"Eddie Talks Guitars: 1979" (from the "Van Halen Tapes 1978-82")
By: Jas Obrecht
The Best Of Guitar Player (December 29, 1979)
EVH: Yeah. That's a trip. You know, it's funny too. The things I do, like "Eruption" and "Spanish Fly" - I hate to say it, and it's not hard to do, but I came up with it. Like Rick Derringer opened for us last year, and he did my exact solo. After the show, we're sitting in the bar, and I 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 goin', "Yeah, yeah, yeah." The next night he does my solo again, and he ends the set with "You Really Got Me," which is exactly what we do. 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." So I kicked him off. But it's fucked, you know, because I've seen him plenty of times. I've even copied his chops way back when. You know, [Johnny Winter's] Still Alive and Well, stuff like that. And here's a guy copping my stuff. It's pretty weird. Tom Scholz from Boston too. We played right before them - I forget where - and I do my solo. And then all of a sudden he does my solo. And it was real weird, because it was a daytime thing, and I was standing onstage and the whole crowd was looking at me like, "What's this guy doing?" I was drunk, and I got pissed. He never comes around; he doesn't say "Hi." He doesn't do anything. He just kind of hides out, runs onstage and plays, and disappears afterwards. So I started talking to the other guitarist, and I told him, "Hey. Tell him I think he's fucked!"
(RICK DERRINGER RESPONDS)
Stark: Besides your stuff you also did some covers, like You Really Got Me and on the non-official Live in Cleveland you also did a cover of Rebel Rebel.
Danny: We talked about what would be the song we could do that everybody would know, a cover. We did You Really Got Me before Van Halen. Rick used to do a guitar solo, which he’ll do tonight.
Rick: Which brings up the story, I don’t know if you’ve read the Van Halen book. In that book he says how he likes to tell how he was headlining on a tour where we were on with him and that I would go out each night and play Eruption. To make matters worse he said we would go out and make his hit You Really Got Me and he said he had told me to stop doing that and I would still be doing it, so he had to fire me from the tour. It’s actually on record we were doing You Really Got Me years before Van Halen existed and the solo I played on that record is what Eddie is calling Eruption. So if that is the case that would mean in reality that Eruption was stolen from us!
Kenny: Eddie’s a lying sack of shit, I was there and I know the truth of it and it’s a load of crap! (laughs)
Rick: The point is, the tour he’s talking about, it wasn’t even his tour, it was a co-headlining tour where we headlined one night and they the next.
Danny: That’s why I don’t play that much guitar solos, Rick’s such a great guitar player.
Stark: Yes, you really complete each other.
Rick: You’re absolutely right. In fact I told Danny the tapping style that Eddie says I stole from him, way before Eddie - actually Danny showed me how to do that!
Danny: I wouldn’t call it stealing when you say: "Hey show me that."
Rick: So where did Eddie get that style from? The style that he says we stole from him, he actually learned from us. I love Eddie, he’s a great player, but man, Denny was tapping earlier that I was, before we even knew Eddie Van Halen. He showed it to me, so it all comes down to Danny Johnson and Danny learned it from a guy in a music store. In reality Eddie may have taken the stuff he learned from us and evolved into the monster that he is, but he may very well have taken it from hearing our stuff.
(RETURN BACK TO THE INTERVIEW)
GP: Who are the players you really admire now?
EVH: It's funny. There's two types of guitarists. Like Blackmore, I used to hate, because I met him once at the Rainbow with John Bonham when we were just playing clubs. You know, I grew up on him too, and I ran over and said hello, and they both just looked at me and said, "Who are you? Fuck off." And it pissed me off.
GP: That was my experience with Blackmore too.
EVH: And to this day I remember that. And then just recently Rainbow played at Long Beach Arena. This is right after I won Best Guitarist [in the Guitar Player Reader's Poll], which I'm real honored - makes me feel good. I went down there, in a way, with a vengeance, you know. I just felt like saying, "Hey, motherfucker, remember me? About three years ago, when you treated me like shit?" But I didn't. I just said hello, and he knew me just through records and radio, and he complimented me.
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Originally Posted by twonabomber
