When Black Sabbath and Van Halen toured together in 1978, the veteran metal pioneers found themselves sharing the bill with a young band led by a guitar phenomenon named Eddie Van Halen.

The tour came at a pivotal moment for both groups. Black Sabbath were on the road behind Never Say Die!, the final album to feature Ozzy Osbourne before his dismissal the following year. Van Halen, meanwhile, were riding high on their blockbuster self-titled debut, with Eddie’s revolutionary electric guitar playing — showcased most famously on “Eruption” — turning the band into rock’s hottest new attraction.

Osbourne would later admit the upstarts were blowing Sabbath off the stage. But according to David Lee Roth, one unforgettable night in Tennessee nearly landed him in even bigger trouble, after Tony Iommi accused him of making the Black Sabbath frontman disappear.

Recalling the incident in a new YouTube video, Roth says he and Osbourne spent the evening partying together before the bands headed to their next stop.

“Ozzy and I are partying. We’re partying like demon buccaneers,” Roth recalls. “I was a ball of muscle in those days, man. If somebody said, ‘We’ve got to get up at 6:00 in the morning because we get on the bus,’ we’d stay up.”

After leaving Nashville, Van Halen checked into its hotel in Memphis and played that night’s show. But Osbourne never turned up.

“Then they burst through the door,” Roth says. “Tony Iommi is screaming at me: ‘What did you do to Ozzy?!’ I’m not in charge of Ozzy, but Ozzy’s disappeared.”

With Osbourne missing and tensions already running high within Black Sabbath, the situation quickly escalated. Roth says he was even asked whether he could replace Osbourne for the evening’s show.

“When I said I couldn’t learn the lyrics, they canceled the show,” he recalls.

The situation quickly became surreal.

“Now the FBI and everybody are back at the hotel because Oz has disappeared,” Roth says. “We think he’s been kidnapped. They’re sitting on the floors. The press is there. They have the cameras. The police are combing the airport all night long. Still no Ozzy, and I’m getting blamed for the entire thing. It’s getting scary.”

Then the elevator doors opened.

“He’s in his fucking pajamas,” Roth laughs. “He walks out of the elevator into a lobby full of FBI, CIA, local police, news media, and television cameras. Finally, everybody stops looking at me.”

The explanation, Roth says, was pure Ozzy.

Still carrying the room key from the band’s previous hotel in Nashville, Osbourne mistakenly assumed it belonged to his room in Memphis. He found the matching room number, walked in while housekeeping was cleaning, threw the maid out, climbed into bed and slept for nearly 18 hours.

“He throws her out,” Roth says. “He slams the door, falls face down on the Sealy Posturepedic mattress, and sleeps for almost the next 18 hours.”

For anyone who thinks Roth is exaggerating, his anecdote is supported by Greg Renoff, author of Van Halen Rising

Roth freely admits he played a part in Osbourne’s “stone stupor,” but the misunderstanding ultimately became another classic chapter in the singer’s long history of outrageous tour stories. It also remains one of the most memorable tales from the infamous 1978 trek that paired Black Sabbath’s fading original lineup with the young Van Halen, a band on the verge of becoming rock’s next superstars.

“Of course, I could never play like him. I never tried. Only an idiot competes with Eddie Van Halen.”

So said Steve Vai to Rolling Stone in 2020, as he reflected on his friendship with Eddie. Vai certainly spoke from wisdom — after all, he was David Lee Roth’s guitarist after Roth left Van Halen. He knew what would be expected of him and that he needed to cut his own path to avoid being compared to and overshadowed by the great Eddie Van Halen.

“When I joined David Lee Roth’s band, it was great opportunity for me to play such well-constructed rock songs,” Vai said. “Of course, nobody can play them like Edward, but you do your best.”

Eddie was certainly aware of the guitarist who had taken his place alongside Roth. And while Ed knew his own talents were immense, he remained humble and believed other guitarists had something to teach him. Allan Holdsworth for example: Ed was a huge fan of the guitar giant and did everything he could to help him land a recording contract. With Ed, there was never competition, just a desire to play guitar and keep getting better.

So he kept his eye on Vai and was pleasantly surprised at what he heard. Unlike the numerous EVH clones, Vai combined his limits-stretching electric guitar techniques with lyrical melodies. Joe Satriani — who stepped into Ed's shoes on last year's Best of All Worlds tour — might impress you with his bluesy fusion, and Yngwie Malmsteen with his neoclassical chops. But Vai combined an almost operatic beauty with the sort of avant-garde eccentricities of his former employer, Frank Zappa.

And when Eddie heard Vai apply his magic to his own songs in Roth’s band, he was duly impressed.

“I’m going, ‘This guy is better at what I do than I am’, you know?” Eddie told interview Shaun Baxter in 1995.

“But,” Ed added, “ he lacked the vibe… the feel. He was technically very proficient but stiff. It always made me feel bad in a way. Because it made me feel like, ‘Wow, is that how people perceive me?’ ”

Vai stayed with Roth from 1985 through 1989, during which time he performed on the singer’s albums Eat ‘Em and Smile and Skyscraper. Once he was out, Ed felt it was safe to give him a call.

“The day after I left David Lee Roth’s band — I don’t know how Edward found out — but he called me,” Vai told Rolling Stone. “That was the start of a nice relationship and friendship.”

Vai recalled that they hung out frequently over a six-month period, during which he visited Ed’s 5150 Studios and was treated to private listening sessions of his work tapes. “He played me stuff that was never released,” Vai recalled. “I said, ‘Why don’t you make a solo record?’ And he always felt that the Van Halen records were his solo records.

"But this stuff he was playing me was really quite nice. It was all the things we loved about the way he played.”

While Ed considered Vai the one guitarist who out–Van Halened him, Vai believes Ed was a rock and roll game changer with only one peer.

“If I had to use my intuition,” he said, “it’s Hendrix, it’s Van Halen, in rock guitar. So many great guitarists came along and contributed, but those guys just did something for us that reshaped not just the way we played instruments, but the way we write the music, the way we dress, and the way we act onstage. It goes really deep. So I firmly feel that he was one of those monoliths.”

Vai certainly has his own share of fans who consider him a game changer. Tosin Abasi recently spoke of working 16 hours a day in a salmon processing factory in Alaska to buy his Steve Vai signature guitar.

For those who want to channel some of Steve's guitar mojo, his three top guitar tips will prove worthwhile.

Former Van Halen bandmates Alex Van Halen and David Lee Roth are set to appear at an event this week, but it doesn’t look to be the reunion many Van Halen fans will be hoping for.

The Van Halen drummer and their three-time vocalist are set to appear at a TEDxFargo event in North Dakota this Thursday, July 30, 11 years after Van Halen wrapped touring A Different Kind of Truth. That final show, at the Hollywood Bowl on October 4, 2015, would prove to be the band’s last, with Eddie Van Halen passing five years and two days later.

Now the pair, who have both been booked as guest speakers at the event, are set for a surprise reunion of sorts, but don’t expect them to be sharing the stage in a physical sense. They’ve been booked for a “virtual talk” together with artist Robert Vargas, the man responsible for the EVH mural on the side of Guitar Center Hollywood.

“Three icons. One stage. One conversation you won’t want to miss,” the event’s official announcement states. The filming, it adds, will take place this week and will be uploaded to YouTube in the coming weeks for those who can’t attend the event in person.

It should be a fascinating conversation, given the duo’s checkered past. On the one hand, Van Halen blames Roth for the failed Van Halen tribute tour. On the other, he recently praised singer’s talent and work in Van Halen, saying, “We did our best work with Dave.”

“To me, Dave was a poet,“ Van Halen said. “It was the confluence of the complete opposite ends of the spectrum that made it happen. And it was brilliant soup — until it wasn’t.”

The TEDxFargo event features more than 40 guest speakers across two days, taking place at the Brewhalla entertainment space. It’s an unlikely place to see two musicians who conquered the music world reunite alongside Eddie’s revolutionary talents.

It will also be a surprise public appearance from Roth, given that just last week he was forced to pull the plug on his current U.S. tour, which has seen him reminiscing about his early songwriting adventures with Eddie. Sammy Hagar then offered some kind words of support to the man he replaced in 1985.

The TEDxFargo announcement comes as Alex Van Halen and Steve Lukather continue to complete one last Van Halen album, which is made up of material EVH recorded before his passing. Lukather says the material left him stunned, but it looks like both Roth and Hagar have been frozen out of the project.

Bad Company frontman Paul Rogers has already declined an invitation to get involved, while former VH bass guitarist Michael Anthony believes the record doesn’t need a singer.

David Lee Roth has canceled almost all of the remaining dates on his current U.S. tour — and received an unexpected message of support from his longtime rival, Sammy Hagar.

The original Van Halen singer launched the tour in April and later extended the run through September. But on July 23, all but one of the remaining dates were removed from Roth’s official website without explanation.

Roth had been scheduled to play six shows between July 23 and September 4. As of now, the only date still listed is an August 7 appearance in Sturgis, South Dakota.

The news prompted a surprisingly sympathetic response from Hagar, the singer who replaced Roth in Van Halen in 1985. The two have spent much of the past four decades taking shots at each other, but Hagar took a markedly different tone when addressing Roth’s tour cancellation.

In a seemingly earnest video message, delivered while sipping a tequila cocktail, Hagar said he had heard about the canceled dates from former Van Halen bass guitarist Michael Anthony. He also invited Roth to join him and Anthony at an upcoming Las Vegas show.

“Hey Dave, Sammy here. I just got a call from Michael Anthony as I’m sitting down having my favorite cocktail, I don’t have to tell you that this is about your tour getting cancelled,” Hagar said.

“And I want say from the bottom of my heart, I’m sorry. I hope you’re well. I hope there’s not a physical problem.”

Hagar then acknowledged that both he and Roth have continued to perform songs from their former band almost six years after the death of guitarist Eddie Van Halen.

“Honestly, Mike and I love the fact that you’ve been out there doing it, supporting the greatest band in the world that we were both part of,” he said. “And, yeah, I’m really sorry. That’s fucked up... You and I, Mikey, Al [Alex Van Halen], Ed, cannot be replaced.

“So, when you’re ready to carry on, you go, brother. Mike and I support you.”

Hagar then invited Roth to join him and Anthony at their Las Vegas residency in September.

“Come on, join us, sing a couple of songs, MC the damn show. Come out and just do what the fuck you do, which is pretty damn entertaining,” Hagar said.

“Anyway, hope you’re well, I really do. God bless, brother.”

The message is a striking departure from the singers’ usual public exchanges. Hagar replaced Roth in Van Halen in 1985, and the two spent much of the following decades criticizing each other in interviews and through the press.

They did manage to share a stage again in 2002, when Roth and Hagar both took part in a Van Halen tour. But the reunion did little to permanently settle their long-running rivalry, and the two continued to clash in the years that followed.

They were still taking shots at each other as recently as last year, when Roth mocked Hagar’s claim that he had been visited by the ghost of Eddie Van Halen.

Hagar’s latest message, then, is an unusually warm gesture from one former Van Halen frontman to the other — particularly given their history.

Alex Van Halen has never been shy about preferring one era of Van Halen over another, and he believes David Lee Roth brought something to the band that no one else could replace.

While Sammy Hagar fronted Van Halen through its most commercially successful years, Alex says the group’s defining chemistry belonged to the original lineup.

Speaking with KazaGastão, the drummer reflected on what made Roth such an essential part of Van Halen’s rise.

“To me, Dave was a poet. It was the confluence of the complete opposite ends of the spectrum that made it happen. And it was brilliant soup — until it wasn’t.”

Roth fronted Van Halen on the band’s first six albums before leaving in 1985 to pursue a solo career. The relationship had already begun to fracture by then, and Eddie Van Halen’s secret recording session playing the electric guitar solo on Michael Jackson’s “Beat It” proved to be the final breaking point.

Looking back, though, Alex says those disagreements disappeared after Eddie’s death in 2020.

“That’s the important part: Remember the good times,” he said. “All the fights and disagreements that we had went by the wayside when Ed passed.

“Dave was the first person I called. He’s the only person I called, because it goes beyond words. It goes beyond the fact that we made music together and traveled together. We were kindred spirits.”

When the interviewer asked about Sammy Hagar — who replaced Roth in 1985 and sang on four studio albums with the band — Alex acknowledged what they accomplished together but insisted Van Halen’s defining chemistry belonged to the original lineup.

“There was good music made and all that, but the essence and the spirit and the balls-to-the-wall was the first model,” he said. “Everybody has a peak in their life, and he wasn’t there during that time period. We did our best work with Dave.”

For Alex, part of that success came from Roth’s unpredictable personality, which he says fueled the band’s creativity rather than undermining it.

“Dave was a restless guy,” he explained. “He couldn’t settle on one thing for one day. The next day, he is on something else. Some people might think it is a negative, and it is if it’s left alone to fester and become something it shouldn’t be. But you need conflict. You need contradiction. You need friction. Without friction, you’ve got no heat. Without heat, you’ve got nothing.

“A creative environment is an extremely difficult thing to foster and to keep in check and keep it balanced. Now, you don’t want to be completely balanced because then it becomes inert. Then it becomes predictable. We were very concerned about ending up doing the same thing over and over again.”

Alex also argued that Roth’s greatest contribution wasn’t his vocals or stage antics but his ability to connect with audiences.

Although Roth’s larger-than-life personality often put him at odds with those around him, Alex insisted he was “never in competition with anybody.”

“We stole the show because Dave had a way of connecting with the people, which was extremely important,” he said. “He has that skill, and nobody’s going to stop that. I don’t care what anybody says. I love the guy.

“Music is about people. People don’t really remember what you played. They remember how you made them feel.”

Meanwhile, songwriter Desmond Child recently reflected on his difficult songwriting sessions with Van Halen and Roth, while Joe Satriani revealed that Roth approached him about a Van Halen tribute tour in the 1990s — an experience that left the guitarist stunned by what he saw as disrespect toward Eddie Van Halen.

Whether they’re played in a club, a theater or a stadium, most rock shows are sweaty affairs for musicians. But what’s it like to perform on some of the coldest stages on Earth?

From Metallica’s record-breaking 2013 Antarctica expedition to Van Halen performing in a blizzard and Tesseract gracing a stage made entirely of ice, rock history has delivered some frosty gigs. As far as experiences go, there’s nothing quite like them.

Thrash-metal giants Metallica entered the record books 13 years ago when performing a 10-song set in a packed-out dome near the Argentine Antarctic Base Carlini. In doing so, they became the first musical act to have played a show on all seven of the Earth’s continents.

The 120-strong audience comprised Coca-Cola competition winners from across Latin America, research station scientists from Russia, South Korea, China, Poland, Chile, Brazil and Germany, along with the ship’s crew.

“Part of the deal was we couldn’t disturb the environment, the penguins, and all the incredible wildlife down there,” drummer Lars Ulrich said of the show in 2023 (via Metal Hammer).

Not only was it the first metal show where penguins were of paramount importance, but it also meant that the band had to ditch their tube amps and anything else that might get loud.

The solution was to send the band’s live feed to the audience via headphones, essentially turning the performance into a silent headbangers’ ball. At a time when digital amp modelers were still looked upon dubiously by gear nerds, the band turned to Fractal.

“The initial question is, can we make this work?” James Hetfield’s tech, Chad Zaemisch, later told Guitar World. “From a technician’s point of view, you don’t want to say to the guy you’re working for that what you’re doing is not going to be as good as before.”

Yet, the show went down without a hitch, and Metallica has stayed loyal to Fractal’s Axe Fx modeler ever since. But other bands haven’t been so lucky.

In 1995, Van Halen were in Denver on the Balance tour when a freak blizzard whipped through the city. The weather conditions deteriorated as the show went on, leading to snow accumulating onstage. Still, the band refused to cut the show short, given that so many fans had made the effort to get there. Even with frozen fingers, Eddie Van Halen and company tore through a 21-song set.

It’s a sentiment that U.K. progressive metal band Tesseract can relate to. Two years after Metallica’s glacial gig, the seven-string guitar advocates made their own way into the record books.

As part of Jägermeister’s Ice Cold series of shows at Snow Village in Kittila, Lapland, they became the first band to perform on top of a structure made completely out of ice.

Snow Village in Kittila is built each year from 44 million pounds of snow and 78,000 pounds of ice, and while it looked impressive, the onstage temperature of -4°F was anything but. As Metal Hammer reports, several band members suffered a loss of feeling in their hands after just the first song of soundcheck.

“One of the main challenges is keeping the instruments at the same temperature,” Amos Williams, the band’s bass guitar player, explained. “If the strings become colder during the set, then tuning will become a massive issue.”

“The strings are ice, and that’s making our fingers pretty dead,” Williams told Total Guitar from backstage. “I’ve actually got a heat pad on my palms [under my glove].”

“The bit I’m worried about,” he added, “is snow getting into [our gear], because it isn’t, basically, water? Hopefully nothing’s going to short-circuit.”

Unlike Metallica’s carefully controlled Antarctic performance, neither Van Halen nor Tesseract had the luxury of insulating themselves from the elements. Together, they prove that some of rock’s greatest gigs are remembered not just for the songs that were played, but for the conditions the bands overcame to play them.

Desmond Child has written for a litany of rock greats, but in the mid-’90s, Van Halen became the one that got away.

The producer and songwriter has helped shape hits like Aerosmith’s swaggering “Dude (Looks Like a Lady”, Bon Jovi’s talkbox-powered “Livin’ On A Prayer”, and Kiss’s disco hit, “I Was Made for Lovin’ You”. He’s got a proven track record of helping rock songs resonate with massive audiences, which often puts him in high demand.

Yet, remarkably, he found himself in line to work with both David Lee Roth, whose commercial star was waning, and his former band, Van Halen, within just a few months in 1996. Both gigs ended up intertwining in an unexpected way.

First, he was in line to enter songwriting sessions with Diamond Dave when the singer rocked up to their first meeting armed with two things: a cassette and strippers.

“He was going to explain what his music was all about, so he gave me a cassette and said, ‘Put this on,’ and it was like real old-fashioned stripper music,” Child told Chuck Shute. “Then all of a sudden the strippers, who wear trench coats, fedoras, and stiletto heels with nothing on underneath, slip in, and then they start doing all these moves. And this was in an office that was like a little closet.”

For most artists, this would seem a surprising and highly unprofessional move – even if it did hit the nail on the head, aesthetically – but for David Lee Roth, it feels incredibly on-brand.

“Then suddenly he turns off the music," says Child, "and they jump up, grab their coats, and they say, ‘Give us a call if you want some more inspiration!’” 

There was no second meeting, although Child says that was on Roth.

“He didn’t come back, maybe I didn’t enjoy the strippers enough for his taste,” he jokes. But he see the singer again not long after.

