![Joe Satriani Discusses His Conversation with David Lee Roth and Alex Van Halen Regarding the EVH Tribute Tour]](https://backingtracksfullcollection.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/Joe-Satriani-Discusses-His-Conversation-with-David-Lee-Roth-and-758x406.jpg "Joe Satriani Discusses His Conversation with David Lee Roth and Alex Van Halen Regarding the EVH Tribute Tour] 1")
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.
The thing is, the guys in the band, namely frontman David Lee Roth and drummer Alex Van Halen, had their own preference, and theirs was for Satch.
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Speaking to The Weekly Show With David J. Maloney, Satriani opens up about what must have been a surreal phone call, when Roth and Van Halen called enquiring about a tribute tour, and him feeling compelled to make a recommendation of his own, Extreme’s Nuno Bettencourt.
“Well, it started really when Dave and Alex had called and they wanted to put together a band, and they were insisting that I was the guy to do it, and I kept saying, ‘I’m not the guy. Like, call Nuno.’ He can really do it, and there’s thousands of kids around the world who dedicated their life to sounding exactly like Ed.”
Satriani had consciously dedicated his life to developing a style that was not like Eddie Van Halen’s. This was presented as evidence that he would not be the one to play the tribute tour, but, of course, he was interested. Who wouldn’t be? And Satriani reveals that got way further than a phone call.
“I said, ‘I’ve always tried not to sound like Ed.’ I’m a huge fan, but like I’ve tried to respect that.’ But they were insistent,” says Satriani. “And we rehearsed, we came really close to doing our first show, but it all kind of started to fall apart.”
By then, Satriani was like the rest of us. Rumours would come and go. No tour would be announced. And it was not as though he had a blank calendar. He was busy. The months went by. Nothing. Then a phone call from another former Van Halen vocalist, his old pal and Chickenfoot bandmate, Sammy Hagar.
“When it seemed like what was going on in the family and the band members was getting really out of hand, Sam called,” says Satriani. “And he surprised me by saying, ‘Look, I know this, you’ve been going through this thing with those guys, and it’s insane and everything. How about if we did a retrospective tour – not an Eddie Van Halen tribute thing, but where we get to do Montrose, Hagar, Chickenfoot, my stuff… even some David Lee Roth-era Van Halen?’ And I thought, ‘Oh, that could [work].’”
And so The Best Of All Worlds Tour was born. Fronted by Hagar, Satch would be accompanied by former Van Halen bassist Michael Anthony and Jason Bonham on drums. Hagar was as good as his word; the setlist took in songs from across his career. They even played Satriani’s signature song, Satch Boogie.
It might not have been the full-on Eddie Van Halen tribute tour that was in the works but Satriani did everything in his power to do EVH justice, even going as far as to partner with 3rd Power for a new guitar amp that landed on the Live Without A Net era tone-wise.
This, says Satch, was a transitional period for Eddie’s tone that served early and latter material alike.
What Dylana Scott at 3rd Power was quite incredible. Phil X was impressed. Satriani was looking for something that would make those Van Halen riffs shine. The difference between this custom tube amp and his signature Marshalls was stark.
The latter was configured to be a little darker, on account of Satriani playing most of his solo shows in higher registers, carrying the melody, the lead guitar being the focal point of the song. He needed more brightness for The Best Of All Worlds Tour.
“My solo rig probably has a little too much gain and is designed to make the high strings really fat sounding – because I play all the melodies,” he said, speaking to Australian Musician in 2024. “I play very little rhythm guitar all night long… I know in my heart, I want to hear that sound in my head.
“That mythical Eddie Van Halen sound that we all hear in our minds, and I want to be able to feel it. So I’ve been getting these clips from Dylana every week and that stuff that she’s building is really amazing.”
When Satriani was tracking Nineteen Eighty, he found that Van Halen secret sauce a lot easier. Of course, he wasn’t trying to emulate the tone exactly. This was a Satch track, a little nostalgic nod to his time in Squares, a fun time when he was making his bones as a recording artist.
“I needed to somehow express in a song the enthusiasm I had at the beginning of the Squares period, which really was the end of ’79, the beginning of 1980, and it was still a more swing-y, happy guitar moment, and not so shreddy like 1985 or ’88,” he said, speaking to MusicRadar in 2020. “It hadn’t gotten all dark and over the top. It was still Eddie Van Halen and Mark Knopfler. It was still Brian May and AC/DC and it was fun.”
Nineteen Eighty might have been what Squares would have sounded like if Satriani got all his own way, maybe a little less new wave, more rock, maybe Van Halen’s influence in there, too. Anyways, there just so happened to be a guitar effects pedal sitting right in front of him that was inextricably linked to Van Halen, Atomic Punk, Ain’t Talkin’ ’Bout Love, Eruption… any number of classics.
“I was literally in my home studio and there on the floor was an Eddie Van Halen MXR Phase 90, with the special Eddie paint job on it,” said Satriani. “And I said, ‘I have to use this!’ I can’t tell you how happy I was that Eddie came on the scene and just lifted up guitar playing again, and he had that Friday night tone, that Friday night attitude. It was devastatingly perfect; his timing was just so perfect, and he wrote such good songs.”
