In an October 22 YouTube livestream, MEGADETH guitarist Kiko Loureiro broke down Eddie Van Halen‘s sound and style. The full 46-minute can be seen below.
When Eddie‘s death was first announced on October 6, Kiko took to his social media to write: “An unfortunate incident is the passing of Eddie Van Halen. I’m sick at the moment and this hit me so hard. As a guitarist, Eddie always influenced me in music.”
Back in 2016, Kiko named VAN HALEN‘s “Hot For Teacher” one of his favorite guitar solos of all time. He told U.K.’s Metal Hammer magazine: “I could have chosen ‘Eruption’, of course, but I think this song is super-cool. The very American groove, with the whole ‘shuffle’ thing.
“Eddie Van Halen has done so many great solos — I almost chose his solo in Michael Jackson‘s ‘Beat It’. [Laughs]
“Again, it’s not about how difficult the solo is, but how important it is in ‘Hot For Teacher’.
“I remember trying to play this song, and watching the music video with him walking on top on the school desks. It was all very impressive for me as a teenager. I was going crazy, thinking, ‘I could never play that.’ But it made me practice.
“Eddie‘s such a genius. Only ten years after Jimi Hendrix, he brought something completely fresh, like a guitar acrobat.”
Loureiro also told Classic Rock magazine that VAN HALEN‘s classic 1978 debut was one of his “Five Essential Guitar Albums.” He explained: “When I began taking electric guitar lessons at the age of 13, the first thing my teacher got me to do was ‘Black Dog’ from LED ZEPPELIN. But after that, he taught me what Eddie Van Halen was doing on this album. Now, that was in about 1985, so the album was several years old by then. But it was all new to me. Of course, a lot of guitarists were already aware of the stuff on this album, but for me it was a revelation.
“I went out and bought a copy of the album, and I listened to it all the time, to soak in what was being [done] technically, and I could appreciate why VAN HALEN took the world by storm when it came out.
“Eddie Van Halen changed the way people thought about the guitar, and even now it still amazes me. Nobody needs to be told this was a crossroads for guitar playing.”