“I think Hagar had left, and now they were looking for a new lead singer,” he says, referring to his potential collaboration with Van Halen. “I was recommending Mitch Malloy, who is a great rock singer. I thought he could pull it off and, you know, he had the golden locks.”

Malloy would go on to audition for the gig, which Extreme vocalist Gary Cherone ultimately got. But for Child, his time with the band was about to get a whole lot weirder. Dave Lee Roth was still in the picture, and about to make a brief return to the band.

“I went up there, and he [David Lee Roth] shows up, top down, looking like a video shoot,” he says. “Then he gets out of the car, and before you know it, no song was started, and I had to leave. He came in there and busted it all up. I never got asked back.”

It’s strange that Van Halen were even considering outside help with their songwriting, considering the fallout of Eddie’s secret guest solo on Michael Jackson’s “Beat It”. The rule in the band was ‘Van Halen, nothing else.’ Maybe that, rather than Roth’s actions, was the reason the collaboration never happened.

But how did Roth know what was going on?

“Somebody must have tipped him off,” Child guesses. “Who knows how that transpired, like ‘We’re writing with Desmond Child, we don’t need you!’ There was a high school-ness to it all.”

Either way, the party was crashed, and Van Halen never worked with Desmond Child. Instead, they pressed on with Cherone and released Van Halen III in 1998 before going on hiatus.

As for Roth, who had handpicked Steve Vai to help launch his solo career, he went on to form the DLR Band with future Rob Zombie and Mötley Crüe guitarist John 5, but not before he tried to recruit Joe Satriani for a Van Halen tribute band. Satch couldn’t believe the cheek of it.

British indie rock band Wet Leg have had a hugely successful past 12 months, and much of their success hinges on the “demystifying” discovery that guitarist/vocalist Rhian Teasdale made early in her career.

Following the release of their second album, Moisturizer, last July, the band embarked on a sell-out UK tour that included a show at London’s historic Royal Albert Hall, while standout shows at Glastonbury and Coachella have been the icing on the cake for a band that continues to grow.

But when it comes to the fundamentals of their songwriting, Teasdale says she’s in love with simplicity, despite the “many loser gatekeepers who want you to believe that you need 20-plus chords in a song for it to be worthy.”

Indeed, she’s making the case that guitar players only need two chords to write a “banging” song.

The guitarist, who is often seen wielding a green perspex B.C. Rich Mockingbird has been talking to The Cut about the band’s rapid rise and newfound status as Britain’s premier indie rock darlings.

Her less-is-more revelation came early in her playing days, and it’s a mindset that she’s in no rush to abandon.

“The first song I ever tried to play on guitar was ‘Molly’s Chambers’ by Kings of Leon — back when the band was super-trashy and fun,” she recalls. “It was a real epiphany to learn that you don’t have to be a virtuoso guitarist to enjoy playing music with your friends.

“It’s been a bit of a journey demystifying music-making for myself,” she adds. “I’m not from a musical household, and I even got kicked out of my GCSE music course because I was too far behind the rest of the class. There are so many loser gatekeepers who want you to believe that you need 20-plus chords in a song for it to be worthy. In reality, there are so many banging songs that literally are just two chords.”

Despite the band’s streamlined musicality, Teasdale has said she wants the world to see Wet Leg’s riff-slingers as guitar heroes, but the Isle of Wight outfit is doing so on their own terms. Don’t expect blazing guitar solos and tapping galore.

For further proof that the two-chord song formula is successful, we can look to Eddie Van Halen, a player many consider one of history’s best. As Michael Anthony once said, “Ain’t Talkin’ ‘bout Love” shows what you can do with just two chords – in this case, A minor and G major.

The song, he says, hinges on a singular lick, and was written as a nod to punk and the Ramones’ no-nonsense hitmaking. Released as part of the band’s certified diamond 1978 debut album, and a song that has racked up 276 million Spotify streams, it has proven to be a cross-generational hit, even if it flies in the face of the flair and flamboyance Van Halen was notorious for.

“It was a stupid thing to us, just two chords,” Eddie Van Halen once told Guitar World of the song’s genesis. “It didn’t end up sounding punk, but that was the intention.”

Producer Ted Templeman, meanwhile, pinned the track’s success on EVH’s “incredible” guitar playing, which perhaps suggests that a high-quality musician working within more limited confines can often produce magic moments.

That’s why Wet Leg are keeping things simple. And the buzz about them – on both sides of the Atlantic – underscores their argument with aplomb. Just don’t tell Yngwie Malmsteen.

With Sammy Hagar, Van Halen produced four multi-Platinum, chart-topping albums and a string of massive singles. But the Red Rocker says one key song was left out of the band’s catalogue after Alex Van Halen unfairly dismissed it.

Hagar’s arrival to replace David Lee Roth came after the band had already begun expanding its use of keyboards—most notably on “Jump,” which had been recorded and released during the Roth era on the album 1984. Once inside the group, Hagar says he continued to encourage Eddie Van Halen to explore that direction further, helping pave the way for more keyboard-driven material in the Hagar-fronted period.

While Eddie Van Halen remained the band’s primary songwriter — he once described himself as both the group’s spark plug and engine — Hagar was also contributing ideas of his own. The guitarist was energized by the creative dynamic Hagar brought into the fold, but his brother, drummer Alex Van Halen, proved a stumbling block when Hagar pitched his song “Eagles Fly.”

“I showed them that song, and Eddie’s going, ‘Wow, wow, wow,’” Hagar told Total Rock. “And Alex goes, ‘Yeah, yeah. It sounds like John Denver, it’s cool,’ and moved on.”

But the drummer’s assessment would come back to haunt him. In 1987, Hagar was working on what would become I Never Said Goodbye, his ninth solo album and first since joining Van Halen. The record saw Eddie Van Halen acting as co-producer alongside Hagar and David Thoener (AC/DC, David Bowie, Kiss), with Eddie contributing bass throughout the sessions. Together, the trio resurrected “Eagles Fly,” transforming it from a stripped-back acoustic idea into a polished, contemporary power ballad.

“When it came out, Alex heard it, and he goes, ‘Hey, why the fuck didn’t we put that on a Van Halen record?’” Hagar recalled. “I went, ‘Well, Al, if you don’t remember, I can remember you said it sounded like John Denver’ — because I was playing it on acoustic guitar.”

The song has since become a personal favorite of Hagar’s, and he has suggested its origins reflect the broader creative tensions within the band at the time.

“I had a vision,” he said, though he added, “it wasn’t a dream. I was wide awake, and I had a feeling I was in a special place. Eddie loved it.”

At the time, Hagar says Alex Van Halen was resistant to him bringing outside ideas into the band unless they fit a strict internal division of labor.

“He was about his brother writing the music, and me writing the lyrics and the vocals,” Hagar said.

The dispute over “Eagles Fly” has since become one of several lingering “what-if” moments from the Hagar era — particularly given the commercial dominance of the band’s first album with him on vocals, 5150.

In hindsight, Hagar’s frustration appears less about a single rejected song and more about how songwriting authority was distributed within the band at the time — an internal balance that often sat uneasily alongside its commercial peak.

Elsewhere, Hagar has continued to revisit his Van Halen years in interviews, while guitarist Joe Satriani has also reflected on Eddie Van Halen’s playing and influence, highlighting aspects of his technique that he found particularly singular and difficult to replicate.

Van Halen had a rule: No one in the band played on anyone else’s records.

So how did Eddie Van Halen end up delivering one of the most famous guest electric guitar solos of all time on Michael Jackson’s “Beat It”?

According to the guitarist, everyone else in the band was out of town, and he figured no one would mind — or even notice — if he made one exception. Speaking years later, Van Halen explained why he broke the band’s longstanding policy against outside sessions, why he never accepted payment for the performance, how he rearranged part of the song before recording his iconic solo and why those last-minute changes left Steve Lukather and the Thriller team scrambling behind the scenes.

Released in 1982, “Beat It” became one of the biggest singles of the decade and helped propel Michael Jackson’s Thriller to historic success. Producer Quincy Jones enlisted Toto guitarist Steve Lukather — who tracked the song’s now-iconic opening riff and much of the album — before calling on Van Halen, then rock’s biggest guitar hero, to record the solo.

Speaking on Piers Morgan Live alongside LL Cool J, Van Halen was asked why he hadn’t been paid for the session.

“Well, I didn’t ask for anything,” he replied.

“It was about 20 minutes out of my life,” he said. “Quincy had called me up and asked me if I wanted to do it, and the honest-to-God truth, it was the band’s policy that we didn’t do things outside of the band at the time.”

Even so, he figured he could quietly make an exception.

“Everybody’s out of town, so I had no one to ask,” he said laughing. “I figured, who’s going to know if I play on this black kid’s record?”

He was joking, of course. “Beat It” became a worldwide smash, with estimated sales exceeding 10 million copies, and Van Halen’s unmistakable solo became one of its defining moments. Alex Van Halen has since suggested the appearance only heightened tensions within the band, calling it one of the factors that contributed to David Lee Roth’s departure and eventual solo career with Steve Vai.

Despite describing the session as little more than 20 minutes of work, Eddie said he did far more than simply improvise a solo.

“The funniest thing of all was I actually rearranged the song,” he explained. “The section they wanted me to solo over had no chord changes underneath it, so I had to rearrange the song. And then Michael came in, and I said, ‘Oh, I hope you don’t mind, I changed your song,’ and he listened and went, ‘No, I really like that high, fast stuff you do!’”

According to Lukather, those last-minute changes created a major headache behind the scenes.

Speaking on the Roundtable with Drew podcast, he recalled that Van Halen’s decision to move the solo required engineers to physically edit the two-inch master tape, damaging the SMPTE time code that kept the various recordings synchronized.

“We had to make the song backward,” he said. “Quincy had cut another version with Michael’s vocals quintupled; they really worked hard on that vocal. Then they sent the tape up to Ed’s house to Donn [Landee, his engineer], and they cut the two-inch tape, which fucked the SMPTE code, which means they couldn’t sync up the master.

“So they had a two-inch tape with Michael’s pristine vocals, and then Ed decided he wanted the solo [somewhere else], so he put it together and sent it back to him, and it wouldn’t sync back up.”

Lukather said reconstructing the master became an exhausting process. Along the way, his own quadruple-tracked rhythm guitars — “I had to make this right for Eddie,” he quipped — were reduced to a double-track, while a Marshall stack was swapped for a Fender Deluxe to give the track a warmer sound better suited to Jackson’s R&B audience.

When Van Halen reflected on Jackson during his Piers Morgan Live appearance — recorded four years after the singer’s death — he also pushed back against the allegations that had surrounded the pop icon.

“He was a sweet guy, is all I know,” he said. “He got accused of a lot of things, [but] I think he wanted to remain a kid himself.”

Lukather, meanwhile, remains part of the conversation surrounding Eddie Van Halen's musical legacy. Although he has insisted he won't play on what is expected to become the final Van Halen album, he has been working with Alex Van Halen as the drummer continues developing the project. Steve Vai has also praised the quality of Eddie's unreleased material, further fueling anticipation for the long-rumored release.

Joe Satriani has built his reputation on dazzling technique. But ask him what Sammy Hagar does better than he ever could, and his answer isn’t singing — it’s knowing when not to play.

The pair have spent years playing together, first in Chickenfoot and now in Hagar’s Best of All Worlds Band, celebrating the music of Eddie Van Halen. That close collaboration has given Satriani an appreciation for a side of Hagar’s musicianship that often gets overlooked.

“I’ll play too many notes, but he won’t,” Satriani tells Thinking About Guitar. “I always ask him, ‘Well, what is that?’ And of course, he doesn’t think about it. It’s totally natural to him.

“But he somehow plays the right notes with the right kind of vibrato. And that still fascinates me, as it did when I was a young kid growing up.”

Satriani says Hagar approaches the guitar like a great lead singer rather than a typical lead guitarist.

“I always thought that one of the coolest things about his guitar playing was that he somehow took the knowledge of being a really good lead vocalist and applied it to the way he played guitar,” he says. “He’s kind of a crazy shred guitar player on the one hand. But on the other hand, he’s got this editorial process that I personally recognize as being a lead singer.”

That ability to edit himself, Satriani believes, separates Hagar from many American rock guitarists.

“There aren’t many American guitar players who are well known for restraint,” he says. “I always saw that as something that would come from the U.K. or Ireland. You have these players like Eric Clapton or Brian May who just play the perfect notes. They don’t turn the amp up to eleven.

“I think [Hagar] would take that one step back from the edge of the cliff and make sure that he could pull it off. I hear it over and over again as a thing that really good lead vocalists have. And they apply it to their guitar playing.”

Hagar’s reputation has always been built first on his voice, but he arrived at guitar with a deep appreciation for melody and a $39.95 Silvertone electric guitar, which came with an amp. As per a 2024 Classic Rock interview, he got his education trying to learn every solo Eric Clapton had ever done, because.

Speaking to Classic Rock in 2024, he recalled learning every Eric Clapton guitar solo he could find because “I was more into Clapton and Peter Green than, say, someone like Hendrix” — an influence that helps explain the economy and phrasing Satriani so admires today.

The Best of Both Worlds tour has just wrapped its June U.S. dates and heads to Europe for July before returning stateside in August.

Most fans know Joe Satriani as the guitarist David Lee Roth and Alex Van Halen approached for the post–Eddie Van Halen tribute tour that never got off the ground.

But according to Satriani, Roth first tried to recruit him decades earlier — for a band that would play Van Halen songs while Eddie was still alive and active.

Speaking to Thinking About Guitar, Satriani recalled receiving a call from Roth in the mid-’90s.

“In the mid ’90s, David Lee Roth called me; he wanted to put together a band to do Van Halen songs,” the guitarist says. “He went on and on about how we were the only guys who could really do it right, and he had all these crazy plans.”

It’s unclear exactly when the conversation took place. Roth briefly reunited with Van Halen in 1996 before the band moved on with Gary Cherone, whose stint as frontman led to the release of Van Halen III in 1998.

Whatever the timing, Satriani says he immediately questioned the premise.

“I said, ‘But Dave, Ed’s still alive! He’s still making amazing records. He’s still on tour. What guitar player would ever try to imitate him while he’s still working? It makes no sense.’

“‘Of course, I said, ‘Look, I’m not the guy.’”

For Satriani, stepping into Eddie Van Halen’s role while the guitarist was still recording and performing was unthinkable. As a lifelong admirer of Eddie’s electric guitar work, he had no interest in trying to recreate it while its creator was still actively pushing the instrument forward.

The idea resurfaced years later under very different circumstances.

Following Eddie Van Halen’s death on October 6, 2020, Satriani was contacted by Roth and Alex Van Halen about participating in a tribute project honoring the late guitarist. Reports later emerged that former Metallica bass guitarist Jason Newsted had also been approached, though the project ultimately stalled. Alex Van Halen would later place the blame on Roth.

“When he and Alex called me after Ed had passed away, it made a little bit more sense,” Satriani says. “Even though I tried to convince them I was not the person who could do it justice.”

Rather than take the role himself, Satriani suggested two guitarists he felt would be better suited to the challenge: his former student Steve Vai and Extreme’s Nuno Bettencourt. In the end, the project never materialized.

Satriani would eventually find himself playing Van Halen music onstage, albeit in a different setting. In 2024, he joined Sammy Hagar’s Best of All Worlds tour, performing material spanning Hagar’s tenure with the band and the broader Van Halen catalog. While Hagar says Satch isn’t the best man for the job, he credits him with bringing “his own thing to the music.”

The tour was widely praised by fans and critics alike, but Satriani’s latest recollection reveals that his connection to Van Halen’s legacy almost began nearly 30 years earlier — thanks to an unexpected phone call from Roth and a proposal he simply couldn’t get behind.

As the Kinks' rhythm and lead guitarist, Dave Davies inspired a generation of players with his innovative use of power chords and distortion.

Pete Townshend often cited the group as a major influence, and was motivated particularly by Davies’ aggressive rhythm playing and distorted tone. The Who guitarist admitted that “You Really Got Me” inspired him to write “I Can’t Explain” in a similar style. Meanwhile, Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck and Eric Clapton all took note of Davies' use of distortion, which was far more aggressive than what anyone had been doing in rock.

But Davies’ influence wasn’t limited to guitarists of rock’s 1960s wave. Black Sabbath’s Tony Iommi cited him as an early influence on the heavy, down-tuned riffs that defined Sabbath’s sound and acknowledged the importance of the Kinks in creating the blueprint for heavy guitar riffing. The Kinks even inspired Al Di Meola to write a jazz-fusion classic.

And then there’s Eddie Van Halen, who was a fan of the group’s straightforward but powerful approach to rock. Van Halen famously covered two songs by the Kinks: "You Really Got Me," which the California-based hard rockers released as their 1978 debut single, and "Where Have All the Good Times Gone,“ which appeared on their 1982 album, Diver Down.

To be clear, Davies appreciates that he and his brother Ray had an impact on rock and, particularly, rock guitarists.

“It’s always very flattering for people to copy you, but it’s only music, isn’t it? It is an important vehicle, but we shouldn’t take it too seriously,” Davies told Guitar Player in our March 1990 issue. “We’ve been copied more than a lot of people would care to admit. Ray’s music has impressed upon and influenced a lot of people in many different ways, but that’s good.

But, with that said, Davies wasn’t a fan of Van Halen’s take on the Kinks’ classic.

“When I first heard Van Halen’s version of ‘You Really Got Me,’ I laughed,” he said. “It just seemed so exaggerated. It really misses the point of the whole meaning of the song: four working-class guys, struggling to do something different. In the original record, you can sense that in its energy, the roughness. It’s very impure.

“The Van Halen thing; it’s very accomplished and flashy, but what does it mean?

“Whereas when the Stranglers did ‘All Day and All of the Night,’ I thought it was much more respectful, because they actually tried to get a similar snare drum sound and guitar sound, which I thought was strange. I can’t imagine anybody wanting to do that anyway.”

He laughed. “But at least it seemed more respectful to the original concept and feeling. Even the solo was like the original solo, which I thought was really nice and sweet.”

In the same interview, Davies also addressed claims that Jimmy Page had played the electric guitar solos on those early Kinks sides. Davies, who said he was all of 16 years old when he cut those solos in spring 1963, blamed Page's claim on a penchant for myth-building.

“You see, Jimmy Page was a friend of [producer] Shel Talmy’s, and was a session player who used to hang around and hope that he could get in on sessions,” he said. “And we locked him out.

“But he learned a lot, you know, like the many other people who wouldn’t admit borrowing from the Kinks. And I suppose when he became successful himself, all credit due to him, his ego was so inflated he probably thought he invented the bloody instrument anyway, being carried along on that crystal and glamour.

