Posted on 06/09/2026 7:17:49 PM PDT by nickcarraway
"So many people copied him"
two side by side pictures of Eddie Van Halen (left) and The Jesus And Mary Chain's William Reid (right) performing live on stage Eddie Van Halen and The Jesus And Mary Chain's William Reid perform live. CREDITS: Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic/Getty (L), Dave Simpson/WireImage/Getty (R) The Jesus And Mary Chain guitarist William Reid has said Eddie Van Halen “ruined rock guitar”, labelling him one of “the worst guitar players in the world”.
Reid criticised the late musician during a new interview with Stereogum, where his brother and bandmate Jim Reid was asked about a new generation of bands being influenced by shoegaze music.
“Shoegaze, I’ve got a problem with that just because it doesn’t actually exist. ‘Cause it was some clown at the NME made that up,” he responded.
Jim went on to discuss his own guitar style and his instinctive approach to making music. “Not having a lot of equipment actually forces you to be more inventive,” he explained.
“I can play guitar, but only just. It’s kinda deliberate. I play guitar to the level that I need to play guitar. And sometimes knowing too much about making music gets in the way, and it ends up back to Eddie Van Halen again, do you know what I mean?”
William then weighed in: “I think guitar players should never learn scales. I think the worst guitar players in the world, like Eddie Van Halen… I can’t stand Eddie Van Halen’s guitar playing.”
Elaborating on his dislike of Van Halen, he continued: “I think he ruined rock guitar all through the ’80s and ’90s ’cause so many people copied him.
“And I just couldn’t get any of that playing as fast as you fucking can and cramming as many notes in one second as you could. And I listen to Peter Hook‘s bass riffs, and I think that’s a thousand times better than anything Eddie Van Halen could ever conjure up.”
This August will see The Jesus And Mary Chain support Hollywood Vampires on their UK headline tour. Shows are scheduled for The O2 in London, the OVO Hydro in Glasgow, the AO Arena in Manchester, and the Utilita Arena in Birmingham. Find any remaining tickets here.
The Scottish group’s eighth and latest studio album, ‘Glasgow Eyes’, was released in March 2024.
Speaking to NME ahead of releasing the record, Jim Reid discussed whether he saw the influence of the Mary Chain in current music.
“I like to hear other people say it really,” he told us. “It’s not like I sit there checking out new bands going, ‘They’ve been listening to us’. It’s nice when you get name-checked, it’s always nice, it always has been. That was the point of the Mary Chain at the beginning.”
Last year, Slayer’s Kerry King listed Eddie Van Halen among who he believed to be the best guitarists. Following the latter’s death in 2020, aged 65, NME hailed the musician as “a fire-fingered colossus”.
“Famed for popularising the ‘tapping’ technique that revolutionised heavy metal and credited with placing the genre at the heart of the American mainstream thanks to the 80 million album sales of his band Van Halen, he was considered amongst the greatest guitarists in history, the man who turned the fine art of the guitar solo into a firework display,” the obituary continued.
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Thank you very much and God bless you,
Jim
As much as I love that riff, the intro and riff to Mean Street are even better.
“Opinions are like @ssholes
Everyone’s got one”
Except for those who DON’T. About .02 to .04 percent of Americans have a stoma.
I recommend that we start using, “ Opinions are like medulla oblongatas, everyone has got one.”
EVH was a one dimensional player.
Shred, shred, shred. It’s all he had.
No melody, no drama.
Lukather...great player. Under appreciated solo on Lionel Richie’s “Running With The Night”
His best solo is “Talk To Ya Later” by The Tubes.
IMO, if you name your band after Jesus and Mary, in any particular fashion, then you should be a Christian band. Commenting on the guitar skills of Eddie Van Halen shouldn’t even be mentioned, because it wouldn’t be something a Christian band would care about.
If they’re not a Christian band, and using that name, it’s almost like taking the Lord’s name in vain. Certainly not worth my time.
Their first album came out a couple of months after I moved to Japan in 1985 and for various reasons didn’t find out about them until years later . If I’d been in NY when the album came out I’m sure I would’ve bought it . Never liked Van Halen or Eddie’s guitar playing style .
The guy admits he can barely play then criticizes the man who literally revolutionized and changed the way guitar is played forever. He's a top shelf a-hole.
When I want to hear a great guitarist I listen to Larry Carlton. Van Halen, no thanks.
I’m partial to Eric Johnson.
I was incredibly excited to see the Jesus and Mary Chain in December 1985! Looking back, it was wonderfully shambolic. At the time, it was less than ten minutes of feedback squalls, fog, cursing and infighting, and someone seemingly trying to mic a snare and floor tom.
I’ve seen them a handful of times since and none were as memorable. I can’t say i disagree with his thesis: EVH spawned countless pale imitations. Same can be said for most other the greats. While I really liked Andy Gill’s style (Gang of Four), I also spent endless hours aping Randy Rhoads…
Cannot knowingly ever heard the Halen guy play, so no matter
Larry Carlton is no Wes Montgomery.
I didn’t even no Van Halen was religious. Didn’t he have songs about the devil.
Were they headlining?
Same here. I read that in the early '90s, shoegaze was expected to be the next big thing, but then grunge and Brit-pop took over, leaving shoegaze behind. Then, Gen-Z discovered it. I'm not familiar with The Jesus and Mary Chain, though.
Same here. I read that in the early ‘90s, shoegaze was expected to be the next big thing, but then grunge and Brit-pop took over, leaving shoegaze behind.
Lush is the one shoegaze band I liked.
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