“I had to reassess why I was even playing. I stopped playing electric guitar for a year”: Steve Stevens says going on tour with Van Halen made him rethink his relationship with the guitar – and it gave way to one of his most experimental albums

Eddie Van Halen and Steve Stevens comp.

Few musicians affected the guitar landscape quite like Eddie Van Halen, and Steve Stevens has said that seeing his virtuosity firsthand hit him so hard, it forced him to temporarily leave rock guitar behind.

As Wolfgang Van Halen once said, Eddie “kind of ruined” the 1980s guitar scene as his dazzling talents created an influx of copyists all desperate to be the next best thing. But not everyone was as eager to follow suit.