While speaking to Booked on Rock about his book “Bang Your Head, Feel the Noize: The Quiet Riot Story,” author Greg Prato was asked via Ultimate-Guitar about whether there was any “competition” between legendary guitarists Eddie Van Halen and Randy Rhoads.
“About two or three years ago, there was the famous YouTube clip of Eddie Van Halen talking candidly about Randy Rhoads and Eddie,” Prato said. “Of course, he’s speaking not knowing that this clip was ever going to be released publicly. He just thinks he’s speaking to the interviewer on a phone, and the interviewer was just going to take quotes to put in a magazine article. But he’s saying how…it sounded like he wasn’t that impressed with Randy Rhoads and that he thought Randy was ripping him off.”
According to Ultimate Guitar, the YouTube clip Prato is talking about is from a 1982 interview Van Halen did with writer Jas Orbecht for Guitar Player Magazine.
Prato continued, adding that he disagrees with Van Halen’s assertion that Rhoads ripped him off. “I’ll be honest, I don’t hear any Eddie Van Halen in Randy Rhoads,” he said. “The only thing I hear is the live Randy Rhoads solo on the [Ozzy Osbourne] ‘Tribute’ album, where he does a little bit of two-hand tapping. That’s the only comparison. Although Eddie Van Halen is probably one of my favorite guitarists of all time, to the best of my knowledge, he never touched upon classical music on guitar, right? He didn’t pursue it as much as Randy Rhoads.”
Booked on Rock host Eric Senich (who writes for the website Van Halen News Desk) then chimed in on whether he thinks there are any classical elements in Van Halen’s playing style.
“Edward had, in the early going, when he was a kid, he was being taught classical [piano],” Senich said. “There were elements of it in his style a little bit. But, here’s something interesting: [Quiet Riot singer] Kevin DuBrow, I was fortunate enough to interview him. It was a phone interview when he came through Connecticut and we had him on the radio station that I was at, to promote a show. I think they were touring with Poison. It was like a package store.”
“And I remember asking him ‘What do you think Randy would have done if he lived?’ And he said, ‘I think he would have done a classical album.’ He was pretty convinced that that was the case, because he said Randy would talk about it a lot. That was his thing.”