"It’s all an illusion, building your ego up, and eventually something’s going to pop it like a balloon and you’re back flat down on your ass again. Which is what happened, didn’t it?

“And I suppose it was a bit unfortunate of him; I thought he did me a great injustice by saying that. Besides, I can’t see anybody crazy enough to play a solo like the one on ‘You Really Got Me’ anyway.”

Few guitarists have shaped rock music more profoundly than Eddie Van Halen. But according to Jesus and Mary Chain co-founder William Reid, that influence came with a downside.

“I can’t stand Eddie Van Halen’s guitar playing,” Reid says. “I think he ruined rock guitar all through the ’80s and ’90s because so many people copied him.”

Reid made the remarks during a recent interview with Stereogum alongside his brother and bandmate, Jim Reid. The conversation began with a discussion about simplicity, creativity and the virtues of working within limitations, but eventually turned to the late Van Halen guitarist and the impact he had on generations of electric guitar players.

“Not having a lot of equipment forces you to be more inventive,” Jim Reid says. “I can play guitar, but only just. It’s kinda deliberate. I play guitar to the level I need to.

“Sometimes knowing too much about making music gets in the way, and it ends up back to Eddie Van Halen again.”

William Reid was even less charitable.

“I think guitar players should never learn scales,” he says before describing Van Halen as one of “the worst guitar players in the world.”

“I can’t stand Eddie Van Halen’s guitar playing. I think he ruined rock guitar all through the ’80s and ’90s because so many people copied him. And I just couldn’t get any of that playing as fast as you fucking can and cramming as many notes in one second as you could.”

It’s a remarkable criticism of a guitarist whose influence remains virtually unmatched in rock. Following the release of Van Halen in 1978 and the groundbreaking instrumental “Eruption,” Van Halen inspired countless players to rethink what could be done on the instrument, ushering in an era of technical innovation that dominated guitar culture throughout the 1980s.

Yet Reid’s criticism isn’t really aimed at Van Halen’s abilities as a player. Rather, it’s directed at the wave of imitators who followed in his wake and embraced speed and technical prowess as ends in themselves.

As an example of the kind of musician he admires, Reid pointed to Joy Division and New Order bassist Peter Hook.

“I listen to Peter Hook’s bass riffs,” he says, “and I think that’s a thousand times better than anything Eddie Van Halen could ever conjure up.”

The comparison underscores a divide that has existed in rock music for decades. On one side are players who push the technical boundaries of the instrument. On the other are musicians who place a higher value on mood, melody and memorable parts than sheer virtuosity.

The Jesus and Mary Chain have long belonged to the latter camp. Formed in Scotland in 1983, the band became one of alternative rock’s most influential acts, helping lay the groundwork for the shoegaze movement with its blend of pop melodies, feedback and noise.

Whether fans agree with Reid or not, his comments are a reminder that one of rock’s oldest arguments remains unresolved: Is great guitar playing about technical achievement, or about creating something unforgettable with the fewest possible notes?

Steve Lukather is always a blast to chat with. And as the man who has held down Toto’s proverbial fort — along with thousands of iconic sessions — dialed in with Guitar Player to catch up, he was in rare form.

“What do you wanna know?” Luke asks, laughing. “I don’t know, man. What can I possibly tell you right now?”

Lukather, of course, knows that the world is wondering about the project he’s working on with Alex Van Halen. Rumors have ranged from Luke taking his old pal Eddie Van Halen’s place to the duo writing new music.

The facts, most of which Luke isn’t allowed to talk about, reveal that none of the above are true. What this project really comes down to is a brother and a close friend working together to pay their respects to an electric guitar legend via music.

With that said, Luke is not playing guitar on a new Van Halen album. In fact, this isn’t a Van Halen album at all, and as of now, Luke isn’t playing a lick of guitar but co-producing.

“I’m telling you, this is not throwaway shit,” Lukather says of the tracks Eddie Van Halen left behind. “When I heard them, I said to Al, ‘How fucking come you didn’t use these?’ And the answer was because nobody could write to it. So if you think this is a bunch of throwaway crap that we’re trying to Mickey Mouse together to suck the dollar out of poor, unsuspecting Van Halen fans, it’s not.”

Lukather admits that he doesn’t know what the project will be called. “Those are Alex Van Halen questions,” he says. “I’m just here to be his sidekick, and somebody that he’s gotten very close with since Ed’s death.”

Though Lukather’s relationship with the Van Halens goes back further than that. “We’ve always been pals,” Lukather says. “It’s like Al’s missing a piece of himself. That’s how I feel. He looks at me as somebody he trusts, and who was close with Ed.”

For Lukather, the reward comes via the process. “I don’t have ulterior motives,” he says. “This is not about money. This is about love of the guys and trying to help. I’m not gonna be involved in an obvious way. So, I wish people would get the fuck off my back!” he says with a laugh.

And even if Lukather was asked to play guitar, which he isn’t, he doesn’t feel he’s the person for the job. “I’m not qualified,” he says. “Call Dweezil — he plays that shit. Call Nuno! I can name 10 guys, like Vai or Satch. I’m nowhere near qualified to start dabbling in the Van Halen world.”

What did you think about the initial rumors that you were taking over as guitarist of Van Halen?

Well, first off, that’s the most ridiculous and humorous thing I’ve ever heard. I am no more qualified to try and play like Ed Van Halen than I am to be the first man to tug my dick on the planet. [laughs] I don’t know how anybody could think that would even be a reality. Honestly, it’s laughable. I don’t play… I couldn’t… I don’t play like Ed. It’s crazy.

How far back do you and Alex go?

We’ve been friends for 45 years. I mean, I was close friends with the Van Halens, but I really love all the guys. The only guy I don’t know is David Lee Roth. I met him once or twice, but very briefly. I’ve just always been a fan since the beginning, you know? What can I say?

What are you and Alex actually working on?

Well, being a fan isn’t what it’s about. Alex needs some help. He came to me and said, “Look, I need some help with this.” I went, “How can I help?” But there’s no need for another guitar player.

Meaning you’re not playing guitar on this?

First off, Eddie played some of the most amazing shit I’ve ever heard. And it’s not pieces on the floor that have to be snapped back together and try to Mickey Mouse something together that might be sellable. These are fucking finished tracks with Ed and Al, and Ed’s playing bass on a lot of it. That’s all I can say right now because it’s a much bigger picture, and it’s Alex’s story to tell.

You can’t reveal the nature of the music, but can you expand on your role?

I am there 100 percent to be his co-producer and help him through the technical aspects. I’m not gonna play. There’s not gonna be any Lukather or Toto fingerprints on a Van Halen thing. I can fucking promise you that. I’m there to be Al’s wingman, and go, “How can I help you do this?” I’m there to go, “Want me to help you do some vocals? How do we do these mixes?” It’s about making sure that there’s quality control from somebody he trusts.

Does being a friend and a contemporary make you the right person for the job?

I can listen to stuff, and go, “I know Ed wouldn’t like that.” I can say, “I think Ed would dig that,” you know? I’m just being that third ear.

Is Wolfgang involved?

I’m hoping that Al is gonna ask Wolf to be involved on some level. I haven’t talked to Wolf in a long time. It’s sad, actually. I’d like to, you know? We sort of just got busy, and we haven’t. But I think what he’s doing is wonderful. I think he’s an incredible musician. I think if anybody is gonna play anything that’s needed, he would be qualified to do so. But there really isn’t a need for other players to come in at this point.

Surely, listening to this stuff has to be a reminder of Ed’s greatness.

We all did the tapping thing when it first came out because it was an amazing trick to learn. And after a while, guys like Satch and Steve Vai did it their own way because all the guys were doing a very derivative and obviously Van Halen thing. It just got a little tired.

But that’s not what Ed was trying to do—Ed was trying to fill out a three-piece band. The intricacy between his lead and rhythm playing at the same time was pretty peerless, man. There’s not a lot of guys who could make the racket that Eddie Van Halen did, man. It changed the world.

You won’t be disappointed in the playing; I can tell you that. Ask Steve Vai. I think somebody asked him, and Steve may have heard a few things that I’ve heard. I think he said something in the press about it. But with Ed, man, I felt the same way you did when you heard him. It was jaw-dropping, and it still is.

When Van Halen reunited with original frontman David Lee Roth in 2006, the long-awaited comeback came with an unexpected twist: bassist Michael Anthony — a member of the band since its earliest days — was nowhere in the lineup.

In his place was a new addition to the Van Halen family: Wolfgang Van Halen, the teenage son of guitarist Eddie Van Halen. The move sparked immediate backlash from some fans, many of whom viewed it as nepotism. But according to drummer Alex Van Halen, Anthony wasn’t pushed out — he simply stopped responding.

Speaking recently to the Brazilian outlet KazaGastão, Alex said the band did reach out to its longtime bass guitarist before moving forward.

“People think there were family influences in how he [Wolfgang] became part of the band, which is simply not true,” he said. “Ed and I, as usual, were in the studio alone, because nobody else tolerated it. They’d rather be at the beach.

“We did call Mike, because we owed him that. We did call him, and he just didn’t answer. I’m not mad at Mike, but we had the same manager. Come on — you’ve gotta work for this.”

According to Alex, Wolfgang’s arrival came about naturally while he and Eddie were working in the studio.

“Nobody showed up,” he recalled. “One day Ed and I were playing, and this bass comes in. It had a nice feel to it. Behind the curtain it was Wolf.”

Wolfgang would go on to play bass on the band’s final studio album, A Different Kind of Truth, released in 2012. He later said his presence also helped bring the group back to the stage, noting that playing with his son was “one of [Eddie’s] favorite things.”

Since his father’s death in 2020, however, Wolfgang has largely avoided leaning on the Van Halen legacy. Apart from appearances such as the Taylor Hawkins Tribute Concert, he has focused on his own project, Mammoth WVH.

Alex says that independence has been intentional.

“He’s very careful that he doesn’t want to be Ed Jr,” the drummer said. “He was in a very tough spot. He could have just continued with the Van Halen stuff, but he decided he was his own man.”

Wolfgang himself has stressed that his musical approach differs from his father’s. Speaking in 2024, he said, “I approach guitar playing more as a producer and more as a drummer than a guitar player. Rhythm is always the first thing for me, and melody is the second. It’s more about songwriting when it comes to Mammoth. Not every song needs a solo.”

Meanwhile, Alex has been working on unreleased Van Halen material recorded with Eddie before his death. The project, reportedly being developed with guitarist Steve Lukather, is intended as a follow-up to A Different Kind of Truth. It’s not yet clear whether Wolfgang will take part or who will provide vocals, though guitarist Steve Vai — who has heard some of the archive recordings — has suggested the music is promising.

Valerie Bertinelli still remembers the moment she first noticed the man she would eventually marry — long before she knew anything about his music.

“I look at it, and I’m like, ‘That guitar player’s really fucking cute,’” she recalled of seeing Eddie Van Halen before attending a 1980 concert in Shreveport, Louisiana.

Speaking on Ted Danson’s Where Everybody Knows Your Name podcast (via People), Bertinelli said she had never even heard of Van Halen at the time.

“I was into Elton John and Linda Ronstadt,” she said.

Her brother had tried to prepare her by giving her an eight-track tape of the band before the show — but it didn’t take.

By then, Van Halen had already released three albums and was becoming one of the biggest rock acts in the world, while Eddie was changing the game for electric guitarists. Bertinelli, meanwhile, was already a household name thanks to the hit TV sitcom One Day at a Time, which she joined in 1975 at age 15.

Still, nothing prepared her for meeting guitarist Eddie Van Halen backstage.

“He was the epitome of shy,” she said.

But onstage, the dynamic shifted quickly.

“I was invited to sit on the side of the stage, and Ed kept winking at me and making eyes at me,” she recalled. “He would go over and change his guitars, and we ended up going back to their hotel that night.”

What followed was an immediate, intense connection.

“I was crushing on this guy big time,” she said. “I was 20. He was 25. We went back to the hotel. We talked. We hung out by the outdoor pool.”

When the band left town, he promised to call her.

“He didn’t call for three days,” she said. “And I was getting really anxious.”

When he finally did, she didn’t hesitate.

“I said, ‘Why don’t you move in with me?’ And he moved in with me. And eight months later we were married.”

Their son, Wolfgang, would be born 10 years later. But by then, Bertinelli says, the relationship had already been shaped by a much darker undercurrent.

“We had amazing, good times and really tragic, scary, hard times because we were both drinking, using drugs in the ’80s,” she said. “And then I stopped, and he didn’t.”

Despite therapy and efforts to stabilize their lives, the marriage eventually unraveled.

“We loved each other dearly, but at a certain point, after Wolfie got to a certain age, I thought, ‘I can’t do this anymore.’”

She also reflected on Van Halen’s long struggle with addiction and smoking — habits that would later contribute to his declining health.

“He used a lot of different tools that were soothing but harmful to his body,” she said. “A lot of us use different tools in our toolbox for trauma that numb feelings we don’t want to feel.”

In 2000, Eddie underwent surgery that removed part of his tongue as part of cancer treatment.

“The doctor said, ‘You know this is because you smoke, right?’” she recalled. “And I was like, ‘Ed, God, you better stop smoking.’”

Eddie Van Halen died of throat cancer in October 2020.

But his influence — and the music he helped create — continues to resonate. His brother Alex is currently working on a new Van Halen project using recordings made before his death.

Sammy Hagar says Eddie Van Halen exerted an exacting level of control over both his vocals and Michael Anthony’s bass parts during the recording of Balance (1995), creating an atmosphere so fraught that Hagar and producer Bruce Fairbairn decamped to Bryan Adams’ studio to complete key sessions.

The album would mark Hagar’s final full-length with the band, as tensions between the singer and both Eddie and Alex Van Halen escalated. For Anthony — who had appeared on every Van Halen release to that point — it was also the last record to feature his playing throughout; his role would be significantly reduced on 1998’s Van Halen III, and he was ultimately replaced by Eddie’s son, Wolfgang Van Halen, for A Different Kind of Truth, released in 2012.

In the years since, Hagar and Anthony have remained aligned, forming the Best of All Worlds band with Joe Satriani to celebrate Eddie’s legacy — even as the making of Balance stands as one of the most strained chapters in the band’s history.

“To go into the studio and not want to be there was tough,” Hagar said in a video posted to his YouTube channel to mark the album’s 30th anniversary. “Bruce Fairbairn felt the tension between Ed and me, and Mike and Ed.”

According to Hagar, the band’s painstaking schedule — reportedly eight-hour days over three months — only deepened the fractures, with Eddie scrutinizing performances to an extreme degree.

“Mike would put a bass part down, and Ed would go in there and listen to it, kind of under a microscope,” he said. “[It was] ‘Wait, go back, let me hear that again,’ and Bruce would go, ‘There’s nothing wrong with that.’ He wanted to crucify me.”

Hagar adds that his own vocals were subject to similar oversight.

“Ed was disruptive when I was trying to do the vocals,” he continued. “He’d come in before I was done and start making comments. I’d be waiting to sing, and he’d be talking to Bruce, telling him, ‘I want Sam to do this. I want Sam to do that,’ and Bruce would be arguing with him, like, ‘Ed, get out of here.’

“It really pissed me off—I’m sitting in there waiting for Ed to stop complaining about something I hadn’t even heard yet.”

Compounding matters, the band had pivoted away from its trademark live immediacy toward a more controlled, precision-driven production — an approach Hagar concedes “didn’t have the Van Halen sound like the early stuff.” The demand for tighter, more exact takes only intensified the pressure, and even Fairbairn’s patience began to wear thin.

“Bruce said, ‘Fuck this. We’re going to Canada,’” Hagar recalled. “We went up to Bryan Adams’ house, where he had a vocal booth and a bunch of great microphones. It was fucking badass.”

Working beyond Eddie’s immediate oversight, Hagar completed vocals for “Can’t Stop Lovin’ You,” “Don’t Tell Me (What Love Can Do),” and “Take Me Back (Deja Vu)” with greater freedom. The results, he suggests, ultimately spoke for themselves.

“I remember Ed hearing ‘Don’t Tell Me (What Love Can Do),’” Hagar said. “He hadn’t heard me when I was going to sing that song yet. He and Al had come up to the studio. I’m sitting there with Bruce, and we played the track.

“I was fucking pouring my heart. I remember Ed looking at Al, thinking, ‘Yeah, this is pretty good—we can’t poke holes in this.’”

Years later, Hagar’s strained relationship with Alex Van Halen shows little sign of easing. The singer has likened the drummer to Roger Waters in a recent broadside, while Anthony has floated the idea of an instrumental final Van Halen release.

In related news, Van Halen’s former wife Valerie Bertinelli has opened up about her marriage to Eddie, saying, “I don’t remember too much between the drugs and the alcohol.”

Jimmy Page and Robert Plant helped give Canadian alt-rock outfit Our Lady Peace an early break. But 30 years on, frontman Raine Maida says a very different moment — one involving the Van Halen camp — proved just as pivotal to the band’s trajectory.

Now on the road marking their 30th anniversary, Our Lady Peace are revisiting nearly every chapter of their catalog. For Maida, the milestone has brought two formative experiences into sharp focus.

The first came when Plant heard the band on the radio and promptly invited them to open for him and Page at Chicago’s Rosemont Horizon (now Allstate Arena), along with a stop in Indianapolis. The exposure was transformative.

“Robert was extremely welcoming,” Maida told Ultimate Classic Rock, recalling crowds that were “so giving of their ears, their hearts and time” — a reception that quickly elevated the band’s profile.

Just months later, however, they found themselves in a far less hospitable environment: a summer 1995 amphitheater tour with Sammy Hagar–era Van Halen, in support of Balance, with Skid Row also on the bill.

“We were nervous,” Maida admits. “These were sold-out shows, and the fans — unlike with Page and Plant — really didn’t want to see us.”

Hagar, in particular, pushed the band to adopt a more overtly crowd-pleasing approach.

“He came up to me a couple of times and said, ‘This is supposed to be a party — you’ve got to get the crowd pumped up more,’” Maida recalls.

Maida held his ground. “I told him, respectfully, I get that — he’s an incredible singer — but I’m a very different performer. I’ve never seen myself as an entertainer in that way.”

Tensions escalated to the point where Maida was told a lineup change might be imminent.

“I thought, ‘That’s it — we’ve been kicked off the tour. What am I going to tell my mom?’”

But the decision wasn’t Hagar’s to make. Behind the scenes, guitarist Eddie Van Halen and drummer Alex Van Halen intervened.

“We got a knock on the door, and the tour manager said Eddie and Alex wanted to see me,” Maida says. “Alex and I had become friends — we both had back problems, so we bonded over that.

