Sammy Hagar explains why no one is better than Joe Satriani at nailing Eddie Van Halen’s style

With Sammy Hagar and Joe Satriani presently tearing it up across the USA as The Best of All Worlds Tour gathers momentum, Hagar has offered a ringing endorsement of Satch’s bona fides, arguing that no one is better qualified to play the late Eddie Van Halen ’s guitar parts live.

Speaking to Classic Rock , the Red Rocker said there were no shortage of players who could play EVH’s parts. But there’s a difference between being able to play them and really understanding them. He says hiring his Chickenfoot bandmate was the “smartest move” he could have made.

“A million guys could’ve done it, well, not a million,” said Hagar. “But you walk into a music store and you see a 12-year-old kid sitting on an amp with one of Eddie's guitars and he’s playing Eruption. These genius little kids can do it now, but he doesn’t necessarily know what he’s doing. You ask him to write a song like that, and he’s going, ‘Ah, I don't know how.’ You say, ‘Joe, write me a song like that;’ Joe'll write you a song like that ‘cause he knows where it's coming from.”

As far as we know, Satriani won’t be writing any songs with Hagar in the style of Van Halen. But in a Best of All Worlds set, they will be drawing heavily from Hagar’s time in Van Halen, and that presents Satriani with a lot of room for stretching out with his solos.

Hagar describes Satriani is a “professor” and a “scholar” who knows Eddie’s style inside and out, and that means he can reference him even when improvising.

“A lot of people are going, ‘Joe, he doesn't play like Eddie.’ I know that – but he can,” said Hagar, noting that Satriani’s musical intelligence tells him when to deploy a workaround for the unplayable parts, when to put a twist on it, and when to run with the ball and cut loose.

“Certain solos are just iconic,” argued Hagar. “There’s just certain notes where it ends or starts. Joe’s got all that down. He’s not skipping over any of that shit. And when Eddie would start stretching out Joe starts stretching out off of Eddie’s theme, so it still sounds and feels like Eddie but you’re listening and going, ‘Oh! That’s Joe!’ It’s brilliant.”

Satriani has not been taking this gig lightly. After the lineup appeared on the Howard Stern Show and played a few Van Halen hits, he was pretty harsh on himself, promising never again to do live TV with no rehearsals. Did he miss some notes? Probably, but if he does, Hagar says only Satriani notices. The guitarist’s ear for detail is unbeatable.

Nailing Eddie Van Halen's era-defining electric guitar tone would of course be a huge part of the equation, and Satriani revealed he had been rethinking his rig for the tour, working with Dylana Scott of Nashville-based guitar amp company 3rd Power to develop the Dragon – a Marshall-inspired tube amp with vintage JTM45 and JMP flavours onboard.

It has a gain section that can dial in everything from Plexi crunch to OTT saturation. Phil X recently gave the 3rd Power Dragon a test drive and found it to be a fire-breather.

Hagar’s all-star lineup for the tour also features original Van Halen bassist Michael Anthony and Jason Bonham on drums. The band play the Alpharetta Ameris Bank Amphitheatre, Georgia, tonight. Tickets are selling fast .