Joe Satriani says he doesn’t expect to fill Eddie Van Halen’s shoes since that is simply impossible.
“You can’t fill them,” Satriani recently told Forbes’ Steve Baltin. “You can put them on, but you can’t fill them.”
Satriani will be tasked with performing several of Eddie’s classic riffs during the upcoming Best Of All Worlds Tour with Sammy Hagar, Michael Anthony, and Jason Bonham. The trek begins in West Palm Beach, Florida on July 13th.
Satriani said he’s excited with what he admits is a very daunting challenge.
“You’ve got to enjoy it,” said Satriani. “You have to respect the genius of the architecture of his guitar parts and how he built the songs and you’ve got to get in there and just enjoy what he was building cause he would weave in and out of his original composition every time he played it live and bring new amazing little nuggets to each little section. So yeah, I really enjoyed getting into it. It is really frightening because I don’t play like him and I’ve had to learn to anticipate all his quirky accents where he likes to push things and turn things upside down. Just when you think they’re going to go left, they go right or up or down. So, it’s exciting.”