“I went in, and they told me, ‘Don’t listen to Sammy — he doesn’t have the power to do that. You’re not going anywhere.’ My head was spinning. It wasn’t a great vibe after that, but Eddie and Alex saved us.”

The tour continued as planned, a decision that, in hindsight, left a lasting impression on Maida, not just professionally but personally.

“Eddie showed you what it takes to be a master musician,” he says of the virtuoso electric guitarist. “He’d walk into catering with a guitar on, start soundcheck an hour and a half early. Forget 10,000 hours — we’re talking a million. He was the instrument. That was incredibly inspiring.”

The story has fresh resonance amid renewed activity in the Van Halen camp. Alex Van Halen is reportedly working with Steve Lukather on material drawn from archival demos recorded before Eddie’s death, with discussions ongoing about a possible vocalist. Paul Rodgers has declined involvement, while former bass guitarist Michael Anthony has suggested the recordings might be best left as instrumentals.

And in related news, Sammy Hagar has fired a new shot at Alex Van Halen by unfavorably comparing him to Roger Waters.

Sammy Hagar has fired fresh shots at his former Van Halen bandmate, comparing drummer Alex Van Halen to Roger Waters as their feud shows no sign of easing.

The former Montrose singer last fronted Van Halen in 2005, when their union came to an end after four albums. Founding bass guitarist Michael Anthony exited as well, with Eddie’s son, Wolfgang Van Halen, stepping in when the band reunited once again with David Lee Roth in 2007.

In recent years, Hagar and Anthony have formed the backbone of the Best of All Worlds band, Hagar’s Joe Satriani–powered tribute to Eddie Van Halen. The group even helped Hagar complete a track he claims he co-wrote with Eddie in a dream more than a year after the electric guitar virtuoso’s death.

Meanwhile, Alex Van Halen has floated the idea of assembling one final Van Halen album with help from Steve Lukather, a project neither Hagar nor Roth is expected to be part of. The lingering tension between Hagar and Van Halen surfaced again in the singer’s new interview with Classic Rock.

“I’m the biggest Pink Floyd fan,” Hagar says. “I see David Gilmour say, ‘I will never play with Roger Waters again,’ and I know what he means. I feel that way about Alex Van Halen. They’re negative people.”

The Gilmour–Waters feud famously reached its breaking point in the mid-’80s, culminating in lawsuits after 1987’s A Momentary Lapse of Reason became the first Pink Floyd album without Waters.

Hagar also argued that the Best of All Worlds lineup comes closer than anyone else to recreating the Van Halen experience.

“Because frickin’ Mike Anthony’s in the band, I feel good about playing a lot of Van Halen stuff, ’cause no one will ever hear it again,” he says. “That was the biggest part of my career — everybody’s career, for God’s sake. It was the biggest band in the world.”

Alex Van Halen recently revealed that during the 12-year stretch before the band regrouped with Roth for 2012’s A Different Kind of Truth, he and Eddie considered Ozzy Osbourne as a potential frontmen for a new project. In 2017, they began talking about collaborating with Soundgarden frontman Chris Cornell, though that fizzled when Cornell died a few months later.

Anthony, meanwhile, has suggested that if Alex Van Halen and Steve Lukather do move forward with a final Van Halen record, it should be instrumental if they truly want to honor Eddie Van Halen’s legacy.

While Alex Van Halen and Steve Lukather continue work on what is expected to be a final Van Halen album, the drummer has revealed just how close he and Eddie Van Halen came to launching a band with Ozzy Osbourne.

Alex recently confirmed that he and Lukather are developing material recorded during Eddie’s lifetime that was intended as a follow-up to 2012’s A Different Kind of Truth. Yet the electric guitar virtuoso’s legacy might have taken a dramatically different turn had an ambitious early 2000s collaboration with Osbourne not been derailed by a single competing opportunity.

Alex has previously spoken about the Van Halen brothers’ jams with late Chris Cornell — then of Soundgarden and Audioslave — as well as exploratory talks about forming a band with Ozzy. Both projects ultimately stalled for different reasons. The Cornell collaboration, which began taking shape in 2017, was shelved following the singer’s death just months later.

Speaking to Brazilian outlet Kazagastão, Alex revealed that plans to write an album with the Black Sabbath frontman came remarkably close to becoming reality.

“Ed and I met with Sharon [Osbourne, Ozzy’s wife and manager], because we were kind of at a loss as to which direction we wanted to go,” he said, recalling a period around 2000 when Van Halen were in flux.

Their brief tenure with Gary Cherone had ended, and relationships with former singers David Lee Roth and Sammy Hagar were strained. Rumors about a new vocalist circulated, with David Coverdale among the names floated. The British singer, however, has consistently dismissed the speculation.

“So we sat with Sharon,” Alex continued. “I mean, it was kind of an interesting evening because she’s a lovely lady. I don’t know what people would say about her, but she’s a lovely lady who really had to fend for herself in a male-dominated world.

“The final thing we talked about was, she says, ‘Okay, it sounds like a good idea. Let’s do that. Let’s make a record together. Only one thing. I have a meeting tomorrow with some people about a television show.’ And the rest is history. That’s how close it got.”

That television show was The Osbournes, which ran for four seasons between 2002 and 2005. The series ultimately took priority, while the Van Halen brothers eventually reunited with Hagar instead. Still, the near-miss remains a tantalizing what-if.

In a previous interview with Rolling Stone, Osbourne confirmed that the TV project won out — and admitted lingering regret.

“Yes, we were discussing it,” he said. “It is something that, if it had come to fruition, would have been phenomenal.

“Eddie and Alex were great friends of mine for a very long time, and it’s a regret of mine that we never got it together. The Osbournes [reality show] got in the way of creating new music at that time, unfortunately.”

In hindsight, the experience left its mark. Filming — which effectively took over his Beverly Hills home — proved far more taxing than he anticipated.

“I thought it was gonna be a piece of cake, but you have a camera crew living in your house for three years and see how you feel at the end of it,” he once told Metal Hammer. “You feel like a fucking laboratory rat. It got to the point where I was falling apart emotionally.”

Elsewhere, Zakk Wylde has said Ozzy hoped they would write another album together after Back to the Beginning, one that would return to their 1990s sound. And Jack Osbourne has recalled the moment at Ozzy’s final gig that defined his partnership with Tony Iommi.

Paul Rodgers has confirmed he turned down an invitation to sing on Van Halen’s proposed farewell album, adding another twist to one of rock’s most closely watched unfinished projects.

As drummer Alex Van Halen presses ahead with plans to complete the late Eddie Van Halen’s final recordings, conflicting signals from the band’s inner circle — including founding bass guitarist Michael Anthony — underscore both the ambition of the effort and the unresolved questions surrounding how, or whether, it should be finished.

Alex Van Halen is attempting to shape a final album from material recorded before Eddie’s death in 2020, originally intended as the follow-up to the band’s 2012 comeback, A Different Kind of Truth. He had briefly explored using artificial intelligence to complete the recordings but has instead enlisted Eddie’s longtime friend Steve Lukather to help bring the music to completion.

Lukather, however, quickly clarified after news of his involvement leaked that he would not be contributing new guitar parts.

Alex recently said the search is underway for a vocalist, with classic-era frontmen David Lee Roth and Sammy Hagar both believed to be out of contention.

Rodgers’ own comments suggest he was approached — but passed.

“Thanks to Van Halen for inviting me to work on a track with them,” he wrote on X. “But I am in my acoustic, zen phase of life.”The singer, best known for his work with Bad Company, also used the post to downplay health concerns that kept him from attending the band’s induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame last November.

Rodgers’ decision leaves the project without a confirmed vocalist — and Anthony believes that may be for the best.

“The way I personally feel about it is, if they wanted to do it justice, [the best idea would be] to just finish it up as a great instrumental nod to Eddie,” he told Cleveland radio station WNCX (via Ultimate Classic Rock).

Anthony, who appeared on every Van Halen studio album except their most recent — after being replaced by Eddie’s son, Wolfgang Van Halen — has long advocated for unreleased archival material to surface as a tribute to Eddie’s legacy. But he cautioned that adding vocals now could complicate and delay the process.

“We’re not forming a new band,” he said. “Then you’ve got to work on lyrics and all that stuff. And who knows when anything would be put out at that point.”

Rodgers’ reference to being invited to sing on “a track,” rather than the entire album, raises the possibility that multiple vocalists could appear — or that prospective singers are being tested on individual songs rather than formally recruited.

Anthony’s own language is similarly ambiguous. His shifting use of “we” and “they” reflects both his historic stake in the recordings and his uncertain role in their completion, particularly as some of the demos under consideration date back to sessions he originally played on.

What remains clear is that Alex Van Halen is determined to finish the music he and his brother left behind. Whether that final statement arrives as a fully realized rock album or a purely instrumental farewell remains an open — and deeply symbolic — question.

Alex Van Halen says the Van Halen album he’s working on with Toto’s Steve Lukather was intended to be a follow-up to 2012’s A Different Kind of Truth, and that the pair are now looking for a vocalist.

It’s just shy of a year since Dutch newspaper, De Telegraaf, reported that the drummer and brother of late virtuoso Eddie Van Halen had sought Lukather’s help to turn unfinished demos into a Van Halen album. That followed claims by former bass player Michael Anthony that there was a treasure trove of unheard Van Halen material, leading many to believe that it was the pool of riffs that the pair would be working with.

Following De Telegraaf’s article, Lukather promptly clarified his role in the project, saying, “I will not ever play a note on a Van Halen song.” Given Lukather’s long-standing friendship with Eddie Van Halen, Alex hints that he was drafted as director rather than lead man.

Now, speaking to Brazilian outlet, Kazagastão (via Blabbermouth), he's offered the deepest insight into the project’s context yet.

“These are recordings that were going to be the next [Van Halen] record,” Alex states, noting that the process was halted following Eddie’s passing in 2020. “The drums are already recorded. The drums, the guitar, and the bass are already in there. What we didn’t have was a vocalist.”

It isn’t known if Eddie’s son, Wolfgang, is on the record, or if Ed himself played bass on the track. Either way, the album is one step closer to completion. Whoever is chosen as vocalist would become the band’s fourth singer after David Lee Roth, Sammy Hagar and Gary Cherone.

Roth had returned to the band for their 12th LP. Still, Sammy Hagar has taken the mantle following Eddie’s death, with Roth reportedly refusing to acknowledge Ed’s legacy during a mooted tribute tour.

As such, Hagar has turned to Joe Satriani for the Best of All Worlds Van Halen tribute shows, and released a song he claims features “beyond the grave” contributions from Eddie.

“Ed and I had a lot of stuff that we made [and] never let go,” Alex Van Halen continues. “Many people have asked, what about releasing unreleased stuff? Well, we're not gonna release it in its embryonic form because it wouldn’t make any sense.

“I’ve been fortunate enough to have Steve Lukather, but it has to be of the quality and the level of where we left it. Steve is the connective tissue. I can’t play guitar — I can work things out on a keyboard, but it takes me too long to figure it out. By that time, the moment is gone.

“Steve knows where to put the solo. I have my opinions, and he has his, and they are just opinions. So he can facilitate things that would've taken me 10 times as long.”

In 2024, Alex shared the previously unheard song “Unfinished,” currently the only posthumous Eddie Van Halen material that has been released.

In the late 1970s and early ’80s, Randy Rhoads and Eddie Van Halen were routinely cast as rivals. Both were young, technically dazzling and widely viewed as the most important guitarists of their generation, fueling a narrative that divided fans and gave the guitar press an irresistible storyline.

The media’s role in amplifying such rivalries was nothing new — as seen in the much-publicized tensions between Metallica and Megadeth. But according to original Quiet Riot bass guitarist Kelly Garni, the supposed animosity between Rhoads and Van Halen bore little resemblance to reality.

When Van Halen exploded onto the Los Angeles club scene, his revolutionary technique — immortalized in “Eruption” — quickly made him a local phenomenon. At the time, Rhoads was still performing with Quiet Riot. Later, after joining Ozzy Osbourne and helping launch the singer’s solo career, the perceived rivalry intensified in the public imagination.

But Garni says Rhoads himself had no interest in competing.

Speaking on the Booked On Rock podcast (via Ultimate Guitar), Garni recalled how Quiet Riot became aware of Van Halen’s growing reputation while playing the same Hollywood circuit.

“We became well aware of Van Halen,” he said. “When we’d play the Starwood, we knew they were playing down the street at Gazzarri’s. But there was no competition.

“It just wasn’t in Randy to try to compete. He couldn’t. The way his brain was wired, he could not form a thought like, ‘Oh, I’m gonna be better than that guy.’”

Still, the buzz surrounding Van Halen eventually sparked Rhoads’ curiosity. According to Garni, he went to see the guitarist perform and came away impressed, if understated in his assessment.

“Randy said, ‘I’ll go see what the deal is,’” Garni recalled. “He saw him play and said, ‘Yeah, okay, the guy’s good.’”

Rhoads did make it backstage, but the timing wasn’t ideal.

“Eddie was acting kind of crazy and bouncing off the walls in his underwear,” Garni said. “And Randy was like, ‘Oh, okay … not the best time to meet this guy.’”

The two guitarists shared a bill only once, at Glendale Community College on April 23, 1977. Whether they ever properly connected remains unclear, but the mythology surrounding their supposed rivalry only grew in the years that followed.

Van Halen would later claim that “everything he did, he learned from me,” while Osbourne said in 2022 that his late guitarist “didn’t have a nice thing to say about Eddie.”

Yet decades later, Osbourne appeared to signal reconciliation of sorts. During his 2024 induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, he invited Wolfgang Van Halen — Eddie’s son — to perform “Crazy Train.”

Even so, Van Halen’s legacy remained entwined with rivalry. Guitar virtuoso Yngwie Malmsteen, who rose to prominence after Rhoads’ death in 1982, has claimed that Van Halen avoided sharing bills with him to sidestep direct comparisons.

True or not, Garni’s recollections suggest that at least from Rhoads’ perspective, one of rock’s most famous guitar rivalries may have existed more in headlines than in reality.

Steve Vai was still building his résumé when David Lee Roth handpicked him to front the former Van Halen singer’s band in 1985. But as Vai now explains, it took the intervention of a seasoned pro to bail him out when his lack of experience put him in a pinch.

The gig came after some prophetic encouragement from Frank Zappa, who had promoted Vai from transcriber to full-time band member over the course of three years. Vai followed up his Zappa stint with a head-turning debut solo album, Flex-Able, in 1984.

But when he stepped into the role as Diamond Dave’s foil, he quickly realized his gear was better suited to experimental rock than the high-gloss bombast of Roth’s arena-ready world.

“When I joined Dave, I was embarrassingly inexperienced with what people would call ‘big rock guitar tone,’” the guitarist says in the new issue of Guitar World.

At that point, Vai was playing Jackson Soloists, which he paired with a Carvin X-100B tube amp. The 100-watt head was more commonly associated with bands like Jefferson Starship and Warrant than the high-gain antics of EVH’s Marshalls.

“The Carvins weren't cutting through for the more aggressive tracks,” Vai says. “Luckily, Steve Stevens was recording across the hall. I mentioned my tone troubles, and he lent me one of his favorite Marshall heads and cabs.”

Stevens, best known as Billy Idol’s guitarist and the mad genius who used toy ray guns to create an iconic guitar solo, was also a session musician. He was working with Ric Ocasek and contributing to the Top Gun soundtrack around the time DLR’s Eat ‘Em and Smile was tracked.

“Boom! Instant magic,” Vai adds. “I ended up using his rig for most of the album. He saved my bacon!”

Although Vai knew his time with Roth would be brief, it was a valuable launchpad for his career.

By 1989, Vai was walking out the exit, with a blossoming solo career and a stint in Whitesnake ahead of him. He became the first in a long line of future superstar shredders to be employed by Roth.

Elsewhere, Vai has recalled his hilarious full-circle moment with Brian May and named the guitarist he believes was more revolutionary than Jimi Hendrix.

Steve Vai’s full interview features in the new issue of Guitar World. Copies can be ordered from Magazines Direct.

Ever wondered what Van Halen would have sounded like with no Sam or Dave?

Well, wonder no more. Writer and filmmaker Andrew Bennett is selling rare recordings from the band’s rehearsals at Eddie Van Halen’s 5150 studio. Titled The 5150 Sessions, it contains tracks cut between November 2006 and January 2007 featuring Ed and his brother, Alex, joined by Ed’s son, Wolfgang.

The tracks date from the period after longtime bass guitarist Michael Anthony had been dismissed, but before David Lee Roth rejoined the band for their 2007 reunion tour.

“From the collection of writer and filmmaker Andrew Bennett during his time documenting Van Halen as Wolf joined the band in 2006 and into 2007 leading up to the reunion tour,” the description reads. “These recordings are from rehearsals at 5150 from November 2006 to January 2007, recorded straight to the 5150 soundboard.

“Eddie, Alex, and Wolfgang Van Halen were rehearsing full set lists twice a week, and since this was prior to the return of Dave these recordings are performed with no singer.

“Finally, no Sam versus Dave debates.”

The 10-track LP includes the songs “Unchained,” “Atomic Punk,” “Ain’t Talkin’ Bout Love,” “I’m the One,” “Runnin’ With the Devil,” “Panama,” “Romeo Delight,” “Hot for Teacher,” “On Fire,” and “Somebody Get Me a Doctor.” Samples of each song can be heard at the site.

After Bennett posted about the release on his Facebook account, fans responded, with several saying they’ve received their copies.

Bennett is the author of the photo book Eruption in the Canyon: 212 Days & Nights With the Genius of Eddie Van Halen. The book is a self-published chronicle of the two weeks he spent filming Van Halen in 2004 and living with him from 2006 to 2007.

The author and filmmaker previously posted about about the 5150 Sessions album on Facebook in July. In addition, a now three-month-old Reddit thread reveals that the record has been in some buyer's hands for several months.

There is no word from the Van Halen camp at this time about the album or claims of copyright.

However, Bennett previously ran afoul of Van Halen in 2018 after he shared footage of his time with the electric guitar virtuoso online. At that time Van Halen successfully filed an injunction to halt its release.

A veteran guitarist has claimed that one of Ace Frehley's most iconic Kiss solos laid the foundation for Eddie Van Halen to flip the guitar world upside down with "Eruption."

It’s not the first time that links have been made between Ed's 1977 guitar solo and various other guitar players. For example, Harvey Mandel said he deserves credit for introducing EVH to the two-handed tapping techniques that are a signature element of the song.

But this new assertion of a link between the virtuoso and Kiss — a band he loved so much that he once asked to join them — is something altogether more incendiary.

The claim has been made by former Cro-Mags guitarist Parris Mayhew in the newly published book, Talk to Me: Conversations With Ace Frehley, by Greg Prato.

