JOE SATRIANI On EDDIE VAN HALEN: 'He Did Things The Way Nobody Else Did Them, And To Him It Came Naturally'

In a new interview with Talk Is Jericho, the podcast hosted by FOZZY frontman and wrestling superstar Chris Jericho, Joe Satriani once again reflected on being approached to reproduce Eddie Van Halen's guitar parts as part of an all-star VAN HALEN tribute project with Alex Van Halen and David Lee Roth. Recalling how he initially felt when the proposed pairing came about, Joe said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "When they called and invited me to take on the project, I heard myself saying 'yes', and then inside my head I heard, 'Did you just say 'yes'?' Nobody can replace Ed Van Halen. So then I hung up the phone and I was, like, 'Oh, I think I just said 'yes'.' But maybe two or three weeks afterwards, after really woodshedding, I remember calling them back and saying, 'Hey guys, I can't do this. There's no way.' I cannot effectively imitate Ed. I've purposely tried not to sound like people for so long. I just can't imitate him. And they'd say, 'No, no. You're the only guy who can do it.' And I thought, 'Well, I don't know why, but okay.' And then another month goes by. I call them up again: 'It's not gonna work.' 'Cause I'd be learning these songs and they're just so awkward. That's what I found."

Joe continued: "Talk about quirky. Besides being a virtuoso, Ed was quirky. He just did things the way nobody else did them, and to him it came naturally. And when you try to do those things, suddenly you go, 'Well, that's not my sensibility,' so it comes out a little late or a little early, or it just doesn't swing the right way, 'cause you don't play that way. I spent a lot of time on YouTube watching about 1,000 guitar players from ages eight to 80 completely nail Eddie Van Halen parts. And I thought, 'Well, where have I been?' I guess I've been busy being Joe. And meanwhile, the rest of the community out there had been just dissecting everything that he did. And now with amp modeling, they even had amp models of the brown sound, so he can nail the sound. And again, I thought, 'Well, I'm not doing that. There's no way I'm doing that.' And anyway, then the gig fell apart. I mean, three weeks away from actually doing a show in New York City, everything started to hit the fan. And I don't know how to comment on that part of the VAN HALEN world, but it was just trouble. The volcano erupted again, and I was just on the outside looking in. So I was just, like, 'Okay, forget it,' that kind of thing. And then months later — I don't know how many months later, maybe six months later — Sam [former VAN HALEN singer and Satriani's CHICKENFOOT bandmate Sammy Hagar] calls and he has a totally different idea. And I could talk to him like a friend and say, 'Now, Sam, you know I don't play like Ed.' And he goes, 'Don't worry about it. That's not what it's about. We're gonna do your stuff, CHICKENFOOT, MONTROSE, Hagar, as well as Roth-era and Hagar-era VAN HALEN. That was a little bit easier by then. And also by then other people had come up — Wolfie [Eddie Van Halen's son, former VAN HALEN bassist Wolfgang Van Halen] had chimed in on the whole thing, and t was a different world by then."

Joe added: "If there are people out there interested in an impersonation of Edward Van Halen, there are at least 1,000 guitar players out there who do such an amazing job, and I have to thank them for their tutorials because you'd see the live versions, which Eddie improvised every single night he played, and then you'd hear the recorded versions, and some of them are really strange, layered recordings with lots of comps and stuff that don't make too much sense. And so when you get to see someone play it, you can go, 'Okay, I get it. I see what's happening there.' They have to get from the beginning of the song to the end somehow. And if you're concentrating on a live performance, you have to make it work with, in my case, Sammy and Mike [former VAN HALEN bassist Michael Anthony] of today, not of decades ago. And that's the other thing — it doesn't really work when you imitate somebody from the record while you're playing with people in the present, 'cause they don't play like the record. I don't know how to put that into words, but basically every time you go to play 'Judgement Day', it's a new thing. And you just gotta be totally present with the band you're with on stage, with the audience you're in front of, and you have to approach it that way, as Ed and Alex did every night, from what I can tell from every clip and from when I saw them live. They were totally insane. Thank God for that. That's why we loved them, right? They were just pushing themselves to do something different with every song every single night. It's crazy."

Satriani eventually took part in the 2024 "The Best Of All Worlds" tour with Hagar during which Sammy and his bandmates in THE CIRCLE — including Satriani and Anthony — performed largely VAN HALEN material.

In January 2024, Joe was asked during an appearance on "The Hook Rocks" podcast why he thinks the 2024 "The Best Of All Worlds" tour came together while the proposed VAN HALEN tribute featuring him, Roth and Alex Van Halen failed to materialize more than two years earlier when it was first brought up. Joe said: "That's tough. I didn't know Eddie [Van Halen] and I don't know the family and I don't think I'll ever really understand David Lee Roth. I thought I really understood Alex, and I think I do. I really think I understand his point of view or where he's coming from.

"I tend to think that the real difference here is that Sammy has a real sort of inclusive way of looking at life and he notices when there's conflict that is getting in the way of doing something good and he'll try to fix it," Joe continued. "So as a result, it's just like he says, 'Yeah, we're gonna do 'Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love'. I know it's not my song, but that's cool.' Now you ask David Lee Roth, 'Hey, are you gonna do '5150'?' Of course he's never gonna do it. So there's a big difference there, is that you have one guy who is very flexible because he's thinking about the fans, and then you have another guy who, I don't know why Dave is so inflexible on a couple of subjects — I really don't, because I don't know him. I should ask Steve [Vai] about it; I mean, Steve knows [David well]. I can't say that I really know him.

"I felt that Alex really wanted to do it and his heart was pure in its intention. But I don't know about Dave. I know that Sammy and Mike, their intentions are pure. They really do wanna celebrate the music and they're willing to mend any fence to make it happen on stage. They're the original guys. It's more than just a tour. And you feel that when you're standing next to Sammy and Mike. There's just an immense amount of power and love with the two of them and playing those songs. And people, they want to experience it and they should be able to experience it.

"I would hope at some point that [Alex, Eddie's son Wolfgang Van Halen and David] figure it out. Basically, Wolfgang is the guy to do it — he's the guy to do any tribute there is. The rest of us are just gonna be copying the album as close as we can, but it'll be fodder for the guitar army out there to criticize, like, 'Well, you should have done it like this,' and, 'He could have done it like that,' and, 'She should have done it like this,' because we're not Eddie, and we're not Wolfgang."

Satriani added: "It's taken a while for me to get a really good perspective on it, but I do think that we should all just kind of leave that alone and let them figure it out. It really is up to, I think, Wolfgang and his uncle Alex to figure this out."

Hagar and Anthony previously worked with Satriani in the supergroup CHICKENFOOT. They recorded two albums between 2009 and 2011 and toured across America but never performed any VAN HALEN material. More recently, Hagar and Anthony have played some of the VAN HALEN catalog with guitarist Vic Johnson and drummer Jason Bonham in SAMMY HAGAR AND THE CIRCLE.

Hagar mended his relationship with Eddie Van Halen months prior to the legendary VAN HALEN guitarist's October 2020 passing.

Sammy, Eddie, Alex Van Halen and Michael last teamed up in 2004 for a U.S. summer tour. In exchange for taking part in the tour, Anthony reportedly had to agree to take a pay cut and sign away his rights to the band name and logo.