Aerosmith’s Joe Perry recently claimed that there will never be another Eddie Van Halen or Jimi Hendrix. He also recalled how Steve Vai floored him when the Aerosmith icon saw his younger colleague play with Whitesnake live.
The electric guitars went through somewhat of a rough patch in terms of broad appeal, and have been getting a solid amount of online and mainstream attention lately. He doesn’t deny there are some real “guitar wizards” out there. The guitarist Joe Perry told Guitar World in a recent interview how these players simply can’t compare to the Hendrixes and Van Halens of rock history — simply because those were the people who invented the whole deal.
Perry, who is going through Aerosmith’s farewell tour at the moment, said:
“There will never be another Jimi Hendrix or Eddie Van Halen. Sure, there are people now that can kinda play like them or maybe try and copy them, but those are the guys that did it first.
“I can go online and find people who are phenomenal at guitar, but I’m talking about the trailblazers here. There are some wizards on YouTube that are incredible, but these guys are the ones that started it all.”
He named his own guitar heroes (Eddie also included), the guitarist paid homage to his younger colleague, Steve Vai.
Perry recalled seeing Vai for the first time while the Long Island native & Frank Zappa’s former “stunt guitarist” was working with Whitesnake, and the experience blew the Aersomthih ax wielder’s mind:
“I have to mention Steve Vai because he’s just incredibly inventive. He’s a player that thinks way beyond guitar, you know? He’s got music in his head in a way that just blows my mind.
“I saw Steve Vai play once back when he was with [David] Coverdale and Whitesnake, and some of the sounds he was making were just fucking unbelievable. I think he was playing a seven-string guitar and had some outboard gear that was doing shit that literally shook the building. He was fucking phenomenal. I’m not sure that he gets the credit that he should.”