Despite his deep-rooted associations with the New York hardcore punk scene, Mayhew is a big admirer of the late Space Ace. He says there are clear similarities between Ace's solo on "Shock Me" from Alive II and Eddie's showcase.

“People understand and revere how important Eddie Van Halen is. It's so clear,” Mayhew states. “He is so much better than everybody else. But he also has all that fire and magnetism and magic that Ace had. He just did it better.

“And nobody that I knew who liked [Van Halen's debut] would accept the fact that this guy was influenced by that guy,” he continues. “And if you listen to the ‘Shock Me’ solo and ‘Eruption’ back to back, and if you don't hear that the 'Shock Me' solo is completely a template for the 'Eruption' solo, then you don't have ears.”

Frehley's solo — which, like "Eruption," is performed without accompaniment — comes at the 4:05 mark. While there are similarities in his and Van Halen's approach and style, including plenty of squealing pinch harmonics, there are good reasons to doubt the claim Ed took his lead from Ace.

Consider the recording and release dates: Alive II was issued on October 24, 1977. Van Halen's self-titled debut album, which features "Eruption," wasn't released until the following February, but "Eruption" was recorded September 8, 1977, several weeks before Alive II came out.

For that matter, Ed had been performing "Eruption" well before its September 8 recording date, as can be heard on a live taping from June 10, 1977. The recording of "Shock Me" on Alive II comes from a show at the L.A. Forum in late August of that year. To claim it was a template for a work that was already months in the making seems quite a stretch.

This isn't the first time someone has claimed Eddie took something from Ace. Even Ace thought Eddie began using two-handed tapping after seeing him do it in concert. Eddie said he saw Jimmy Page do it in 1971, well before Kiss existed, making him realize the technique's potential for his electric guitar fireworks.

Mayhew admits his claim has led to debates with fans over the years. But he stands by it.

"When I first heard 'Eruption', I was like, 'Oh my God, he's totally ripping off Ace!' I have never heard anybody else say that. And when I've brought it up, I've had people argue it down. And I'm like, 'Listen to them back to back.'

"Eddie Van Halen, if he was alive, and he claimed that he didn't just nick that whole thing as a template for 'Eruption', he's a liar."

In related news. former Van Halen bass player Michael Anthony has revealed the career-saving advice Eddie got from David Lee Roth in the band's early days, and Carl Verheyen has recalled the time Eddie borrowed one of his Les Pauls, causing him distress in the process

Eddie Van Halen had his fair share of copyists. While he wasn't happy about it, he accept it as a byproduct of his rapidly rising stock.

But one player he cut too close to the bone. Shockingly, it was a guitarist whom Ed had once idolized.

Eddie’s son, Wolfgang Van Halen, once suggested that his father “kind of ruined the musical landscape” of the 1980s, alluding to how his scintillating tapping licks and dive bomb trickery inspired a generation of players to mimic his style.

His imprint was felt on the electric guitar market, too. The prominence of his Frankenstein guitar and the shred-enabling instruments he wielded across the rest of the decade saw a score of firms trying to cash in on everyone wanting to have instruments like Eddie's. Even Gibson skewed its tradition for a Super Strat-style build that, though a failed experiment, has recently been revived.

But in the case of the player that angered Eddie, not only did he feel he took matters too far — he did it right in front on his eyes.

“Rick Derringer opened for us last year, and he did my exact solo,” Eddie told Guitar Player’s Jas Obrecht in 1979. “After the show, we’re sitting in the bar, and I just said, ‘Hey, Rick. I grew up on your ass. How can you do this? I don’t care if you use the technique — don’t play my melody.’ And he’s drunk and stupid and going, ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah.’”

Derringer first broke out in the 1960s with the McCoys, performing their hit cover of Wes Farrell and Bert Berns' "Hang on Sloopy." By the 1970s, after he became a key figure in both Edgar and Johnny Winter's bands, he branched out as a solo artist.

But despite his own immense talents as a guitarist, he couldn't help lifting a page or two from EVH's book.

“The next night, he does my solo again,” Eddie moaned. “He ends the set with ‘You Really Got Me,’ which is exactly what we do.”

Van Halen had released their hell-raising version of the Kinks' hit single on their debut album just one year before. The song is widely regarded as a pivotal precursor to heavy metal, thanks to Dave Davies’ distorted guitar tone — achieved by slicing the speaker cone of his amplifier. It became, and remained for years, a staple of the band’s live shows.

“So I hate to say it, but I just told him, ‘Hey, if you’re going to continue doing that, you ain’t opening for us,’” Ed added.

Derringer was defiant, though. Eddie stayed true to his word, and he was booted from the tour.

“It’s fucked,” Eddie spat. “Because I’ve seen him plenty of times. I’ve even copied his chops way back then.”

However, Derringer wasn’t the only guitarist to be singled out. Boston’s Tom Scholz was also in the firing line.

“We played right before them — I forget where — and I do my solo. And then all of a sudden he does my solo,” he claimed. “I got pissed.”

They weren't the only guitarists Ed reportedly had problems with. Yngwie Malmsteen claimed Eddie was intimidated by his talents and would avoid him every chance he got.

What's evident is that Eddie was at times overwhelmed by the attention that went with his fame. As Gene Simmons has claimed, Ed was so burned out from it all that he once implored the bass guitar player to let him join Kiss when the group was considering getting rid of Vinnie Vincent, one of their early lead guitar replacements for the late Ace Frehley.

Van Halen alumni Sammy Hagar and Michael Anthony have reflected on one of Van Halen’s more unlikely shows, when they played during a blizzard.

On the road in 1995 to support their 10th studio album, Balance which would prove to be Hagar’s fifth and final record with the band, their stop in Denver provided less than hospitable conditions. But, as the old adage goes, the show must go on, and Eddie Van Halen and company plowed through the storm to deliver an exhaustive 21-song set — even if that meant to resorting to every cold-conquering measure they could think of.

“It looked like we were playing for 18,000 snowmen,” Hagar says of the show at the Fiddler's Green Amphitheatre. The date was September 20, making for a decidedly unseasonal cold snap.

“Eddie ended up playing half the show with gloves with the fingertips cut out, if you could imagine,” he continues. “We had giant heaters onstage — you name it, we did the whole show. The craziest thing ever."

The clip shared shows the band performing “Poundcake,” a song released four years earlier on For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge. The tune famously features a Makita 6012HD power drill in its intro and guitar solo after Eddie Van Halen heard a technician using it in the studio, and loved its engine-like quality. Paul Gilbert, of course, had taped guitar picks to a power drill for "Daddy, Brother, Lover, Little Boy" that same year.

"Poundcake" was the penultimate song of the night and was executed under a maelstrom of snow.

After thanking the crowd for sticking through the extreme conditions, Hagar said, “The promoter and our management asked if we wanted to cancel the show. We said, ‘Fuck no, man.’ If you can do it, we can do it.”

“The place was packed and everybody looked like a Q-tip out there,” bass guitarist Anthony recalls, 30 years on. “It was no big deal for the audience!”

Eight inches of snow had fallen that day. Power lines had been downed, and millions of trees were said to be damaged, but the band played on.

The following year, tensions between Hagar and EVH came to a head, with the singer departing from the group. Original vocalist David Lee Roth returned to the fold for a brief reunion before turning to Extreme singer Gary Cherone for their next album, Van Halen III.

Speaking to Jeremy White about his three-year stint in the band in 2023, Cherone said he believes he added something different to the mix.

“As far as Eddie, I think our writing partnership was different than the other guys, in the sense that I would show him a lyric. It was the first time he would write to a lyric,” he had said.

“It was something that me and [Extreme guitarist] Nuno [Bettencourt] did forever. But that was something new for [Ed], which inspired him in different directions.

“I think with the Sammy era... they knew who they were. With me coming into the fold, we were discovering who we were.”

Hagar has since taken aim at his predecessor, Roth, stating that EVH was a better songwriter for his presence in the group, as he had far fewer limitations.

Earlier this year, the singer finally released the track he claimed he wrote with Eddie Van Halen in a dream. He also stated that EVH was more interested in the cello than the guitar before he died.

Eddie's son, Wolfgang, has been keeping his dad's legacy alive by recording with his infamous Frankenstein Strat, a guitar that has recently been the subject of a free-to-air documentary charting Eddie's love for modding.

It’s no secret that when David Lee Roth left Van Halen, he was hellbent on besting his old band and outshining the guitarist who kept stealing the limelight from him. While Eddie Van Halen and company turned to Sammy Hagar to fill the void, Roth shrewdly tapped another hotshot guitarist to go toe-to-toe with: Steve Vai.

Roth’s solo career may not have even threatened to reach the heights of his rival, but for Vai — who advanced his career from being Frank Zappa's transcriptionist to his “stunt guitarist,” and become a mildly successful solo artist on his own — was simply thrilled for the opportunity.

“It was a good time, we were young — I was 25, 26 — and we wore the most outlandish clothes,” he tells Billy Corgan on his The Magnificent Others podcast. “The stages were the size of a football field, and we played our asses off.”

Vai’s electric guitar talents are undeniable, but his body of work at that point — seven studio and live albums with Zappa, and one solo album, 1984's Flex-Able — was pretty eclectic compared to the stadium rock David Lee Roth was gunning for. Vai knew the gig was temporary and wanted to make the very most of it while he could.

“It was great while it lasted,” he continues. “I was able to live in that world because, as a teenager, even though I had all this interest in compositional music, rock music was embedded in me.

“It was kind of like acting in a sense. I knew it was fleeting, that it was trendy, and I was in a position where I could play my butt off and then it would be over. Then I could go back to playing weird music.”

Vai might have been just looking for a good time, but Roth was looking to prove a point. With virtuosic bass player Billy Sheenan, who would go on to enjoy success with Mr. Big and the Winery Dogs, and drummer Gregg Bissonette, who has since become sticks for hire for Vai, Joe Satriani and Andy Summers, Vai wanted a best-in-class band. This was far from the David Lee Roth show, even if his ego implied otherwise.

Ironically, though, Vai didn’t see himself in competition with Eddie Van Halen.

“In the background somewhere, there was the extraordinary thought that I need to somehow keep up with Edward, which is an illusion, because you can't,” Vai says. “But what I could keep up with was my own expansion. I loved Edward.

“When he hit the scene, you know what happened? Everybody's input jack closed up.”

Vai's resume would help him score the gig as Roth's foil. But he wasn't about to start a war with Eddie.

“When word got out that David Lee Roth was looking for a guitarist, it was probably the most coveted rock guitar position,” he reflects. “I was in my little apartment on Fairfax Street in Hollywood. And as soon as I heard that news, I turned to my roommate and I said, ‘That's my gig.’ But it didn't come from a place of [in a commanding voice] ‘That's my gig!’ It was just this intuitive thing.

“The next day, the phone rings, and it's David. I just knew that I could make it work ‘cause I had a rock and roll fire in me. And I knew that I wasn't going to try to sound like Edward or do anything like him.”

Ultimately, Vai’s plan to quietly return to writing weird music didn’t quite pan out. Whitesnake came calling in 1989, but when he did peel back from the scene several years later, he did so knowing he never stepped on his hero’s toes. Because no one could, not even Yngwie Malmsteen, despite his claims that Eddie was “threatened” by him.

Roth, meanwhile, continued to showcase his knack for hiring unknown superstar guitarists, with a rich lineage of shredders following in Vai’s footsteps. But his biggest hit — “Yankee Rose” — came from Vai’s genius.

When it came to what he could do with an electric guitar, Eddie Van Halen was a trailblazer. But that doesn’t mean he pulled his inspirations out of thin air.

One of Van Halen’s biggest hits, “Ain’t Talkin’ ‘Bout Love”, the fourth single from the band’s eponymous 1978 debut album, came from a tongue-in-cheek place that belied their usual technical ecstasy.

“When Eddie came up with the lick, it was kind of like a nod to punk,” former bassist Michael Anthony tells Professor of Rock. “Like The Ramones, you’ve got one [or] two chords and that’s it.”

Naturally, the song does have oodles of Eddie’s trademark flair; there’s a dexterity to some of his fretboard dancing that would make Johnny Ramone’s brain melt. But Anthony’s right – the song pinballs between two chords: A minor and G.

“The whole song is just that one lick throughout,” Anthony expands. “It has no other kind of B-section that takes you somewhere else or whatever. That’s exactly why that song came out like it did. It shows you what you can do with two chords.”

What certainly isn’t punk is the subtle helping of sitar that the band’s super producer, Ted Templeman, snuck into the mix.

“There was an electric sitar in the studio, and Eddie picked it up, and the thing was really hard to play,” Anthony adds. “But it sounded really cool, so he used it in that solo. It was different sounding, and [even though] Eddie struggled to play that thing with the string height and everything, he did it.”

“There was no guitar player who had ever played like that,” Templeman once told Guitar Player of Eddie's talents. He even cites “Ain’t Talking ‘Bout Love” as the favorite Van Halen song he worked on.

“First of all, Ed’s guitar – that riff is incredible, and Donn [Landee, engineer] got a great sound on it,” he enthuses. “Instantly, he tuned right in. And it’s got a really interesting solo on it. For some reason, out of anything I ever cut, I still love listening to that. A lot of it is the intro. Ed’s guitar is amazing.”

Eddie was the unmistakable driving force behind the band; he was their selling point – even with David Lee Roth fronting them – and his limelight hogging was the reason the singer ultimately quit. But there was great pressure with that, too.

British filmmaker Simon Adkin has captured that superbly. He has been tirelessly piecing together old Van Halen interviews across a series of free-to-watch documentaries on the band. In one of his latest, which centers on how “Eruption” revolutionized lead guitar for a generation of players, Eddie talks about being the “spark plug” of the band, and how the rest of the group relied on his genius.

Conversely, Sammy Hagar says the guitarist was “dried up” by the 2000s, hence why the band only released one album in the 21st century. The singer also said that he was more interested in the cello than the guitar in his final months – but refused to showcase his chops.

Hagar also claims that Eddie came to him in a dream after they died and that his latest song, “Encore, Thank You, Goodnight” is what they wrote in that moment. It’s a fairly outlandish claim, but Santana’s recent dream-based tale – featuring the fingerless spirit of Stevie Ray Vaughan – might just top it.

Eddie Van Halen's 1982 Kramer electric guitar, which bears his signature stripes design and played a surprise role in a glam metal classic, is headed to auction this fall.

Going under the hammer as part of Sotheby's inaugural Grails Week (October 21 to October 28), the electric guitar is expected to go for $3 million, considering its heritage. That would make it the fifth most expensive guitar ever sold at auction, falling just behind another red, white, and black-striped Kramer – Eddie's "Hot For Teacher" axe, which sold for $3,932,000 in 2023.

If the guitar is to fetch that price, it would knock John Lennon’s “Help!” 12-string Framus Hootenanny out of the top bracket. The acoustic guitar sold for $2,857,500 in 2024, after it hadn't been seen or played in 50 years.

The Kramer is based on Eddie’s infamous home-built Frankenstein Strat, which was last used by Wolfgang Van Halen during the recording of Mammoth’s new track, “The End”. The Kramer featured prominently across Van Halen’s 1982-83 tour dates, having been played in Philadelphia and extensively across South America.

Featuring a Floyd Rose tremolo and a humbucker in the bridge and single coil in the neck – complete with a vacant middle cavity to mirror the Frankenstein – it’s the epitome of EVH luthiery. Signs of heavy wear, particularly across its maple fretboard, show the guitar has been used and abused plenty during its lifetime.

Known for gifting his guitars – just ask a teenage Dweezil Zappa, and Mark Tremonti – the virtuoso later gave the twin pickup guitar to his longtime tech, Robin "Rudy" Leiren. It even has a personalised inscription on the guitar from Van Halen to Leiren on the bass side horn.

By the end of the decade, it was in Mick Mars’ hands, and he used the guitar across the recording of Mötley Crüe's 1989 album, “Dr Feelgood”, when the band were at the height of their powers. It’s been confirmed that it was used on the track “Slice of Your Pie”.

“Played during some of Eddie's most iconic performances and later used by Mötley Crüe's Mick Mars, this instrument connects two giants of heavy metal,” says Sotheby’s Ian Ferreyra de Bone. “With its custom build and incredible backstory, it's a true grail.”

The guitar will be put on display in Monterey, California, from August 13 until August 16, ahead of its sale.

In related news, Eddie Van Halen’s lifelong friend has opened up on how he was a “pretty complex” character, while a recording engineer who worked on “A Different Kind of Truth” has explained why he didn’t double-track his riffs.

Mark Tremonti has revealed how Paul Reed Smith gave him the “Dumble itch”, and has reflected on his favorite memories of Eddie Van Halen, having been given the rare opportunity to write and record in the hallowed halls of 5150 Studios.

The Creed and Alter Bridge guitarist has long since been one of PRS Guitars' poster boys, and his connection with the luthier helped kickstart his Dumble obsession. Today, although he daren’t take one of his prestigious Dumble amps on the road with him, he's revealed how their spirit lives on in his Creed live rig, having worked with PRS on a Dumble-inspired signature head, the MT 100. But there was a point that Howard “Alexander” Dumble’s tube amps were solely the stuff of legend.

“Paul [Reed Smith] was the first person who let me play a Dumble amplifier,” he says, in conversation with American Musical Supply. “We were at a PRS event. He had all of his endorsees there; there were probably 10 of us, and he had all these amps on stage.

“He's like, ‘All right, guys, everybody get up. We're going to sound check.’ So, I ran up on stage and I saw a Dumble that I plugged right into,” Tremonti continues. “I had to hear it.

“I absolutely loved it,” he goes on. “So, from that day on, I was obsessed with getting that tone because Paul ended up giving that amp to a friend of his, and so I could never get it again. It was a 50-watt version.

“Since then, I've bought another Dumble from Paul that I think is the best Dumble I've ever heard.” However, he feels that some of the amps that PRS is currently building have a chance of usurping that cherished tube amp.

“Paul's dabbling more and more and more into amplifiers, and he's getting very, very sophisticated at it,” Tremonti reveals.

The firm had been in business for nearly a quarter of a century when, in 2009, it launched its first amps after Smith met boutique amp designer Doug Sewell at the Dallas Guitar Show. The Sonzera 20 & 50 combo amps were the first to hit the shelves, and plenty have followed since.

“Some of the stuff that he's turning out now is blowing my mind,” the guitarist adds. “Some haven't been released, but when they do come out, people are going to be slack-jawed. It's really great stuff.”

Tremonti, Myles Kennedy, and the rest of Alter Bridge are fresh out of the studio, having finished recording their eighth album. Key writing sessions and drum recording happened in Eddie Van Halen’s custom-built 5150 Studios, where previously, only Van Halen and Wolfgang Van Halen’s band, Mammoth, have tracked.

