The 3 Grunge bands that Eddie Van Halen said he liked

Grunge appeared in the late 80s and really reached worldwide fame in the early 90s when many classic albums of that new music genre were released. Although there were millions of fans of that new kind of Rock and Roll, many older famous musicians were not fans of those new bands, especially because they were the opposition and wanted to really stop what was being done at the time. But the legendary guitarist Eddie Van Halen really enjoyed many of those new groups and had nothing against them, unlike many of his peers, especially the ones from Hair Metal groups, which were really affected by Grunge’s success.

To show a little bit more about which Grunge groups Van Halen liked, Rock and Roll Garage listed three of those groups and recovered what the musician said about them.

The 3 Grunge bands that Eddie Van Halen said he liked

Nirvana

The Grunge band that certainly caused the biggest impact in the music industry was Nirvana, which was led by the late guitarist and singer Kurt Cobain alongside Krist Novoselic (Bass) and Dave Grohl (Drums), which were part of the classic line-up.

It was with the release of their groundbreaking and best-selling album “Nevermind” (1991) that Grunge really became a global thing in the early 90s. Although it was quite different from the music Eddie Van Halen made, he really respected Cobain as a songwriter and also as a guitarist.

In an interview with Rolling Stone in 1995, one year after Cobain took his own life, Eddie Van Halen lamented his death. The musician said that he felt moved by the music made by Nirvana, since it came straight from Cobain’s heart.

Soundgarden

Another Grunge group that Eddie Van Halen liked was Soundgarden, which had the late legendary vocalist Chris Cornell. But in another conversation with Rolling Stone in 1995, he noted that he liked bands like Soundgarden and Pearl Jam, although he wasn’t that interested in the guitar playing. “I like them, but the guitar playing in particular never really hit me. I like Pearl Jam and Soundgarden, but I don’t even know who the guitarists are,” he said.

Eddie really liked Chris Cornell as a singer and curiously they almost worked together. That information was revealed by the guitarist Pete Thorn in an interview in an interview with Mitch Lafon and Jeremy White in 2022. He recalled that Chris and Eddie were really good friends around the late 90s and early 2000s, and that Van Halen always wanted to work with Cornell at some point. “They were buddies back around the late, I believe it’s like kind of the late ’90s, early 2000s. Eddie always wanted to do something with Chris, musically. He loved his voice and he used to be like, ‘Man, I love him. We were always talking about doing something together’, ” Pete Thorn said.

That opportunity finally happened in 2009 when Cornell was recording his solo album called “Scream”. Eddie even accepted Cornell’s invitation to play in one song and recorded his parts. But according to Thorn, the singer never recorded the vocals for it.

He continued:

“I don’t want to get anybody excited thinking that this ever got finished, because it didn’t. But he did work on it. “You know, I would go up there over the next couple of weeks, and he had played on it. I would listen to it and just be like, ‘I can’t believe this is happening. This is myself and Eddie on a track.’ And then, it’s a long story. But it never got a vocal on it by Chris. You know, that was what it was. Ed got busy doing the next Van Halen record right around then and producing things up. It just never ended up getting finished,” Pete Thorn said.

Pearl Jam

As Eddie told Rolling Stone in 1995, he liked Pearl Jam although he wasn’t familiar with who the members of the band were. At the time they had released only three albums, which are their most famous ones: “Ten” (1991), “Vs.” (1993) and “Vitalogy” (1994).

The singer Eddie Vedder and the guitarist Mike McCready had the chance to meet Eddie during Van Halen’s final reunion tour. He recalled that story in an interview with Howard Stern in 2021 (Transcribed by Rock and Roll Garage). Vedder said that Van Halen was really sweet and it was really great to finally meet him.

“Yeah, he was a genius. I did (meet him), it wasn’t even that long ago. We (went to see a Van Halen show and I took an 8-track of VH 1 and II to be signed). Sure enough (we had the chance to meet him) and I was a little nervous, because if you’re Eddie Van Halen you could be a complete asshole and I would totally respect that (laughs).”

“You can be however you want if you’re Eddie Van Halen. It turned out he was the sweetest, sweetest guy. I kind of sheepishly said ‘Hey, would it be funny if I asked you to sign this thing?’ And he said: ‘Oh, my God. Look at this. Wolfie! Come here!’ He had his son coming and he said: ‘Look at this Wolfie. This is what we used to put out’. So I have this nice thing where he wrote ‘From Eddie to Eddie’,” Eddie Vedder said.