“I said, ‘Sam, I’m gonna tell you what I told Alex, which is, I don’t really play like Eddie’”: Joe Satriani says he told David Lee Roth and Alex Van Halen to call Nuno Bettencourt when they called about EVH tribute tour

Joe Satriani wears dark shades and performs with his Ibanez "Chrome Boy" signature guitar.

Cast your mind back to 2022. There was only one subject dominating the news wires for electric guitar and hard rock, and that was the prospect of a blockbuster tribute tour to honour the late Eddie Van Halen.

The biggest question was over who would play guitar. Most Van Halen fans had their own preferences. Joe Satriani sure did. As a Van Halen fan, whose song Nineteen Eighty, from 2020 studio album Shapeshifting, was written in part as a tribute to Eddie Van Halen and the energy and innovation he brought to guitar as the ‘80s dawned.