In a recent interview on *Trunk Nation With Eddie Trunk*, Joe Satriani discussed his preparations for the Best Of All Worlds tour, where he’s stepping into the role of guitarist for a set of songs originally performed by Eddie Van Halen. Satriani revealed his unique approach to mastering Van Halen’s parts:
“Well, here’s the interesting point about some of the simplest pieces that Eddie would do, is he’d do the album version, and from the stories that I’ve heard from the band members, Eddie and Alex [Van Halen] would work on these things, let’s say, one song for two or three weeks, and then the other guys would come in to add to the track. And so the recordings would be like this culmination of the brothers jamming.”
Satriani explained why he opted to study other guitarists covering Van Halen’s work rather than watching Eddie’s own live performances. He noted that Eddie was renowned for his improvisational approach, often playing different versions of songs at each show:
“And then once they took it out on the road, I couldn’t find one live clip of Eddie playing the same song that was remotely similar. He was just so creative, every show he would just do it a little different. And so I thought, ‘Okay, I should just embrace every different version. And I really do wanna see how other guitar players work around the fact that their hands are not Eddie’s hands.’”
Satriani’s dedication to capturing the essence of Van Halen’s parts has earned praise from his peers. Sammy Hagar, who is leading the Best Of All Worlds tour alongside Satriani, praised his approach and skill:
“Oh, I gotta tell you, Joe is a scholar. I can’t tell you how good of a musician Joe Satriani is. He’s as good as any musician on the planet. He’s got his own style. It’s a little different than Eddie’s. Eddie was a genius musician too, but he had a different style and he had his thing. Joe’s got his thing. Joe went in the closet.”
Hagar recounted Satriani’s reaction to learning Van Halen songs, emphasizing his commitment to the challenge:
“Well, not in the closet — he went into the woodshed, and since the announcement [of the tour on ‘The Howard Stern Show’ last November]… I threw a couple songs at him and said, ‘Hey, why don’t you just learn this song or that song?’ And then Stern laid songs on us, that we’re going, ‘Well, shoot, we didn’t think about those. Joe, do you know that one?’ He goes, ‘Oh, I’ll try it.’ He’s that good. So now he’s dialed them in.”
The Best Of All Worlds tour, which began on July 13 at the iTHINK Financial Amphitheatre in West Palm Beach, Florida, features Satriani alongside Michael Anthony, Jason Bonham, and Rai Thistlethwayte, focusing on both David Lee Roth-era Van Halen songs and tracks from Sammy Hagar’s band Chickenfoot.
