Man! Because of this thread, I had to download the Pride album last night. It's been a LONG time since I've heard this stuff. Thanks for bringing it up.
I've been reading a lot of comments about EVH rip-off this and that. I look at it this way: How many people could be considered a Chuck Berry rip-off, Clapton rip-off, Angus/Malcolm Young rip-off, Hendrix rip-off, Andy Summers rip-off, Edge rip-off.... etc, etc? When someone does something that's never been done before or does something in a new and different way and puts it out there for everyone to hear and/or see then people who are inspired by that are naturally going to try to emulate it. Eddie Van Halen was a force that nobody saw coming. Then BOOM! He exploded onto the scene. All the young kids who started playing saw more possibilities than ever before with the guitar and wanted to learn how to do that too. Imagine how many people copied Buddy Holly, The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, or Nirvana. Think about how many guitarists sound like Hetfield or Dimebag. There's always a first, and when they inspire so many other musicians there will always be those who make a career out of emulating certain aspects of them.
There will always be only one EVH, but if another band comes along with a guitarist who sounds a lot like him and copies a bunch of his techniques, tricks, and trademark licks then..... well.... I imagine I'll enjoy listening to them if the rest of the band is good and they do it well with original songs. I would LOVE for a bunch of young bands full of Van Halen disciples to make it big now and get all the airplay that those bands did back in the 80's. I might actually listen to the radio then. Man, I'd even settle for another era of grunge... anything but the watered-down, uninspiring, clinical shit that's happening now! PLEASE bring back the Eddie Van Halen copy-cats!
