Keith Richards was inspired by the great American blues guitarists and, alongside The Rolling Stones, helped bring more attention to this kind of music around the world. Over the decades, although he was aware of many bands and artists who emerged in Rock music, he always remained more interested in the older music he loved. Still, he did give his opinion on a few praisde guitarists, including Eddie Van Halen.
What is Keith Richards’ opinion on Eddie Van Halen
Van Halen was The Rolling Stones’ opening act back in 1981, and when asked after Eddie’s death if he remembered anything about the band, Keith said he didn’t. He admitted that later came to appreciate Eddie’s work, however, it was not the kind of music he really liked or was impressed by. “I don’t remember a thing about Van Halen in those days. I appreciated the work later on and everything. But I’m not a virtuoso soloist. People that think the guitar player has to wail away somewhere on the top end — no.”
“I’m a guitarist. I play chords, I play rhythm. I use the guitar to project a song. I’ve never been out there, like, Wally’s Whistling Saw, and everybody’s supposed to be impressed. So I’m not impressed by that kind of guitar playing. You want to listen to a guitar player, listen to (Andrés) Segovia, for Christ’s sake. Or Django Reinhardt. The rock players, they’re good and they’ve all got their little thing going. But it’s never been my bag,” he told Los Angeles Times in 2020.
During a conversation with Howard Stern in 2023, Richards was asked if he was a fan of Eddie and he explained that he wasn’t but not because of the late player, because he never really was that interested in the bands that followed the Stones and other musicians he was influenced by. “Did you admire Eddie Van Halen? The guy spent his life ripping guitars apart because he had a sound in his head that he wanted. So he literally kept rebuilding these guitars. In a way, wasn’t that what you were doing by ripping one of the strings?” Howard asked.
Keith Richards answered
“I only took one string off, man. I didn’t rip the whole thing apart (laughs). Jesus, I don’t know what Eddie did,” Keith Richards replied. “Was Eddie kinda crazy? Because you played a Gibson sometimes, you played a Fender sometimes and it’s just fine, you don’t have to sit there and rebuild a guitar, right? It’s just fine,” Stern asked.
“It’s fine, a guitar is a guitar, whether it’s got six strings on it or five. Mind you, you have to know when you’ve got five or six on (laughs), because otherwise your fingers are all over the place. But the thing is, with the guitar (if) you’re playing Rock and Roll, it’s whether, can you get the sound of it? Can you get the groove out of it that you’re looking for? It doesn’t matter if you’re playing backwards, upside down. What can you get out of this? You’re not (Andrés) Segovia, you know? (laughs), nor was Eddie Van Halen.”
(Were you a fan? Did you know the guy at all?) “Not much, no. I never listened to Rock bands, you know. I’ve played Chuck Berry, Muddy Waters and I sold it back to America. That’s what we do (The Rolling Stones) and then we started to add our own things to it. But I’m really not really interested in what followed us,” Keith Richards said (Transcribed by Rock and Roll Garage).
Van Halen used to cover many Rolling Stones songs in the early days of their career
Like every band, in the early days of their career playing in clubs, Van Halen used to cover many different bands, including The Rolling Stones. One of the songs they used to play was “If You Can’t Rock Me” and many years after opening for them, in 1995, Eddie Van Halen told Rolling Stone he felt like the Stones were paving the way for older bands to still be heard and acceptable by new generations. “I don’t think Rock has anything to do with how you live. It’s an energy and a vibe that comes out when you’re playing. Look at the Stones. What’s Mick, 52? They’re really paving the way for bands like us. MTV may blow it for some people because kids don’t want to see Mom and Dad rocking.”
The next year, Eddie was part of the VH1 All Star Garage Band, playing the Stones song “Bitch”, from the 1971 album “Sticky Fingers”, and added a bit of tapping during the guitar solo. The rest of the band was formed by Sheryl Crow, Paul Shaffer, Bryan Adams, Steve Winwood, Don Henley, Melissa Etheridge, Max Weinberg, John Mellencamp and Richie Sambora.
Although the Van Halen brothers liked and respected the Rolling Stones, Alex Van Halen said in his book “Brothers” that they were not what Led Zeppelin meant to them.
Van Halen’s bass tech accidentally knocked Mick Jagger to the floor during that tour together
During their tour with The Rolling Stones, the band had the chance to get to know Mick Jagger, in particular, and there is a really funny story involving their bass tech, Kevin “Dugie” Dugan. As he recalled in an interview with Ultimate Guitar, he accidentally knocked Jagger to the floor, and the Stones’ vocalist didn’t forget, later playing a prank on him.
During Van Halen’s set, Michael Anthony had a problem with his bass. Kevin rushed toward a backstage storage box to collect new strings. “I see Bill Graham, the promoter. He’s leaning on my workbox talking to some other guy. So, I yell, ‘Bill! Get out of the way!’ Bill jumps out of the way. I grab the door of my workbox and throw it open. The other guy he was talking to, the door hits him in the chest, and he flies back on his ass about five feet. I yell sorry, grabbed the strings, ran back out, changed strings and got Michael his number one bass back.”
He continued:
“(When I returned to apologize, Bill said:) ‘Don’t worry about it. We were in your way. Michael comes offstage and I’m not sure how he found out so quickly, but the first thing he says is, ‘You knocked Mick Jagger on his ass?’ Some years later, when a friend of Dugan stayed with him while working on a Mick Jagger album in Los Angeles, and the Rolling Stones vocalist played a prank on him.
“I went to LAX (airport) to pick him up, and there’s a limo and a couple vans for all the gear he flew in. So, I started helping go back and forth and grab gear and put it in the van. Every time I’m walking past this limo. They open the door to the limo, blocking my path. They push me into the limo and slam the door shut. Mick Jagger is sitting there by himself. He looks at me and he goes, ‘I understand we’ve met before.’ I’m sitting there thinking, ‘What the fuck?’”According to him, Jagger wanted him to help persuade Michael Anthony to be a guest bassist on his solo album and also invited Dugan to dinner.
Dugan continued:
“Then he says ‘Oh, and one more thing I’ve got to mention. All of the sudden, his facial expression changed. He lunged at me, grabbed me by my shirt, pulls me towards him and says, ‘If you ever knock me on my ass again, I’ll have you killed!’” But then Jagger got out of character and said laughing: “I can’t keep a straight face. He rolls the window down, and there were 10 people outside laughing and saying, ‘We got you!’ That was pretty funny. The fact that Jim got Mick to do that is something else,” he said.