Back in the late ’70s, Black Sabbath was promoting Never Say Die, their final album with Ozzy Osbourne during his first tenure with the band. One of the opening acts for their tour was a young American band called Van Halen. They had just released their groundbreaking self-titled debut album, which impressed everyone in the music industry—especially due to Eddie Van Halen’s revolutionary guitar playing.
Advertisement
Like Tony Iommi, Eddie would go on to become one of the most influential guitarists of all time. The two developed a close friendship over the years. In an interview with Guitar World, Tony was asked about the last guitarist who truly impressed him. He named Eddie Van Halen and reminisced about his reaction the first time he saw Eddie perform live.
Tony Iommi recalls his reaction when he first saw Eddie Van Halen
“The first one was Eddie Van Halen. When they toured with us early on in their career, I thought he was really good and had come up with something very different for its time. Nowadays you can see how all the technical players have learned from Eddie. The funny thing about him was, much like me, he didn’t read music or anything. It was all from feel. He was inventing stuff just using his ears.
“Some of the guitar playing I hear these days is too technical. You have to be precise on this note or that note. I can’t do that – if I do a solo on a record, it’s never the same live. I can’t reproduce what I did in the studio. I’ll do something similar but not exact,” Tony Iommi said.
Eddie Van Halen passed away at the age of 65 back in 2020, a victim of cancer. He was a huge Black Sabbath fan and Van Halen used to perform many songs of the Metal band in the early days of their career when they were playing in bars. Eddie would even be the vocalist on some of these versions and in 1994 he had the chance to write a song with Sabbath. He was in England when the band was recording the album “Cross Purposes”. He went to visit them in the studio and helped to write the song “Evil Eye”. At the time the group had Tony Martin as the vocalist, Iommi on guitar and Geezer Butler on bass.
I'm a Brazilian journalist who always loved Classic Rock and Heavy Metal music. That passion inspired me to create Rock and Roll Garage over 6 years ago.
Music has always been a part of my life, helping me through tough times and being a support to celebrate the good ones. When I became a journalist, I knew I wanted to write about my passions.
After graduating in journalism from the Pontifical Catholic University of Minas Gerais, I pursued a postgraduate degree in digital communication at the same institution. The studies and experience in the field helped me improve the website and always bring the best of classic rock to the world!
MTB: 0021377/MG
