Toto guitarist Steve Lukather recently recalled the first time he heard Eddie Van Halen and discussed their deep friendship in an interview with Guitar Player.
Lukather, who is currently assisting Alex Van Halen with an upcoming album featuring unreleased Van Halen recordings (while clarifying he will not play guitar on the tracks), shared how hearing Eddie’s playing for the first time impacted him while working on Toto’s debut album in Studio 55.
“Eddie was good to me, man,” Lukather said. “We were very encouraging to each other. But here’s the funny thing: our music hangs were not many, but our friends’ hangs were deep. We talked about our families, and everything, you know? But early on, I remember I was doing the solo to [Toto’s] ‘Girl Goodbye,’ and someone walked in with the Van Halen album.”
He went on to describe the moment he first heard the iconic track “Eruption.” “I was sitting there doing a few takes and shit, and then someone said, ‘Stop everything. I want you to hear something,’” Lukather continued. “He dropped the needle on ‘Eruption,’ and I’d never heard anything like that. I was like, ‘What the f*ck was that?’ It was jaw-dropping, obviously. The first time I heard that, I was 19 years old, while working on that record, and I fell off my chair.”
Lukather recalled how that moment made him feel about his own playing and how it led to their long-lasting friendship after they met at the California World Music Festival in 1978.
“I said, ‘Well, there’s really no point in continuing on anymore…’ [laughs],” Lukather added. “I was like, ‘What was that? How do you do that? Who makes that noise? I must be friends with him now.’ That’s really what I thought… and that’s kind of what happened. I met Eddie at the California World Music Festival in ’78, we got to know each other and started hanging out a lot around 1980.”
He also spoke about how close they became over the years and how they supported each other’s careers.
“And then, we became really, really close friends,” Lukather said. “We lived near each other and had a lot in common in terms of our views on life, music, and family. And even though we didn’t play anything like each other, Ed and I were always so supportive of what each other was doing. Ed was always supportive of what I was doing and what my band was doing.”
Lukather concluded by sharing memories of hearing early demos and helping Eddie with gear decisions.
“He’d always show up at the gigs, and Ed and I would play each other’s stuff whenever we had new stuff,” Lukather said. “I remember hearing the demo for ‘Jump’ in 1983. I said to Ed, ‘There’s your number one record, Ed. Jeez.’ And when he started with Music Man, I was the tiebreaker for which pickup he liked best. He went with mine, so that was cool.”
Lukather’s reflections highlight the deep bond and mutual respect shared between the two legendary guitarists.