“That's one of the biggest honors you could ever ask for,” he beams. “We were the first band outside of somebody with the last name Van Halen to be able to do that in that studio. We only tracked drums there, I tracked guitars at home in Orlando, but we got to put the arrangements together [at 5150].”

The band spent a month in the studio. Every Van Halen record from “1984” was committed to tape in those four walls, and Tremonti often found himself daydreaming.

“Being able to just walk around and see the memorabilia and where it all happened, see the tiny little vocal booth where Roth did his vocals… Obviously they don't have the Frankenstein [Strat] and stuff lying around, but you'll see little things like the 5150 necklace from the cover.

“It's just amazing to be in that room, that space where all that magic happened, and hearing the stories about it. It’s a crazy honor.”

He’s also come away from those sessions with a little memento, courtesy of his longtime friend, Wolfgagn Van Halen.

“One of the amps I have on stage now [the 50-watt EVH 5153] was [from 5150 Studios]. I said I loved it, and Wolfie gave it to me.”

Tremonti has previously recalled how, when Creed supported Van Halen in the late ‘90s, Eddie had battled through a crowd of fans to give him a guitar, and has also spoken about the pressure of playing shows with the virtuoso watching on.

“He came to an Alter Bridge show in LA when Wolfgang was filling in on drums,” he tells Loudwire. “You'll play a show and see him there, smiling, looking down. It was hard to shake the nerves, but it felt good for him to be there.

“We went to see them [Van Halen] practice at 5150 Studios, and they were playing the new album [2012's 'A Different Kind of Truth']. They finished a song and I was like, ‘Wolfie, that was a killer song, I loved when you did all the chordy stuff,’ and Eddie was like, ‘Were...were my parts good?’ You're Eddie Van Halen, your parts are always good! But he was always pushing to be the best he could be.”

Speaking to Guitar Player earlier this year, the guitarist has also revealed his strange-but-effective tip for writing unique solos, and it’s easier to pull off than you might think.

Five-time Grammy winner Ross Hogarth has a rich recording résumé, having worked with Edgar Winter, Def Leppard, Mötley Crüe, Dweezil Zappa and John Fogerty before being hired for Van Halen's final album, 2012's A Different Kind of Truth.

In a new interview, Hogarth has reflected on his time working with Eddie Van Halen and revealed how his way of tracking albums differed from most guitarists.

“Most of Ed's records are not double tracked, because he would play the part with all these nuances and squeals,” he tells the Agartha Podcast.

With so many little details populating Eddie's perpetually unpredictable playing, nailing double takes proved an impossible task.

“Guitar players, when they know they're going to double the guitar, simplify their part so they don't have to worry about learning every little nuance,” he continues. “To have to double that is incredibly time consuming, and as human beings, it's almost impossible to be perfect.

“If you try to double it, you can hear all the imperfections, whereas on its own, it's perfect.”

Hogarth knew when he took on Van Halen's album what the gig would be like and who ruled the roost.

“I know that you don't come into a Van Halen record and tell Eddie, ‘Well, here, this is how we're going to do it.’ You come into Ed's world and you see what he's doing.

“He wasn't using ribbon mics — he was using one cabinet, he had two Shure SM57s, and he split them, and he would delay them a little differently. So it wasn't a dedicated analog bounce of stereo left and right.”

Despite the fact that Ed had his methods mapped out, Hogarth decided to throw him some new ideas, knowing what fun it would bring if he said yes. Noticing that the guitarist used a splitter to divide his signal across multiple tube amps and cabs, he made his pitch.

“I said, ‘You've got this splitter here that you use for live shows. Do you want to try messing around?’”

Ed was game. And because recording was taking place at Van Halen's studio, 5150, all his gear was on tap.

“We started by using two heads and two cabinets with the SM57s, and he already started to like that because that's like a natural stereo, because speakers don't move absolutely perfectly,” he explains. “So the left and right speakers were doing this little stereo air dance.

“I said, ‘You've got all these choices. Just for me, can we pull out the old Marshall,'" Hogarth asked, referring to the 1967/68 Marshall 1959 Super Lead used to track the band's first six albums. "And some of your old gear? And we started having a really good time blending two amps.”

The engineer had another trick up his sleeve.

“Eddie was looking for bottom,” he says. Recognizing the Shure SM57s' lack of low end, Hogarth suggested trying a new tube ribbon mic he was creating with Royer, which would come to be known as the R-122V. It captured plenty of detail as well as the low end Ed was seeking.

“Ed, God rest his soul, was an incredible engineer on his own. He was amazingly intuitive,” Hogarth says. “I'd watch him sitting there listening to playback, turning the Royers up and down, and he's starting to really get off, because they were bringing natural low end.

“It was bringing in a whole other midrange frequency that made the guitar really start to speak. He totally understood it within five minutes, and he was like, ‘Fuck yeah!’”

Hogarth was also on hand to help troubleshoot an issue that came up due to a change in the band's personnel. With Michael Anthony out and Wolfgang Van Halen in, they had to accommodate a new bass guitar tone for the first time.

“Ed wanted to make space for Wolf's bass, too,” Hogarth says. “It's a much grindier bass sound than on prior records. He comes from '90s and 2000s alternative music bass sounds, so I'd move the guitars a little wider using a time adjuster," a device that allows engineers to manipulate the timing of the audio signals.

The record would prove to be the swan song for EVH, who passed away eight years later. A Different Kind of Truth topped multiple charts on its release and has sold 40,000 copies worldwide.

In related news, Eddie's lifelong friend has said the guitarist was a “complex” character, revealing how he learned to read his friend's quirks. And an unheard interview has come to light, revealing a peculiar anti-shred stance from the guitarist.

Eddie Van Halen made guitar pyrotechnics his stock in trade when he burst on the scene in 1978. The novelty of what he did — not to mention the excitement it generated and his success with it — spawned a wave of copycats.

But by the early 1990s Eddie had changed his approach. That's not to say he stopped performing two-handed tapping — a technique Harvey Mandel claims he introduced to the guitarist — or whammy-bar dive bombs, but he had started to put the brakes on his love of burning up the frets.

For that matter, he wasn't happy with the need for speed that emerged from his early shred-heavy approach. While Eddie always put melodicism first, other guitarists were all about showing off how fast they could play.

“A lot of people just do all kinds of crazy shit,” he told Guitar Player's then associate editor Jas Obrecht in a recently unearthed 1991 interview. “That’s fine and dandy when you’re young, but playing as fast as you can doesn’t really hold much water for me.

“To me, a solo is to highlight the song, not to show off.”

He admitted that speed was often a side effect of youthfulness. He too played with his foot on the accelerator in his early early days, but by 1991, was was embracing slower, more intentional soloing, perhaps taking a leaf from the book of one of his biggest heroes, Eric Clapton.

“In the guitar polls, I’m not the number-one cat anymore,” he said. “There are faster gunslingers out there…

“What’s important to me now isn’t how fast I can solo; it’s the whole picture. With the whole band thing, the songs are what’s important.

“Big egos are very unhealthy,” he added. “Everybody needs an ego, obviously, but when it starts getting in the way of the overall picture, you know — what a band is and what a band is supposed to be doing — too much ego is bad news.”

His attitude is echoed in recent statements from his son, Wolfgang, who has channeled his efforts into his band Mammoth since his father's death in 2020. Although he's delivered some heartfelt nods to his father, Wolfgang has made it clear that he's his own guitarist.

But, like his dad, he believes a guitar solo should serve the song, and says his upcoming third album, The End, will have far fewer solos than usual as he changes the tack of his songwriting.

“Not everything needs a guitar solo,” he tells SiriusXM. “That might be stupid coming from the son of Eddie Van Halen to say, but, for me, that is where I get my most joy from — crafting the song piece by piece.”

For evidence, one only needs to look at The End’s first two singles. The title track is full of tapping licks, while “The Spell” backs away from incendiary solos.

“I approach guitar playing more as a producer and more as a drummer than a guitar player,” Wolfgang said last year. “Rhythm is always the first thing for me, and melody is the second.”

Echoing his dad's sentiments, he says he's drawn to more purposeful soloing, rather than seeing the 16-bar spot as an opportunity to flex his muscles. He says a one-note solo "can be way more impressive than a solo that's 2,000 notes. It's not really the speed at which you play.”

Music journalist and Guitar Player contributor Steven Rosen has detailed a lesser-known side of Eddie Van Halen, and it’s an aspect that Eric Clapton once fell afoul of.

On stages and in music videos, the late guitarist was a perpetually animated, larger-than-life character.

But Rosen — who wrote the book Tonechaser about his 26-year friendship with Van Halen — says that behind his performances, he was “a pretty complex person,” and someone you didn’t want to cross.

“He was like this onion; you peel back layers, and there'd be another layer,” he says while guesting on Igor Paspalj's YouTube channel.

“The longer I hung out with him, I realized there were more facets to his personality. Music was first and foremost. There was never a single moment when I was with him that he truly did not have the guitar in his hand.

“He'd come over to my pad. I was a guitar player — not a very good one, but I had always had a couple of guitars.

“So the first thing he'd do was light a cigarette, and he'd go over and pick up a guitar and start noodling. Every single time.”

Eddie's relationship with the guitar bordered on obsessive, even if Sammy Hagar says it had been replaced by a love of cello in his later years.

“Whenever I went over to his place in Coldwater Canyon and he was out in the studio, he was playing, he was changing strings. It was always about the guitar,” Rosen echoes. “There were two major modes with Edward: my friend Edward, and Edward in musician mode.

“When he was in the musician mode and he needed to work, he needed to be by himself. It was almost an unspoken thing. I mean, I could sense it. He'd be playing, and you look over, and I just knew it. ‘Hey man, I'll see you later.’

“For Edward, respect was a huge thing. And if you disrespected him, he held on to that for a very long time.”

For evidence of that side of EVH, just ask Eric Clapton.

Eddie’s love for Clapton’s guitar playing, particularly during his era with Cream, was revealed in Ed’s first-ever interview, with Jas Obrecht for Guitar Player magazine, in 1978. As Eddie's fame grew, it was inevitable he and Clapton would meet. When they did, in the early 1980s, they formed a friendship built of mutual respect.

But it began to unravel in 1986. While speaking to Musician magazine, Clapton criticized Eddie's guitar work on “Blues Breaker,” a 13-minute blues jam between him and Brian May that appeared on May's 1983 Star Fleet Project mini-album and was dedicated to him.

“They can't play,” Clapton said. “They took turns to play solos... and there was no dynamics, no build up, no sensitivity. I was very disappointed.”

Clapton’s decision to bare his feelings in an interview wasn't just poor judgment — it obscured the larger point he was trying to make: that playing blues is difficult, even for him.

The guitarists' relationship spiraled from there. Speaking to Dweezil Zappa for an interview in Guitar Player's March 1995 issue, Ed compared Clapton's contemporary guitar solos to “pissing up a rope.”

Once a grudge was established, it took a lot for Eddie to get down from his perch, which is likely why he was insistent on his son replacing Michael Anthony in the final iteration of Van Halen.

Eddie Van Halen is no stranger to lending his talents to movie soundtracks, having scored 1984’s coming-of-age comedy-drama The Wild Life at the height of his Van Halen powers. The band also contributed “Humans Being” to 1994’s disaster movie Twister, and in 2006, EVH added his flair to the adult film Sacred Sin.

Perhaps with this lineage in mind, esteemed film composer Tyler Bates (Halloween, Guardians of the Galaxy) says he turned to Eddie Van Halen for a special rendition of the John Wick theme in the guitarist’s later years.

Despite his best efforts, he couldn’t turn the idea into reality.

“At one point, we almost had Eddie Van Halen play on the John Wick theme toward the end of his life,” Bates reveals to ScreenRant. He was chatting to the website about his latest work for Ballerina, an action thriller set in the John Wick universe.

“He came over to my place. It was really sweet of him to come over, and he hung out for a while, but I got the sense he was not in the mindset that he really wanted to do anything,” the composer explains.

“He said he hadn’t played for quite a while. We spoke on the phone a couple of times after he split. I wanted him to touch my guitar, but I didn’t want to say, ‘Will you touch my guitar?’

Bates can't recall if he and Van Halen were discussing 2017's John Wick 2 or its 2019 follow-up, but his comments about EVH’s rustiness corroborate recent remarks by Sammy Hagar. The Red Rocker has said the guitarist was creatively “dried up” by the turn of the millennium, and that he was more interested in the cello than the electric guitar in his final years.

Van Halen’s final, David Lee Roth–fronted album, A Different Kind of Truth, was released in 2012, and it seems EVH minimized his playing when that touring cycle came to an end.

“Anyway, he called me a number of times,” Bates continues. “I just said, ‘Look, Ed, you live 10 minutes from me. If you want to do this, I’ll set up a guitar for you, and if you don’t like what we do, I’ll just destroy it in front of you.’ He really appreciated that.”

Bates' work on John Wick has seen another near-miss collab. Star of the show Keanu Reeves, who plays bass in the band Dogstar outside of his Hollywood acting fame, refused to feature on the score, Bates divulges.

“I asked Keanu, ‘Hey dude. Why don’t you just play bass on the John Wick theme? No one even has to know, but it would be cool for all of us just to connect that way. We would love it,” Bates says.

“He was like, ‘Tyler, come on, man.’ He didn’t want to just take some pony ride on the score only to have it leak out at some point, and he probably knew that he would get all the credit for the score.”

He did at least convince Jerry Cantrell to write a piece for the John Wick 2 soundtrack. "A Job to Do" was penned from the protagonist's perspective and features pensive acoustic guitar parts, the guitarist's perpetually dark and pained vocals, and some signature grunge grit towards the end.

Cantrell also features on the soundtrack to the 1930s blues-honoring film Sinners, alongside Buddy Guy, Christone “Kingfish” Ingram, and some extremely hard-to-find 1932 Dobros.

And on other near misses, Alex Van Halen says he and his brother were going to form a band with Soundgarden’s Chris Cornell before he died in 2017.

Eddie Van Halen reshaped the landscape for guitar. But as former Van Halen bass guitar player Michael Anthony says, his impact might not have been as great were it not for some advice David Lee Roth gave the guitarist early on.

In a recent episode of the Get on the Bus podcast, Anthony said Eddie’s two-handed tapping was drawing interest from guitar players even before the group began performing before large audiences.

“We used to rehearse in this little garage when I first joined the band, and we used to rehearse there every day for a while,” Anthony says. “That’s when Eddie was also developing his ‘hammers’ — his tapping style.”

“And it’s funny, because there were, like, two or three guitar players in the area that Ed was friends with, and they knew that we rehearsed there. And I remember one time we went to take a break, and we walk outside, and there were a couple of guys there like this, listening at the door, and they wanted to hear what Ed played.”

Roth was aware of the curiosity Eddie’s guitar playing was creating. Anthony says the frontman was concerned other guitarists would copy Eddie’s style and make their mark before Van Halen could. Roth stressed that Eddie needed to guard his secret from onlookers, even when they performed in public.

“We played a place called the Golden West Ballroom in Norwalk, California, and that was one place where we could play original stuff,” Anthony says. “And we opened up for UFO there. I think that was one of the biggest shows we ever did. It held about 1,500 to 2,000 people.

“But when Ed would play a solo, Dave would tell him, ‘Turn your back to the audience, dude, because you got this thing, and you don’t want everybody to see it.’

“So Eddie would, literally, play solos, and he would turn his back to the audience when he would be tapping. Which was really, really interesting.”

Eddie of course wasn’t the first guitarist to use tapping. Electric guitar players were doing it for decades before Eddie. Harvey Mandel says Ed learned it from watching him.

What was different was how Ed tapped, using it to perform entire lines while seamlessly integrating it with hammer-ons, pull-offs and slides.

“It wasn’t so much the tapping,” Anthony says, “but the way he did it was different than what anybody else was trying to do.”

Anthony was replaced by Eddie’s son, Wolfgang, in 2006. The bassist says that, at the time of his death in 2020, Eddie had plans for a reunion that would have included him.

“Unfortunately Eddie and I never [made up],” Anthony revealed on Get on the Bus. “We had some issues, and I’m sure that if he had not passed when he did that we would’ve reconciled or we would’ve really calmed all that stuff down.

“Because I did hear, and I’ve talked to Wolfgang about it, that they were planning on coming to all of us and putting together a big reunion tour with all of us.

“And at that point in Ed’s life, I think he was a little bit more, like, ‘Hey, the past is the past,’” he says. “But, unfortunately, it was not to be.”

Anthony previously revealed that Eddie left behind a vast archive of unreleased material when he died. Drummer Alex Van Halen has suggested he may use AI to turn some of that unfinished material into completed songs, and has enlisted guitarist Steve Lukather, a close friend of Eddie’s, to help him sort through it. Whether anything comes of it remains to be seen.

Sammy Hagar has been speaking about his relationship with Eddie Van Halen once more, and now says that the late guitarist had turned his attention to the cello before he died.

His comments follow Hagar’s recent claims that EVH was “dried up” in the latter stages of his life and career, which attests to why the band only released one album in the 21st century.

Eddie Van Halen was born into a musical family. His father was a Dutch jazz pianist, clarinetist and saxophonist, and the guitar legend trod a similarly multi-instrument path, by playing piano, drums and cello. The final months of his life, it seems, were dedicated to developing his skills on the orchestra staple rather than the electric guitar.

“Last time I talked to Eddie before he passed, I said, ‘Man, what are you playing?’” Hagar tells the Talkin’ Rock With Meltdown podcast. “He said, ‘Oh, man, I’ve really been playing a lot of cello!’”

Hagar says he took the surprise news in good faith, and pushed for what would have been their first collaboration together since 1995’s Balance.

“I’m going, ‘Cello? Holy shit! Play me something, dude! I’m ready to write a song with you on cello!’”

Rock journalist and Guitar Player contributing writer Steve Rosen — who penned the book Tonechaser: Understanding Edward about his 26-year friendship with the guitarist — says Van Halen's journey with cello began in 1985.

“Edward had mentioned to me back on December 7th, 1984… how he was buying a cello and wanted to learn the instrument," Rosen writes in an excerpt of the book via Something Else! Reviews. "When he first told me that, I thought immediately of my friend Ron… who was not only an excellent bass player but a trained cellist, as well.”

Van Halen was 30 in 1985, and very much in the thralls of the rock and roll lifestyle. As Rosen noted, the guitarist arrived at his cello lesson with Ron having been “drinking heavily.”

“At one point, Edward attempted to play a few notes, but had been holding the bow incorrectly,” Rosen writes. “Ron reached over and slapped his hand the way an impatient music teacher may have done with an impetuous student, as in, ‘No, no, Edward, bad student!’

