Sammy Hagar Hired Eddie Van Halen Replacement

Sammy Hagar said that Joe Satriani and Eddie Van Halen “don’t have the same style at all but highlighted how Satriani was the perfect choice for “Best of All Worlds” because of his deep understanding of the source material.

Even though Joe Satriani and Eddie Van Halen are “not a perfect match” in terms of playing style, Hagar noted there’s a deeper connection rather than just the former “mimicking” the latter. Speaking with Rolling Stone, he said:

“A 12-year-old kid that can probably play ‘Eruption’ and those songs. There’s plenty of them, I’ve seen them. They’re just mimicking the song. Joe knows what Eddie was doing, and so Joe does what Eddie was doing. He’s playing it in a musical sense, and feeling it, and knowing what it is.”

“Eddie and Joe don’t have the same style at all. A lot of people think, ‘Oh, yeah, he was a perfect match.’ No, he wasn’t a perfect match. There’s a lot of guys that play much more like Eddie than Joe, but I just knew Joe could do it and adapt.”

A lot of the heavy lifting was on Joe Satriani’s shoulders as he had to walk the fine line between doing Eddie Van Halen justice without outright trying to copy the late icon’s playing style.

“It really was, but he’s so good and he’s so focused. Joe’s a very serious musician, and so he took it serious, and he really brought it. Every night, I’m sitting there watching him do his long solos and stuff in a song like ‘5150.’ And I’m watching the fans and they’re checking him out, man. Their jaws are dropping, like, ‘Holy shit, he’s doing it.”

“He brought his own thing to the music, but he honored the most important parts, the essence of the songs, and the essence of the solos. He didn’t play note for note. Some things were almost note for note, because a solo like ‘Jump’ is so iconic, ‘Ain’t Talkin’ ’bout Love’ is iconic. You can’t stray from that. Other than that, when Eddie jammed, Joe knew he was jamming and Joe jammed.”