What happens when one of the greatest guitarists of all time invites another legendary shredder to jam… and gets completely ignored? Well, that’s exactly what happened between Joe Satriani and Eddie Van Halen.
In a recent interview, Satriani opened up about how he tried again and again to get Eddie on board for his G3 guitar tour, a legendary event where virtuoso guitarists come together to blow minds on stage. But despite multiple attempts, Eddie never responded.
For those who don’t know, G3 is a world-famous guitar showcase started by Joe Satriani in the mid-’90s. Over the years, it’s featured some of the greatest guitar players ever, including Steve Vai, Yngwie Malmsteen, John Petrucci, Eric Johnson, and even Slash.
But there was one name missing—Eddie Van Halen.
Satriani admitted that he really wanted Eddie to be a part of it. He knew that having Eddie in the lineup would make the event absolutely legendary. But getting in touch with Eddie was the real challenge.
In a recent chat with the UCR Podcast, Joe Satriani revealed that he never had Eddie Van Halen on the lineup although he wanted to work with him.
Satriani talked about his efforts to reach out to Eddie. He said: “I called Eddie’s number, office, whatever, almost every time. I didn’t want to be a pest, but I didn’t know him. So I couldn’t just call his house or stop by, because I don’t live in the same city.”
Satriani added, “I would go through channels — you know, I tried every angle to say, ‘We’ll take care of everything.’ Which we do, myself and my management, we took care of all of the technicalities of putting on this show. We made it so it was the easiest thing for the artist to come.”
He further recalled: “In terms of Ed, we always made the offer that we could put the band together. He could play whenever he wanted. He could play for as long as he wanted. This was basically the structure of the show and I literally never heard back.”
The musician eventually accepted that Eddie might not have been interested in joining G3. Satriani said, “So I suppose, maybe after six or seven G3 tries, I just thought, ‘Well, it’s cool.’ Because not everybody is comfortable standing next to two other guitar players every single night.”
“They may do it once at a special show, charity event or something really big, but once you sign on to G3, it’s a responsibility to the audience to show up every night and play.