“The second he did it, I saw a look of terror cross his face because he realized he had just smacked the most famous right hand to ever hold a cello bow.”

No collaboration between Hagar and a cello-playing Van Halen materialized. Moreover, the mention of that call being the pair’s last conversation insinuates it took place close to his passing in October 2020.

Hagar does, however, claim that his new song “Encore, Thank You, Goodnight” was co-written with Eddie over a year after his death. The guitarist, he says, appeared to him in a dream, and he brought riffs with him.

Hagar’s group Best of All Bands — which includes Joe Satriani, Michael Anthony, and Kenny Aronoff — featured on the track, with Satriani eager to help finish a song the ghost of Eddie Van Halen had started.

The band wrapped its Las Vegas residency last month, and Hagar is seemingly eyeing another, with Wolfgang Van Halen in tow.

Calling out the Mammoth star — who, like his father is also a multi-instrumentalist — on radio station WRIF, he said: “Hey Wolf, let’s do a residency someday. Just one show of Van Halen songs! That would be awesome!”

Wolfgang, who says his stint as the bass player in his dad's band was tainted by a toxic portion of the fanbase, has distanced himself from playing Van Halen songs as he looks to forge a singular reputation and not one of ‘Eddie's son.’

“I could very easily shack up and do ‘Wolf does Van Halen’ and probably make a decent living from it,” he says.”[But] it’s very hollow and astoundingly creatively unfulfilling. I feel like it’s kind of selling out, and I could never do that; that’s not satisfying to me. I would rather bomb on my own than succeed with what my dad laid before me.”

Despite calling on Wolfgang to join him on stage, Hagar does recognize that he is his own man.

“He’s not trying to be his dad,” he tells WRIF, “and I love that. Let that boy boogie!”

He’s certainly boogieing, and keeping his father close in the process. He’s revealed that his new song, “The End” was tracked on his dad’s legendary Frankenstein Strat. But the likelihood of him playing Van Halen songs on that guitar, or any for that matter, in the future currently seems slim.

Eddie Van Halen's reputation as one of the best guitarists in the world was well established by the early 1980s

Nevertheless, the virtuoso was reportedly intimidated by a newcomer on the scene: Yngwie Malmsteen.

The Swedish shredder's star rose after he was introduced to the guitar scene by Guitar Player in its February 1983 issue. His stock went higher as he networked in L.A. and earned his stripes, first with Steeler and then with Graham Bonnett’s Alcatrazz, having turned down a spot in UFO.

By that point, Van Halen were five albums deep into their career, having turned the guitar world on its head with “Eruption” and Eddie’s superlative tapping exploits in 1978.

But just as Eddie’s tapping had astonished guitarists five years prior, Malmsteen’s hyperspeed, classically infused playing began earning raves and injecting a fresh and superhuman element into the guitar scene.

According to Malmsteen, this had EVH running scared.

“I never said a bad word about him, because I think he was amazing,” the guitarist says in the new issue of Classic Rock. “But I used to know a guy that worked in the grocery store where Eddie would shop, and the guy would ask him, 'Hey, what do you think about Yngwie Malmsteen, the new Swedish kid?'

"And Eddie would say 'I don't know what that is.'"

Malmsteen claims he knew better, citing a source who was very familiar with Eddie: former Van Halen singer David Lee Roth.

“Dave Roth told me that Eddie would have his ghetto blaster, playing my shit on it all day long!”

Roth’s account is suspect, considering his reputation for questionable statements, and the second-hand statement from a grocery store clerk isn't exactly damning evidence.

But Malmsteen says he saw the effect he had on his fellow shredder with his own eyes.

“There's one time I remember when I was nominated for a Grammy [in 1986],” he recollects. Van Halen’s “Jump” had been nominated for Best Rock Performance two years earlier, only to lose out to Prince's “Purple Rain.” Now it was Malmsteen’s turn in the limelight, with his second album, Rising Force, up for Best Rock Instrumental Performance.

“I go to the show — I had my tux on and everything — and I see Eddie there," Yngwie recalls. "I’m waving at him, trying to get his attention, he sees me, and he runs away. He literally ran away!”

“And I have an even more incredible story,” he continues. “I was doing a concert festival in Holland, and Van Halen was headlining. I'm like, ‘Great, I finally get to meet Eddie and give him my concerto.’ Because I'm proud of my concerto, you know?”

But his chance to finally meet the guitar superstar was scuppered when Van Halen pulled out of the show.

“They said Alex Van Halen had broken his little finger or something,” Malmsteen says, skeptically. “Then I hear that the promoter got a phone call from Eddie himself, who said, ‘Just to let you know, if Yngwie Malmsteen is playing, I'm not playing. And I will never fucking play the same stage as Yngwie Malmsteen.’

“He obviously felt threatened. Which is crazy to me. You're fucking Eddie Van Halen! Nobody could threaten you!”

To Malmsteen, it felt like a strange turn of events considering that Van Halen’s “attitude” had completely changed his own approach to recording only a few years earlier. He says he first discovered Van Halen through his then-drummer, who brought Van Halen's debut album to the studio.

“It was like somebody had dropped a fucking bomb. It was so good,” he says.

“But the funny thing is, it wasn't the 'Eruption' solo that really knocked me out. It was their attitude to go into the studio and record live. That was such an inspiration. So I decided I was going to record everything live from then on.”

Expanding on that moment during an interview with Guitar World in 2021, he said, “Overall it was the whole ‘Turn your fucking shit up and go for it’ thing that really got to me about Eddie. The impact he had on me was unbelievable. On all of us. It’s just crazy.”

Meanwhile, Eddie’s spirit continues in several ways, with Wolfgang Van Halen using his iconic Frankenstein guitar to record his new single, “The End” and Sammy Hagar, who has just begun his Best of All Worlds residency at the Las Vegas Sphere, says he wrote his new song with the guitarist in a dream.

Hagar also believes that his time with Van Halen helped Eddie become a better songwriter.

British filmmaker Simon Adkin has released another Van Halen mini-documentary in his ongoing YouTube series. At its heart is the story of Eddie Van Halen’s tapping origins and the writing of “Eruption.”

Like Adkin’s exhaustively produced mini-doc on EVH’s penchant for modding guitars — which led to the creation of his legendary Frankenstein Super-Strat — the latest film is told in the band’s words via interviews charting across several decades.

The band’s early producer Ted Templeman — who was behind the desk for all of Van Halen's records prior to 1986’s 5150 — features prominently, and says he only signed the band to Warner Bros. because of Eddie’s talents.

“I didn't care about anybody else,” he’s heard saying. “I just wanted that genius to be recognized by the world.”

However, he discovered the band was “a cohesive unit” more than simply a platform for Eddie to shred.

For that matter, Eddie himself can be heard discussing the negative side of being their focal point.

“We all piece it together," he says. "Al's great at arranging. It's a group thing, but without me, it wouldn't be.

“It always comes through me. I'm the spark plug and the engine, so it is kind of a burden, but it's a challenge at the same time.

Alex Van Halen says his brother put that weight on himself after presenting the band with an early version of "Running With the Devil."

"That moment I heard that, I said, 'Okay, Ed, you're writing all the songs,'" the drummer recalls. "We can't compete with that.”

Alex adds that the band’s sound, as unique as it was due to Eddie's approach to the guitar, often became a point of conflict when working with those outside of the group.

“Ed used to call it sound chasing," he says. "'Our instrument is our voice, this is how we connect with the world.'

"Ed and I had a running battle with every engineer and producer just to get it where we wanted it to go.”

Eddie changed the guitar music landscape forever with his tapping techniques on “Eruption,” the second track from the band's 1978 self-titled debut. By his admission, it wasn’t a technique he invented — Harvey Mandel has recently claimed he deserves some credit for his early innovations — but it was one he put into overdrive. Had he not seen Led Zeppelin live in August 1971, Ed's signature sound may have been very different.

At one point during the show, he can be heard explaining that he saw Jimmy Page play a trill with his left hand as he raised his right hand high above his head, drawing a huge cheer from the crowd.

Ed said he realized, “Wait a minute. I can use my finger as a capo,” allowing his right hand to become, as he put it, “an extension” of his fretting hand.

As the documentary explains, players had been tapping on fretboards for years before Eddie made it popular, as illustrated by a 1965 clip in the film that shows Vittorio Camardese tapping on a classical guitar.

Steve Hackett and Ace Frehley, who were both doing it before him, are also briefly featured, and Ed acknowledges that he also took inspiration from Brian May, who in turn had been inspired by Rocky Athas.

Where Eddie's evolution of the technique came in was its application, and "Eruption" was the jewel in his crown.

“I'm sure someone else has done that before me,” Eddie says, it's just they didn't think of applying it to rock and roll the way I did…

"I never really heard anyone do what I did.”

The song wasn't intended to appear on the Van Halen debut. It started life as something Eddie would play around with at soundcheck. Templeman was responsible for its promotion.

“I think of myself as a lighting man when I produce records,” Templeman divulges. “I try to make people look good; I just wanted the world to see Ed play.”

Clocking in at just over 16 minutes, the documentary is tireless and honest in its account of the history surrounding the change-making song. At one point Slash says “Eddie changed the face of the guitar” — and its legacy is pondered over by the likes of Steve Vai and Zakk Wylde in its latter stages.

The documentary's release comes after hours of unseen B-roll footage — taken from a canceled Van Halen documentary captured during the band’s heyday — was uploaded to YouTube. In the absence of officially licensed films, these become precious watches for the Van Halen fanbase. Adkins wants to help fill that void.

Sammy Hagar, meanwhile, has released a song he claims to have been co-written by EVH in a dream, and says Eddie stopped writing in his later years because he was “dried up.”

Eddie Van Halen didn’t make new music in the 2000s because he was “dried up.” So says former Van Halen singer Sammy Hagar.

Furthermore, Hagar says his vocal talents made the late virtuoso a better musician, opening the door for Ed to experiment in new styles that were beyond the abilities of Hagar's predecessor, David Lee Roth.

Hagar's revelations come from a new interview with Rolling Stone, in which the singer says he hopes to clear up misunderstandings about his creative relationship with Eddie.

The Red Rocker replaced Roth in 1985 when the flamboyant frontman sought success in his own right and went on to hire a raft of stellar guitarists for his cause. More than a singer, Roth was Eddie's co-writer.

But Hagar could write too, and sing his ass off — with greater range and accuracy than Roth. And it was those qualities, he says, that elevated Eddie’s musicianship.

“I always say that to the hardcore Eddie heads: Eddie’s musicianship blossomed when I joined the band.

"People don’t realize that Eddie expanded as a musician because he got a singer that could say, ‘I can sing that.’ And we went on a fucking musical adventure.”

For support, Hagar points to the band's increased use of keyboards from 1984 onward.

“When I joined the band, everyone said, ‘Oh man, they started playing keyboards, and Hagar wants to write all these love songs,’” he says. “I didn’t bring the music to Eddie. Eddie brought the music to me.

“He had used that guitar neck up. He did everything and anything that neck could do, and changed his amps, and got his sounds. And over the years, he kept changing his sound to try and re-inspire some new guitar things.

"That’s why he wrote ‘Can’t Stop Loving You.' It’s a classical piece of music, and so is ‘5150.’ I had to find a place to sing. But he sat down at a keyboard. It felt fresh.”

To that end, Hagar feels the band’s creative output suffered when he left the group in 1996 after 11 years. Roth briefly returned to record two songs for Best Of — Volume 1. but it was Extreme's Gary Cherone who fronted the band for 1998's Van Halen III.

Hagar returned for a reunion in 2003, during which time he was co-credited for three new songs on the 2004 Best of Both Worlds compilation album. But he was gone by 2005. The band wouldn't write another album until 2012's A Different Kind of Truth, five years after Roth rejoined Van Halen for a third time.

Hagar believes that album took so long because he wasn't there to inspire Ed.

“So, that’s why he stopped writing, I think,” Hagar offers, “because he just ran out. Shit, how much do you need? How much can you squeeze out of the dude? He gave his blood, brother.”

Eddie Van Halen died in 2020, but left behind a vast archive of unfinished demos from which his brother Alex hopes to create new songs. The drummer released the final song the pair worked on together last year.

Meanwhile, Hagar has just released a song he wrote with Eddie Van Halen in a dream. Titled, “Encore, Thank You, Goodnight,” it features EVH-style lead guitar playing from Joe Satriani.

“This was one hundred percent a communication from the beyond,” Hagar says. “There is no question about it. I dream about Eddie all the time, quite honestly.

“He had a guitar around his neck. And we were having a love fest since we hadn’t seen each other in a long time. And he just started playing this riff, and I started singing.”

In one of the wildest claims of 2025 so far, Sammy Hagar says his new single was co-written with Eddie Van Halen over a year after he died, saying the guitarist had contacted him “from beyond,” while also revealing secret talks held before his death.

Speaking to Rolling Stone about the dream that inspired his new song, “Encore, Thank You, Goodnight”—which features some tastefully EVH-channeling lead playing from Joe Satriani—Hagar says Eddie had come to help him write it in a dream.

“This was one hundred percent a communication from the beyond,” he ascertains. “There is no question about it. I dream about Eddie all the time, quite honestly.

“He had a guitar around his neck,” Hagar says. “And we were having a love fest since we hadn’t seen each other in a long time. And he just started playing this riff, and I started singing”—before realizing the man he was jamming with was dead. Then he woke up.

“I grabbed a pad and a pencil,” he continues. “I got my iPhone. My wife’s screaming, ‘What are you doing?’ I said, ‘Writing a song!’ It just kept coming and coming. When I got up the next day, I grabbed my guitar and started to figure out the chords.”

The song sat unfinished on his phone for two years, but the formation of his Best of All Worlds band—Joe Satriani, Michael Anthony, and Jason Bonham (later replaced by Kenny Aronoff)—helped bring one final tribute to his former bandmate to life. Satriani, who had previously said he purposefully never tried to play like Eddie, encouraged the singer to finish it.

“When I told Joe about the dream and played him the thing, he went, ‘Oh man. Hell yeah. Let’s finish that. That’s a cool song,’” Hagar recalls.

It starts with Satriani delivering a slew of deft two-handed tapping licks and rarely lets up. He does a heartfelt and dazzling Eddie impression throughout, weaving between seismic power chords with dive bombs and flashy licks.

Hagar, meanwhile, sings of his gratitude for having known Eddie: “Thank you for the music, thank you for the songs, thank you for the good times,” he bellows in the chorus.

“This song is my final bow to that part of my life,” Hagar said ahead of the song’s release. “It’s not meant to be anything more than a thank-you—with love, with respect, and with one hell of a guitar solo.”

Hagar's last involvement with Van Halen—something he calls “the pinnacle of my career”—was in 2004. He and longtime bass player Michael Anthony watched from the sidelines as the Van Halen brothers linked up with David Lee Roth for the final iteration of the band.

But the vocalist says he reconnected with Eddie Van Halen as the guitarist battled the cancer that would ultimately take his life in 2020. Plans for another Hagar-fronted tour with Van Halen, he says, were discussed.

“I miss the guy so much,” he tells the Los Angeles Times. “Thank God we connected towards the end; otherwise, I’d be heartbroken. It was so important to me that we did connect in that last year.”

“Eddie said to me, ‘Don’t tell anyone about us talking because I don’t want to be answering questions about rumors of a reunion. Next year, we’re gonna get together—we’re gonna make some noise. Let me beat this shit, and let’s do it.’”

Hagar kept this conversation—likely from 2019 or 2020—quiet until now to honor the guitarist’s wishes.

“He goes, ‘Please don’t talk to anyone—not even Al [Van Halen],’” Hagar now relays. “I’ve never said that to anyone, and I bet you Al is gonna have a fucking fit. But Eddie said, ‘Don’t even talk to Al about this.’”

Reflecting on the tour that never was and life after Eddie's passing, Hagar's conversation with the Los Angeles Times takes a somber turn.

“Things aren’t the same without that hope,” he mourns. “I was hoping that would happen, that we’d get together and play someday. And not only for the fame and fortune—which of course I’ve never gotten back to that level since. That was the pinnacle of my career.

“But more than that was the creativity and the energy we had together, writing songs like ‘Right Now’ and ‘Love Walks In’. He brought something out of me that just ain’t the same without him. At my age, you sit there and wonder: If Eddie was alive, could I reach that again? Now that dream is gone.”

Valerie Bertinelli says filmmakers need to “make sure I’m dead” before committing to a biopic about her late ex-husband, Eddie Van Halen.

“Oh god, I hope they never do one of Van Halen,” Bertinelli exclaimed on Monday's episode of The Drew Barrymore Show. The former actress said she's already spoken about it with their son, Wolfgang “I told Wolfie, ‘Make sure I’m dead.’”

The conversation follows comments Alex Van Halen made in an interview with Rolling Stone while promoting his memoir, Brothers, late last year. The drummer said plans were in motion for a biopic based on the Van Halen band's history.

“It’s just a long-term plan,” he said. “I mean, the Queen movie [2018's Bohemian Rhapsody] took 30 years to make.”

Bertinelli also used the interview to counter a longstanding belief among certain portions of the Van Halen fanbase that she added to the band’s tumult and member changes.

“I have been called Yoko in my day,” she said, in reference to John Lennon's widow, Yoko One, but she believes that comparison also points to a false narrative.

“As if I had the power to break up a band! Yoko's an amazing woman. She's an artist, and she did not break up the Beatles. The Beatles had their own issues.”

As did Van Halen. Wolfgang has previously stated that the band’s final reunion with David Lee Roth wouldn’t have happened without him, such was the extent of shattered relationships.

Bertinelli believes everyone should shoulder the blame equally.

“It wasn't all Ed's fault, okay?” she told Barrymore. “I'm just going to put that out there. Everybody loves to blame Ed, and he can't defend himself. Nowhere near was it all Ed's fault... He just wanted to write his music and play his music.”

The world was treated to a posthumous Eddie Van Halen release last year when Alex Van Halen released the final song they had worked on. However, the drummer has since divided opinion with his hopes of using AI to finish the “little pieces” of ideas he left behind into an album, of which Michael Anthony says there is a vast archive.

Eddie’s longtime friend Steve Lukather has since been tapped up for the project, which Alex believes will help celebrate his brother’s legacy. However, the guitarist has clarified his role in the record’s creation and says he won’t play a single note on it.

Wolfgang, meanwhile, has opened up on the whole his father's death created in his life, and how his grief pushed him toward a new musical chapter.

For Steve Stevens, working with Michael Jackson in 1986 was one of the first times since establishing himself as Billy Idol’s foil that he'd flown from the punk singer’s nest, and the guitarist was a bag of nerves heading to the studio.

