ever heard any live bootlegs of him, even some of the Woodstock stuff, it’s hard for him to keep that thing even tuned,” He said in an interview with Steve Baltin in 2009.

As Eddie said, one of the things that bothered him about Hendrix was that the musician used too much equipment. The musician once told Rolling Stone in 2011 that he never bought a Hendrix record Hendrix because he couldn’t afford the equipment he used. During the conversation he also noted that Hendrix was “more abstract in his approach”.

He couldn’t afford what Hendrix used

Van Halen said a similar thing to Howard Stern in 2006 (Transcribed by Rock and Roll Garage). “He used a bunch of pedals and stuff. I couldn’t afford the shit.” The guitarist was then questioned if he thought that Hendrix was a “hack”. So he replied: “No, no, no. He did some crazy shit, but I don’t know. I couldn’t afford the wah-wah pedal, the fuzzbox, all that stuff. So kind of did my own thing,” Eddie Van Halen said.

Already in the early years of his career after Van Halen had released their first albums, Eddie already said he was not a big Hendrix fan. “I did an interview once with Circus magazine. They asked me, ‘Who are your main influences?’ I said, ‘Well, Clapton. You know, the usual.’ And they said, ‘Oh, not Jimi Hendrix?’ I go, ‘No, actually I didn’t like Jimi Hendrix at all. He was too flash for me. I get off on the bluesy feeling that Clapton projected’. But then I said, ‘Even though I don’t play like Clapton or sound like him at all,’ Eddie told Jas Obrecht in 1979.

According to a friend, Eddie though that Jimi Hendrix was sloppy when playing live

Since Eddie said that he felt like it was hard for Hendrix to keep the guitar in tune when he was playing live, we can imagine that he felt like the artist could be a little sloppy during his performances. According to his friend, the ex-Whitesnake guitarist Adrian Vanderberg, the late guitarist thought that Hendrix was indeed sloppy during his shows.