Guitarist Michael Schenker gives his opinion on Eddie Van Halen

Ex-Scorpions and UFO guitarist Michael Schenker talked in an interview with The Metal Voice about the late Van Halen guitarist Eddie Van Halen that died in October 2020 at the age of 65, victim of throat cancer.

Guitarist Michael Schenker gives his opinion on Eddie Van Halen:

“The weirdest thing is actually Van Halen was supporting UFO at the Starwood [Club], I was 19 years old and it was 5 years before Van Halen broke out with Van Halen One. When I heard Eddie I was like, ‘Wow! This is amazing.'”

“But I didn’t know that he was actually doing the tapping technique. I was wondering how on earth does he get such a smooth guitar sound. Everyone copied him doing the tapping style later on. It was something easy for guitarists to do for overnight success.”

“So there were thousands of guitarists going to guitar school learning tapping to be a star in one or two years. But the thing with Eddie Van Halen was he had rhythm and style. My brother Rudolf told me that he actually heard something Eddie did earlier on that sounded like Eddie was a bit influenced by me.”

“But Eddie took it so far forward that I was blown away by what he did . His sense of rhythm, his sense of melody, his sense of sound and tone quality. The way he actually entertained was so complete, he was the best.”

Eddie Van Halen

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.