Speaking to Eonmusic , David Coverdale remembered Eddie Van Halen as “an absolute monster musician” and reuniting with Sammy Hagar may have been on the cards before the guitarist’s passing.
Here you can read what Coverdae said:
“I’d only heard of Van Halen because once I started to work with the unique talent of John Sykes, I like to do my homework on people, and I thought, ‘He’s influenced by this American guy Edward Van Halen,. That’s when I first heard those records, and heard this f*cking phenomenal guitar playing. The last time I’d heard guitar playing like that was Jimi Hendrix and John McLaughlin and Jeff Beck; this unique scenario.”
He added more:
“The last time I saw him, I was sitting in my hotel suite in London with Jimmy. It was like 10 o’clock in the morning, and we were just having a very elegant gentlemen’s cup of tea; tea pot and everything. [Laughs] And the door to my suite goes, and Edward just pushes past, and I go, ‘Edward, how are you doing?’ And he goes, ‘All right, great to see you… Ah! Jimmy Page! Jimmy Page!’
And, well, first off, he goes to my minibar immediately at 10 o’clock in the morning and takes a f**king Heineken out, and he’s at Jimmy‘s feet, and he picks up my acoustic, and he’s, like, ‘How did you play this f**king thing?!’ [Laughs] You know, it’s amazing — I had Eddie Van Halen and Jimmy Page sitting there, and Eddie had a Heineken, and Jimmy and I had a cup of tea!”
[…] “The sad thing is, you don’t get to hug them, but Edward‘s still alive to me, and I just feel for his family for his physical absence. That’s the big sadness. But what a monster, monster musician. An absolute monster.”