Sammy Hagar and Joe Satriani name Eddie Van Halen's most difficult riff to play
Satch has a go at playing the intro
Guitar virtuoso Joe Satriani and former Van Halen vocalist Sammy Hagar have named the most difficult Eddie Van Halen riff to play.
Earlier this week, Sammy Hagar announced The Best Of All Worlds summer 2024 North American tour, which will see him perform a set dominated by Van Halen tracks from “deep” in their catalogue alongside a handful of songs by his supergroup The Circle.
Hagar will be joined on the tour by his Van Halen and The Circle band mate Michael Anthony (bass, backing vocals), The Circle and Black Country Communion’s Jason Bonham on drums, and guitar titan Joe Satriani.
During an appearance on The Howard Stern Show on Tuesday (14th November), the host asked the band what the most difficult Eddie Van Halen riff is to play.
Sammy Hagar noted that while he loves ‘5150’ and ‘Summer Nights’, the hardest riff is definitely something from Van Halen’s “early days.”
Joe Satriani turned to the camera and says, “this is impossible to play, right?”, and he proceeded to have a valiant crack at playing the intro to ‘Mean Street’, the opening track on Van Halen’s 1981 album ‘Fair Warning.’
With Howard Stern remarking “that’s nuts!”, Michael Anthony then chipped in: “That was an intro to a song called ‘Mean Streets’ from early Van Halen stuff. You listen to that and and it blows your mind.”
Sammy Hagar added: “That’s just lunatic. The thing about what Eddie did – I mean the reason Joe is in this band for this tour is because like I said, if you’re gonna go deep into his stuff in the Van Halen catalogue, you need a guy like Joe Satriani that’s not just imitating Eddie."
“So many little kids in grocery stores nowadays just pick up a guitar off the shelf, 12-year-old and go play all this stuff, but they don’t necessarily know what they’re playing.
“They’re just imitating Eddie because he’s so distinct. Joe knows what he’s playing and Joe can do something like that and know what it means.”
He continued: “I’m going ‘I think that’s just Eddie just f---ing around beating the s--- out of his guitars,’” and Joe goes ‘No, no, no, (he’s playing) a third here and an octave there.’ He knows his stuff.
“That’s the difference between playing this stuff with Joe and just having some guitar player in the band that can imitate Eddie.”
Sammy Hagar and Joe Satriani reveal the most difficult Eddie Van Halen riff:
Sammy Hagar, Joe Satriani, Michael Anthony and Jason Bonham treated The Howard Stern Show to four live tracks they will perform on the 2024 tour.
You can watch them belting out Van Halen's ‘Right Now’, ‘Best of Both Worlds’, ‘Good Enough’ and ‘Summer Nights’ right here:
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