Eddie Van Halen’s arrival on the scene in the late 1970s bowled over a generation of guitar players and kickstarted a shred revolution. But it wasn’t just contemporary players left aghast; plenty of the old guard were won over, too.
Eric Clapton had a famous disagreement with the virtuoso regarding their definition of the blues. But ZZ Top’s bandleader, a perennial bridge between the classic bluesmanship of the three Kings and fresh, outside-the-box thinking, understood Van Halen’s mind-boggling approach from the start.
“I knew him well from the very first record,” Gibbons told Eddie Trunk shortly after his counterpart’s passing in 2020 (via Far Out). “And he was actually, as it came to pass, a neighbor, very close to the house back in Los Angeles.”
Naturally, it didn’t take long for the two players, who have made plenty of innovations on the electric guitar, to link up.
“I first heard the words, ‘Hey, man, there’s a guy that plays some interesting guitar riffs, maybe you should get together,’” he recalls, “only to discover that sitting in the record bin was the first Van Halen record. They had already picked up steam, and fortunately, I was able to go out and catch a live show, and that blew my mind. I said, ‘Oh my gosh, these guys have got it going on.’”
That was often people’s reaction when they first heard Van Halen play. Hearing “Eruption” for the first time was game changing for Alex Skolnick; Jerry Cantrell says EVH and Jimi Hendrix “tilted the world on its axis.” Joe Satriani, meanwhile, said that he “scared the hell out of a million guitarists because he was so damn good” (via BBC).
Gibbons was equally as moved.
“He was always ready to deliver,” he said. “Even [with] the most ferocious riffs and with that technique, it was really gratifying to be in front of a guy who genuinely appreciated and enjoyed every single moment.
“Eddie’s technical prowess is nearly unsurpassed,” he then said. “When it comes to hammer-ons, he’s one of the guys who not only did it best, but did it fast; he did it furiously.”
Two-handed tapping was, of course, Eddie Van Halen’s calling card. It’s a technique that would go on to dominate the next decade-plus of guitar music. It saw his left hand constantly hammering, and he has credited Jimmy Page for the inspiration.
Yet others have claimed they invented tapping first, with Harvey Mendal saying Eddie copied it from him. Rocky Athas and Brian May have also been mentioned. And while Joe Satriani once said he started tapping before hearing any of his soon-to-be-hero’s music, Gibbons was experiencing the exact stroke of fated luck.
“Eruption,” never intended as a solo, was released in 1978, after being recorded in September ’77. Five years earlier, Gibbons did a bit of tapping himself on the Tres Hombres cut “Beer Drinkers and Hellraisers.”
As it turns out, it came about spontaneously.
“Totally by accident,” Gibbons assured Guitar Player in February 2016. “As Frank Beard — our man with no beard — waited for the tape to roll, I was attempting to illustrate with Dusty [Hill, bass] the high note for the bass guitar track.
It was really gratifying to be in front of a guy who genuinely appreciated and enjoyed every single moment.”
— Billy Gibbons
“I held the low fret down and tapped the high octave, and that did it. Dusty leaned back and said, ‘Man, do that and do it again!’”
He says he never fully incorporated it into the ZZ sound out of respect for Eddie’s legacy.
“Well, it’s still in the technique corral,” he said, nodding. “Van Halen made it a regular thing, and now it’s a genuine part of the player’s approach to shred. I dig it.”
