In a recent interview with Metal Godz Radio, ex Dokken guitarist George Lynch was asked if ever got a chance to bond and hang out with Eddie Van Halen at all.

He replied:

“Absolutely. I mean, we kind of came up through the ranks together. We were both [in] SoCal bands and played the same bills and same clubs and hung out a little bit and have common connections and friends and different things and acquaintances.

”But the time that we spent the most together was on the ‘Monsters Of Rock’ tour [in 1988, where Dokken and Van Halen shared the bill with Scorpions, Metallica and Kingdom Come. Eddie and I would spend a lot of time in the hotel rooms just jamming and staying up all night drinking beers and smoking and playing guitar. So that was a really cool hang.”

The guitarist was also asked if he ever tried to copy Eddie Van Halen:

“What I really did was sort of bounce off his stuff rather than emulate it. I’ve done that with a lot of players. Instead of copying them, I react to them. I’ll think, ‘Well, Di Meola does this thing. I can do some alternate picking, so I won’t copy it but I’ll embed that a little bit into my toolbox and do it my own way.’ I’ve tried to do that with any player who has influenced me: Clapton, Hendrix, Schenker, Eddie, Holdsworth. I couldn’t play any of their stuff note for note to save my life, but I can capture the gist of what they’re doing by being exposed to it. I can get the essence.”