Credit: Rudy Childs
Joe Satriani says when it comes to creating music, rules should never apply, and nobody understood that more than Eddie Van Halen.
During a recent interview with FaceCulture, Satriani praised Eddie’s improvisational skills, especially when it came to composing music on guitar.
“[Eddie] figured out a way to write these really fun songs, but they were really groundbreaking in how he arranged his guitar parts,” said Satriani, who is promoting his brand-new album The Elephants of Mars. “There are no rules in music; there’s just cause and effect. That’s really what it is. And I think he understood that more than most people. He would never get held back by any kind of preconception that there was a rule that stopped you from doing this chord or that note or whatever. He just went with what felt right and what sounded right. And his sense of timing was probably the best I’d heard in decades. When he came along, I was, like, ‘Wow. That guy’s got a right hand of doom.’ [Laughs]”
Satriani has more to say about Eddie in the video below.