It was not only the size of the task that intimidated him. Michael Jackson had scored countless hit records and Grammy wins by the time writing for his seventh solo album beckoned. Stevens also had history to contend with. Eddie Van Halen had already helped the singer flaunt his rock side with “Thriller” four years earlier. How could he compare?

“I was kind of nervous because I wasn’t a ‘session guitar player,’” he tells MusicRadar. “I hadn’t really done stuff outside of Billy Idol.”

Working in the studio with legendary producer Quincy Jones and the King of Pop would provide no creature comforts. This would be a sharp learning curve, and as he flew to Los Angeles, his imagination started getting the better of him.

“When I got the call to go out to Los Angeles to record with Michael, I was thinking, Oh, there’s going to be an entourage, and the monkey’s going to be jumping around,” he says, referencing Jackson’s infamous pet chimp, Bubbles. “I thought it was going to be all this crazy shit!”

Then the truth revealed itself.

“When I got to the studio and opened the door, it was exactly like a Billy Idol session. It was just Michael, Quincy, and the engineer.”

No pop star, no chimp-infused anarchy. He could breathe a sigh of relief and get to work.

“I thought, Great, okay. And Quincy was just one of the great record producers. He really put my mind at ease.”

Jones began working with Michael Jackson on the Thriller LP and certainly knew how to work with guitarists. It was Jones who asked Van Halen to perform on "Beat It" (even if it took several phone calls to convince the virtuoso that the voice on the other end of the line really was Quincy Jones.)

On that same track, he'd asked Steve Lukather — who handled the main riff, rhythm guitar and bass parts — to “funk it up," and practically coaxed the song's iconic intro out of him.

In short, there was no better person that Jones to guide Stevens through his first real session job. Best of all, Jones trusted Stevens' instincts as a musician.

“Once we had achieved all the stuff that they wanted, they said, ‘Now, come here and do whatever the fuck you want to do!’" Stevens recalls. "So, me doing that ended up being the solo.

“The original version that I played was something like seven or eight minutes. They edited it, but it was a great experience. Michael and Quincy were total pros. Being in the same company as Ed is pretty good company, too!"

Today, he remains rightfully proud of his work.

“I remember that I saw Ed soon after I did the session with Michael, and I said, ‘Hey, I was in the studio with Michael…’ Ed said, ‘Did he say to you that he likes the high notes?’ We kind of laughed over that because when I came into the studio, Michael actually did go, ‘Oh, I like the high notes!’”

And for Stevens, ‘86 would be a year of high notes. He secured a Grammy win of his own for his guitar playing on the Top Gun soundtrack that same year.

In related news, Stevens has explained how he got his infamous Hamer signature guitar on the back of Paul Stanley’s introduction to the firm and how he used toy ray guns for “Rebel Yell”’s classic solo cut.

Meanwhile, his musical partner Billy Idol told Guitar Player about meeting Les Paul in 1986 and getting him to sign the Les Paul Junior he used onstage and on the Rebel Yell album.

Long ago, Joe Satriani decided Eddie Van Halen’s virtuoso body of work was off limits. Fearful of inadvertently stealing the maestro's licks, he vowed never to learn Ed's riffs or licks, and said breaking that rule would be "torture.”

Then, last year, Satch did exactly that when he signed up for the Best of All Worlds tour. Joining forces with Sammy Hagar, Michael Anthony and Jason Bonham, the guitarist took to stages across the U.S. to pay tribute to Ed.

Doing so was no small feat, and he's now revealed which of Van Halen's songs gave him the most trouble.

Even before he got around to playing the songs, Satriani had quite a lot to deal with. Realizing that his live rig wasn't suited to the task at hand, he turned to 3rd Power Amps for a custom-made tube amp designed to replicate his favorite era of Eddie’s tone.

He also made some choice modifications to his signature Ibanez guitars and left no stone unturned in his pursuit of Ed's tone and technique. That attention to detail left Hagar thrilled with Satch's effort, despite his belief that the guitarist was not — on paper at least — a “perfect match” for Ed.

Turning to the songs, Satch also came to realize that the order of the setlist is as important as how he plays and sounds.

“Opening with ‘Good Enough’, ‘Poundcake’ and ‘Runaround’ is amazing,” Satriani tells Guitar World. “I quickly realized that the order of Eddie’s embellishments is really important to the fans. Even though Ed would move things around, this audience knows the studio versions and they will want the scream here, the harmonic cascades there and the finger tapping there.”

The audience’s ear for nuances aside, a few songs proved tricky to master.

“The ‘Poundcake’ drill is hard to nail,” he continues. “The beginning of ‘Summer Nights’ is difficult because of the picking and gain structure. I don’t think I got the intro right until halfway into the tour. It felt so odd to my fingers.”

Tonal diversity was another headscratcher. Satch designed his Dragon 100 amp — which is now available as a plugin — to capture Eddie’s transitional 1986 tone. It was an era, immortalized on the Live Without a Net live album, that saw the band pivot from David Lee Roth to Hagar, and it has come to stand as Satch’s favorite.

But Eddie wasn’t a one-trick pony when it came to tone. As Satriani says, “Ed had a million sounds. ‘Ain’t Talkin’ ’Bout Love’ to ‘Panama’ is a huge jump, then to ‘Summer Nights’ is a crazy jump.

"He went from mono to mono, with a little bit of stereo from the Eventide to widen the pitch, and then full stereo. He used Marshall, Soldano, Peavey and EVH. Those are huge changes in terms of preamp gain and compression. He went from a lot of midrange to quite scooped.

“So I asked Dylana Scott at 3rd Power Amplification to solve it for me,” Satch concludes. “We went for the 1986 Live Without a Net tone because it was all Marshalls but with extra stereo-ness.”

Indeed, it wasn’t a spur of the moment idea to chase that specific era of Eddie’s tone.

“Going back some years, when David Lee Roth and Alex Van Halen first called me about a tribute, I started this deep search into Ed’s tone,” Satriani reveals. “His sound was lighter and thinner than my JVM, which was designed to make all my high notes super fat.

“That’s what I usually do for two hours onstage. I’m not playing many chords. But when I play with Sammy, it’s 95 percent rhythm and then eight or 16 bars of solo. A quick rip before coming back.”

In related news, Peavey’s CEO has suggested its signing of Joe Satriani is to blame for Eddie’s split from the firm, which led to the creation of the Fender-owned EVH brand.

Steve Lukather has also clarified the role he is playing in a reported new Van Halen album, which is being spearheaded by Alex, and is using Eddie’s unfinished demos as a launch pad.

Steve Lukather took to his Instagram on March 15 to clarify his involvement in a new effort to salvage unheard recordings featuring Eddie Van Halen.

Alex Van Halen announced last week that he had enlisted the Toto guitarist’s assistance pulling together a new Van Halen album using unreleased recordings that exist in Van Halen's vault.

“Ed and Steve Lukather were very good friends, and they often worked together," Alex said. "There is no one who can do this process with me as well as he can."

That led to much speculation — and confusion — about what Lukather’s role would be.

As he now explains, it’s not what some people thought.

“Ever since Alex Van Halen dropped some [sic] we were gonna work together I think there is a huge misunderstanding,” Lukather wrote.

"I will NOT EVER play a guitar note on a VH song ever!

"Al asked me to help him go thru a ton of unfinished recordings of Al and Ed writing and recording that never saw the light of day.

"As of now thats all I got.

"The fact that ANYONE would think for even a second that I would play anything on this is ridiculous. I have too much love and respect for that and ... I play nothing like Ed.. more as a co-producer or something.

"I am honored Al would ask me though.

"Lets see ...

News of the Van Halen archive has been tantalizing fans for months. According to former Van Halen bass player Michael Anthony, the group had a habit of recording "everything we had.”

Alex Van Halen dipped into the trove last year when he released a track he and Eddie worked on. Recorded on October 6, 2002, the song, “Unfinished," was issued with the audiobook version of the drummer's memoir, Brothers.

Since then, Alex has said Eddie left behind enough material for another “three or four records.” He's spoken of using AI to help turn those recordings — many of which are nothing more than snippets — into finished songs, much as Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr did to complete the last Beatles’ recording, “Now and Then.”

“They’re all little pieces,” Van Halen told Rolling Stone, adding, “a bunch of licks don’t make a song."

The drummer also said he was hoping to use ChatGPT’s technology to generate new solos and bring Robert Plant onboard to sing.

“You’re gonna think I’m out of my fucking mind,” the drummer offered. “But when conditions are right, things will manifest.”

It’s not entirely surprising Alex would bring Lukather onboard to assist with his effort. A famed session player as well as Toto's guitarist, Luke was good friends with the Van Halen brothers for decades.

“I’m very honored to have been Ed's friend — really a friend,” he told Metal Master Kingdom, “not just a guitar buddy who had a beer with him once. [There is] 40-plus years with him, Al and I."

He and Eddie crossed paths on previous projects, including Michael Jackson’s “Beat It,” on which Eddie played the electric guitar solo at the invitation of producer Quincy Jones. Eddie performed bass on a song from Lukather’s 1989 solo debut and contributed to a track on Luke’s 2003 holiday album, SantaMental.

A Dutch newspaper reports that Alex Van Halen has turned to Toto guitarist Steve Lukather to get a new Van Halen record off the ground.

The revelatory article from the brothers’ home country says that the unfinished recordings they made together before Eddie Van Halen’s passing in 2020 will form the basis of the project. That means pulling from the same catalog of ideas that “Unfinished” was lifted from last year.

That song, one of the last songs the Van Halen brothers worked on together, had been released to promote Alex’s new memoir, Brothers.

He’d mentioned how many similar recordings existed, harmonizing with claims once made by Michael Anthony of a vast archive of unheard material. Curiously, however, there was talk of using AI to turn Eddie’s “little pieces” into full songs by allowing the technology to understand and recreate the nuances of Eddie’s world-slaying talents.

It seems Alex now wants a human touch to bring the same idea to life, one that was immensely close to Eddie during his lifetime. The pair famously played on Michael Jackson’s “Beat It”, Lukater the rhythm parts, and Edddie a solo that, according to Alex, prompted David Lee Roth to quit the band.

Beyond that, Eddie played bass on Lukather’s debut solo album, with the virtuoso getting a songwriting credit for the opening track “Twist The Knife”. Both brothers would later feature on Lukather’s 2003 Christmas album, “Santamental” – so if you want to hear Eddie lend his chops to “Joy to the World”, you know where to look.

In that sense, there are echoes of how Pantera have reunited, with the late Dimebag Darrell’s void filled by his long-time friend Zakk Wylde.

Discussing the project with De Telegraf, Alex Van Halen is confident Lukather is the right man for the job.

“Ed and Steve Lukather were very good friends, and they often worked together. There is no one who can do this process with me as well as he can,” he says.

Speaking of the Van Halen archive of riffs and ideas last year, Alex told Rolling Stone: “They’re all little pieces... A bunch of licks don’t make a song.”

He then turned his attention to AI, believing it could analyze “the patterns of how Edward would have played something.

“You’re gonna think I’m out of my fucking mind,” he added. “But when conditions are right, things will manifest.”

There is no indication as to who else would feature in the band, although Alex had mooted Robert Plant as an ideal frontman for the AI-fueled project, so his recruitment policy may transfer over here. Wolfgang may get the nod for bass, considering he said the band’s 2006 reunion couldn’t have happened without him.

It seems unlikely that David Lee Roth would play a part, with Alex Van Halen saying a tribute tour with Joe Satriani fell apart after the singer refused to play tribute to Eddie during the shows. Interestingly, Jason Newstead had been asked about joining that tour.

As such, there is plenty to speculate about and very little truth to digest.

De Telegraaf, however, approached Lukather for comment while Toto toured the country.

“Did Alex say that?” was his response. “Oh, in that case, the news is true. Ed, Alex, and I were very close for years. It is true that we worked on it together.”

Meanwhile, Wolfgang Van Halen has opened up about his difficulty dealing with his father’s death before finding purpose in his life again with Mammoth WVH.

"Empty." That's how Wolfgang Van Halen described his life after his father, Eddie Van Halen, died in 2020.

The Van Halen offspring played his part in Van Halen’s legacy when he replaced long-standing bassist Michael Anthony for their 2006 reunion with David Lee Roth. It was a period that he said couldn’t have happened without him, as he recently commented on the backlash his presence had caused among fractions of the fanbase.

Not wanting to have his career overshadowed by his dad’s music, Wolfgang began working on his own solo music with his band, Mammoth WVH, as early as 2015 . But he put the record on hold when Eddie’s health began to deteriorate.

“I spent 2015 to 2018 making the first record, but then when my dad got sick, I kind of put everything on hold,” he tells Billy Corgan’s The Magnificent Others podcast.

Eddie Van Halen had battled tongue cancer in the six years prior to his death, and was hospitalized in 2019.

“It wasn’t until he passed in 2020 that I was like, My life is completely empty, and I need something to give me purpose,” he continues. “That’s what I’m still doing to this day.”

During the pair’s conversation, Wolfgang talks openly about the grief he felt losing his dad, saying: “In the absence of my father, which is a heavy absence that I’m dealing with to this day, his pride in me was so large that, in its absence, there’s just this black hole sitting there.”

Mammoth WVH, a project in which he performs all the instruments and vocals. He has become a valuable outlet for himself and has produced two full-length albums so far, and has gigged extensively alongside his work with the EVH brand.

The multi-instrumentalist has repeatedly expressed his desire to be viewed and judged on his own merits as he tries to emerge from under his father's sizable shadow. However, he understands the scale of the challenge, telling Corgan, “I would rather make my own name. Unfortunately, when I have the name Van Halen, that’s a bit tough to do. I want to earn this. I don’t want to be given anything.”

That’s why, stylistically, Mammoth WVH sits far away from the brazen technicality of Van Halen and shares greater DNA with modern rock and progressive metal artists like Intervals’ Aaron Marshall, who he has called his favorite guitar player.

That’s not to say his music forsakes his father's influence. His solo on “Take a Bow,” for instance, oozes an unmistakable EVH flavor, but it’s done in a way that feels like a tip of the hat to his father, rather than a cashing in on the family name. It comes from the heart, not a craving for success.

But his dad’s influence will always be a huge part of him, and last year, he spoke about how one key lesson he received from his father on guitar solos has continued to resonate with him since.

“I approach guitar playing more as a producer and more as a drummer than a guitar player,” he explains. “Rhythm is always the first thing for me, and melody is the second.

“It's more about songwriting when it comes to Mammoth,” he continues. “Not every song needs a solo.”

However, while a musical distance between his father’s legacy and the one he’s trying to carve out in his own right is welcome, the void left by his father is far greater in other aspects of his life.

Just months after Mammoth II was released in 2023, Wolfgang married his girlfriend, Andraia Allsop, who walked down the aisle to a song Eddie Van Halen had written for his only child. He said it was “a nice way to include my dad,” but that was as much as he could do on such an important day.

“There’s so much that I can’t share with him,” he says to Corgan, candidly. “He never got to see what happened with Mammoth. He never got to see me get married. He never got to see me have kids eventually. Those are tentpole moments that will always have a tinge of sadness no matter what.”

Sensing his interviewee's sadness, Corgan smiles and replies, “I know he’d be proud. He’d be losing it,” and it’s hard to see how his father would have reacted in any other way.

Eddie Van Halen was intensely passionate about music, his guitars, and his family. Wolfgang even says that playing live with his son on bass was one of his “favorite things” to do, so to see him thriving as a songwriter would have filled him with an unfathomable joy.

Hours of new, unseen footage of Van Halen playing massive stages as well as candid clips of their superstar shredder hanging out backstage have surfaced online.

A total of 15 videos amassing more than five hours of footage have been uploaded to YouTube by a user named James Vega, stating that the clips consist of his “private collection of Van Halen footage from the canceled Van Halen Chronicles documentary”.

There is little to find about the canceled documentary online, but what is clear is that the footage charts three different points in the band’s history, including two 1978 New York shows supporting Balck Sabbath on the Never Say Die tour and their legendary slot at Monsters of Rock 1984.

There are also B-roll outtakes from the "Hot for Teacher" and "Jump" music videos. For fans of really obscure EVH clips, there’s a three-and-a-half-minute clip of the band going to McDonald's in Tokyo, Japan. Sadly, that footage is sans audio, so who knows what they ordered.

In short, it’s a treasure trove for Van Halen fans, with side-of-stage footage of the band delivering a high-octane version of “Hot for Teacher” at Donington ‘84, hanging out with Black Sabbath back stage in New York, and Eddie Van Halen showing off his Kramer guitar to Slade’s Dave Hill among the highlights.

Unfortunately, much of the band’s Donington set is without audio. Vega was shooting B-roll, meaning the audio will have typically been taken from other sources for the final product, meaning only audio of the first two songs of the night feature here.

However, it’s the backstage footage of the band, shot ahead of their headline performance — Ozzy Osbourne and Gary Moore also performed that day — that catches the eye.

Eddie is rarely seen without his Kramer in the clips, which take in a photo opp in front of a swarm of photographers, during which Eddie jokes, “Do you guys ever run out of film?” and an intimate showcase of the animal sounds the guitarist can make on the Superstar in one of the band's portacabins.

Vega's camera also follows the band as they walk out onstage in front of thousands of screaming fans, and it doesn't take Eddie long to screech into the opening bars of "Unchained". That's quickly followed up by a punishing "Hot for Teacher," during which Eddie spends ample time atop brother Alex's drum riser.

Rewinding the clock some six years to 1978, footage surrounding the band's first Madison Square Garden show underneath heavy metal's forefathers shows a relaxed David Lee Roth in his pressing room pre-show, toking on a cigarette and joking, “As you can see, the atmosphere is tense. The air is ripe with anticipation.”

Performance footage includes a trio of songs, “On Fire”, “Runnin’ With The Devil” and “Feel Your Love Tonight”, while a separate video charts the following night's antics in Uniondale, New York.

Here, Ozzy Osbourne and Bill Ward feature in backstage scenes, joking around with bass player Michael Anthony, while performances from the night include “I’m the One”, “Atomic Punk” and their Kinks cover, “You Really Got Me”.

Vega’s footage even extends to tour dates in Japan and various other US dates.

It’s unclear why Vega has now decided to release the footage and why the documentary was canned, but what’s left is a fascinating insight into what life in the band was like, both in their very early days and at the height of their powers.

The leak comes after it's been revealed that Tom Morello has been enlisted to oversee Black Sabbath's final star-studded show, during which Wolfgang Van Halen will perform.

“The idea,” he tells Guitar Player. “Is to curate the greatest day in the history of heavy metal for the greatest band in the history of heavy metal.”

Meanwhile, Wolfgang has hit out at those who tried to marr his time in Van Halen, and Harvey Mandel, who has spoken about how he nearly joined the Rolling Stones, now wants credit for introducing two-handed tapping techniques to Eddie Van Halen.