{"id":2081,"date":"2025-09-21T07:47:37","date_gmt":"2025-09-21T07:47:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/countrymusictune.com\/?p=2081"},"modified":"2025-09-21T07:47:37","modified_gmt":"2025-09-21T07:47:37","slug":"the-guitarist-eddie-van-halen-said-was-god-to-him","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/countrymusictune.com\/?p=2081","title":{"rendered":"The guitarist Eddie Van Halen said was God to him"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Eddie Van Halen started a revolution when his band released their debut album in 1978. Musicians all over the world were shocked by what they heard and desperately tried to figure out how the late legendary guitarist played.<\/p>\n<p>He was soon copied by many artists and the 1980s were filled with \u201cshredders\u201d inspired by him, although Eddie himself was not pleased with that.<\/p>\n<p>From then on, he became a guitar god for millions of fans worldwide. But who was God to Eddie when he was still becoming a guitarist?<\/p>\n<div class=\"jetpack-video-wrapper\"><iframe title=\"Cream - I&#039;m So Glad (Farewell Concert - Extended Edition) (11 of 11)\" width=\"1200\" height=\"900\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/iTZ4IYPy_cE?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p>The guitarist Eddie Van Halen said was God to him<br \/>\n\u201cEric Clapton was my God and everybody else\u2019s. I said that once in an interview. That\u2019s the guy I grew up on, but I don\u2019t play anything like him, and it came back to haunt me. They took it like I was being an uppity prick about it. I didn\u2019t mean that at all. I just meant that if you listen to Clapton, and listen to me, it\u2019s two completely different styles, even though he\u2019s the guy I grew up on.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd you know what else? This goes way back to the club days when we used to play Top 40. What\u2019s funny is that I used to get so depressed because I could never play a song the way it was on record. No matter how hard I tried it would never sound like other people\u2019s stuff. It wasn\u2019t until years later that it was actually a blessing in disguise, because I can only do me. I can\u2019t copy and make it sound like someone else.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt used to really kill me. We used to get kicked out of clubs. (Ed imitates club owner) \u201cYour guitarist plays too psychedelic!\u201d I\u2019m goin\u2019, \u201cI\u2019m trying to play the damn \u2018Get Down Tonight! (by KC and the Sunshine Band)\u2019 (Laughs),\u201d Eddie Van Halen told Dweezil Zappa on Guitar Player magazine in 1995.<\/p>\n<p>During the same conversation, he was asked whether he had a clear idea in mind of what he wanted to hear when playing the guitar, or if he simply listened to whatever came out of it. To explain his point, he used Eric Clapton as an example.<\/p>\n<p>Eddie Van Halen continued:<br \/>\n\u201cI never really gave it any thought, don\u2019t hate me, Eric! It\u2019s like he doesn\u2019t do that any more. Now when he solos, to me it\u2019s like he\u2019s pissing up a rope. Excuse my French. Listen to his early solos, all the Cream stuff like \u2018Sunshine Of Your Love\u2019. (Ed plays a bunch of Clapton licks). The shit he does\u2026 he spoke when he played. And like \u2018Born Under A Bad Sign\u2019, the end of that solo was great. After having grown up on that, I thought that every time I solo I should make it like that too,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Although Eddie Van Halen was a big fan of Eric Clapton, he did not admire everything the guitarist did throughout his career. He was particularly fond of Clapton\u2019s work with Cream, but was not very interested in much of what he recorded after the end of the supergroup. They met not long after Van Halen released their first albums and quickly became close friends.<\/p>\n<p>Eddie Van Halen did not enjoy the first Eric Clapton concert he attended<br \/>\nEddie didn\u2019t had the chance to watch Cream playing live and his first Clapton show was in the early 70s when he watched Derek and The Dominos, the band the guitarist created after Blind Faith. But he wasn\u2019t happy at all with the show and as he told Guitar World in 1992. Eddie felt like he was actually watching The Doobie Brothers or something like that.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe first concert I saw was Derek and the Dominos with Eric Clapton\u2026 To be honest with you, I was expecting something more powerful. If I would\u2019ve seen Cream, I probably would\u2019ve been blown away. Because that\u2019s the era of Clapton that I really loved.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe show was more of a Doobie Brothers kind of thing. There was like this tambourine and bongo player. The power wasn\u2019t there\u2026 Al and I tried to get backstage; unfortunately, Eric had already left, but we did get to meet the tambourine player! Swear to God! \u201c<\/p>\n<p>\u201cLayla and Other Assorted Love Songs\u201d, the only album recorded by Derek and The Dominos became one of the most successful ones from Clapton\u2019s career. Besides the title-track, many other songs are still fans favorites like \u201cBell Bottom Blues\u201d and \u201cKeep on Growing\u201d.<br \/>\nHe said Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker made Clapton sound better<br \/>\nCream &#8211; I&#8217;m So Glad (Farewell Concert &#8211; Extended Edition) (11 of 11)<br \/>\nInterestingly, although he appreciated some of Eric Clapton\u2019s work before Cream, such as his time with John Mayall &amp; the Bluesbreakers, Eddie told Rolling Stone in 2011 that Peter Green actually sounded more like Clapton than Clapton himself did at that time. Van Halen also said that he felt Cream\u2019s Ginger Baker and Jack Bruce elevated Clapton\u2019s playing, making him sound better.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWell, after Cream he changed, you know? When he started doing \u201cI Shot the Sheriff\u201d and this and that, and when he hooked up with Delaney &amp; Bonnie, his whole style changed. Or at least his sound. I think the major factor was, if you listen to the live stuff. Like, say, \u201cI\u2019m So Glad\u201d on Goodbye, Cream. You listen to the three guys go, and it was Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker that actually made Clapton sound really good.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Eddie Van Halen continued:<br \/>\n\u201cBecause they were a couple of jazz guys pushing him. I think I actually read somewhere a long time ago that Clapton said, \u201cI didn\u2019t know what the hell I was doing.\u201d He was just trying to keep up with the other two guys.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut it\u2019s funny, though, because when I did dig back to the John Mayall Bluesbreakers days, I found Peter Green, who\u2019s actually more Clapton than Clapton himself. He was a little smoother and more tasty, you know? I don\u2019t know what ever happened to him,\u201d Van Halen said.<\/p>\n<p>Eddie\u2019s favorite Cream albums were the ones with live recordings, during the conversation he mentioned \u201cWheels of Fire\u201d and \u201cGoodbye\u201d as two he liked a lot. He preferred the live performances because you could really hear the three musicians playing \u201cin their live element\u201d. When he was a kid he would sit down with his guitar, listen to those songs and learn every detail.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Eddie Van Halen started a revolution when his band released their debut album in 1978. Musicians all over the world were shocked by what they &hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2082,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2081","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>The guitarist Eddie Van Halen said was God to him - Country Music Tune<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/countrymusictune.com\/?p=2081\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The guitarist Eddie Van Halen said was God to him - Country Music Tune\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Eddie Van Halen started a revolution when his band released their debut album in 1978. 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