Eddie Van Halen Replacement Backed Out Of Reunion

Joe Satriani recently talked about choosing Sammy Hagar’s Van Halen tribute show over David Lee Roth.

Joe Satriani explains

In a recent interview with Guitar World, he said:

“When Alex [Van Halen] and Dave [Lee Roth] first approached me to do it, I said, ‘Yes,’” the guitarist shared. “Three weeks later, I called Alex back and said, ‘No way. I can’t do this. This is too hard.’ But he convinced me that I could do it, and then another couple of weeks later, it was the same kind of thing. I thought, ‘Man, some of these songs are… they’re just not me.’”

Then, Satriani revealed what he told Hagar’s offer, “So, out of the blue, when Sammy called… and I should preface this by saying when Sammy calls you, you don’t really get a word in edgewise for a while! It was one of those calls where I just listened for a long time, but when he was done, I heard myself saying, ‘Yes. I want to do this.’”

“Because it was a friend calling about a retrospective of his whole career. It did happen to involve anywhere from 15 to 20 Van Halen songs – and they were different from the songs that Dave and Alex wanted to do. Dave was not going to do any Van Hagar stuff, anything from after he left the band,” Joe replied when asked why it was different with Hagar.

The rocker added, “When Sammy joined, Eddie went through a real shift. He became far more progressive, a different world for me to jump into. But I also reminded myself, ‘That’s not the show. This is not a Van Halen tribute. This is a tribute to Sammy’s legacy that happens to include this huge chunk of music by Van Halen.’”

Satriani previously shared why he turned down a reunion offer from Alex Van Halen and DLR. At first, when they invited him to join a Van Halen tribute project, he agreed. However, three weeks later, he called Alex to decline, “‘No way. I can’t do this. This is too hard.’”

He continued, “But he convinced me that I could do it, and then another couple of weeks later, it was the same kind of thing. I thought, ‘Man, some of these songs are… they’re just not me.’ Eddie played in a completely different way.”

“Where he put his timing… it’s so different from what I cultivated in my playing for decades. So that was the hardest part; I was just always pushing like Eddie did, and I was always trying to find the deepest pocket,” Satriani also noted.

The reunion project with Alex and Roth was planned earlier but got canceled. Satriani toured with Hagar on the Best of All Worlds tour, along with Michael Anthony and Kenny Aronoff.