According to Alex Van Halen, Eddie Van Halen was frustrated by other musicians who copied him.
“Ed used to go crazy about people imitating him. And imitation is the first step in being inspired because what you really want to do is inspire them to go… The first is the imitation and after that, you got to take it further,” the drummer told Ariel Levy in a new interview.
He continued, “To imitate, yeah, it’s wonderful but that’s not really the purpose of why you’re doing it. Everything is built on something from before and if you can go a step further, do that.”
“You’re never going to figure find out how far you can go until you take that step. That was part of this with ‘Jump.’ Take the leap, do it you know… screw everything else. Just jump motherf*cker [laughs]. But that was the general feeling of all of us and that’s what made the band stick together,” Alex noted.
Eddie was okay with others using his technique but had a problem when musicians completely copied his sound. This was particularly hard for him when it involved an impersonator he respected as a child.
“Rick Derringer opened for us last year, and he did my exact solo. After the show, we’re sitting in the bar, and I just said, ‘Hey, Rick. I grew up on your a**. How can you do this? I don’t care if you use the technique – don’t play my melody,'” Eddie previously recalled.
He further explained, “And he’s drunk and stupid and going, ‘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.”
Johnny Winter was accused of imitating Van Halen’s style, and Eddie felt similarly about Tom Scholtz from Boston. After Van Halen played his solo at a show, Scholtz copied it, confusing the audience. Van Halen was upset and criticized Scholtz for being unfriendly and acting superior.
