“It’s a bit of a torture if you’re a big fan” Joe Satriani likens playing Eddie Van Halen’s parts to filling in for Ritchie Blackmore
“If I didn’t know any Van Halen music, it’d be a lot easier in that sense because I wouldn’t be trying to live up to that, but I really want to do it right.”
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Joe Satriani has likened the upcoming challenge of playing Eddie Van Halen’s guitar parts at the Best Of All Worlds tour to his days of filling in for Ritchie Blackmore in Deep Purple, saying things can be “a bit of a torture” for a big fan like himself.
The tour, which kicks off this June, will see Satriani joined by Sammy Hagar, Michael Anthony, and Jason Bonham as they perform Van Halen classics alongside tracks from supergroups Chickenfoot and The Circle.
Appearing on a recent episode of the Talking Shred podcast, Satriani speaks about the daunting task of playing Van Halen and his desire to “do it right”, saying [via Killer Guitar Rigs]: “The scary part, of course, was the Van Halen part because I explained to [Hagar], ‘You know from playing with me, Sam, that I’ve tried my best to avoid playing like Eddie forever. I’m a big fan, and I’ve never learned the songs on purpose so that I wouldn’t steal anything.’ [Laughs]”
Likening the experience to the time he was recruited as Ritchie Blackmore’s replacement on tour after the guitarist abruptly left Deep Purple, Satch says: “And I said, ‘But now I have to listen to it, this is going to be torture because the sound in my head [will be] like when I was playing with Deep Purple — all I heard was Ritchie Blackmore’s parts in one ear, and the other was me. And it didn’t sound like Ritchie.”
“And it’s a bit of a torture if you’re a big fan. If I didn’t know any Van Halen music, it’d be a lot easier in that sense because I wouldn’t be trying to live up to that, but I really want to do it right.”
He adds: “That’s gonna be part of my practice day — chip away at all those little things that Eddie used to do that don’t come naturally to me, but I’ve got to make them natural.”