“I said, ‘But Ed’s still alive. He’s still making amazing records. He’s still on tour. What guitar player would ever try to imitate him while he’s still working?’”: Joe Satriani recalls being approached by David Lee Roth for a Van Halen cover band

Joe Satriani of SatchVai Band performs at Meridian Hall on May 13, 2026 in Toronto, Ontario.

Joe Satriani may be filling Eddie Van Halen’s shoes during the Best Of All Worlds tour with Michael Anthony, Sammy Hagar, and Jason Bonham; however, he’s recently revealed that David Lee Roth tried to recruit him for a Van Halen cover band when the sorely missed guitarist was still very much alive and active.

“I remember in the mid-’90s, around ’95 or ’96, David Lee Roth called me and he wanted to put together a band to do Van Halen songs,” Satriani tells Thinking About Guitar in a new interview. “He went on and on about how we were the only guys who could really do it right.