In a new interview with Robert Cavuoto of Myglobalmind, iconic guitarist, Joe Satriani, recalled his attempt to perform Eddie Van Halen’s intro to “Mean Street” during “The Howard Stern Show”:
“It was my own naïveté. I had no idea. When we were gonna do that show, I remember saying to Sam, ‘Do we really wanna show people what we sound like at six in the morning?’ Plus we’ve never rehearsed. And I’ve avoided learning any of these songs for, like, three decades ’cause I never wanted to sound like Eddie.
”But Sam, he has such a positive attitude towards life. He’s, like, ‘No, it’ll be great. We’ll just get together. We’ll have fun.’ He said to me, he goes, ‘Howard’s going to ask you about your artwork and about this and all this.’ And I said, ‘Okay, yeah, fine.’ So, silly me. Obviously, it’s not turning out like that.
”And Howard asked me that question. And I should have just laughed and not played anything, but I was just being totally honest maybe ’cause I was so sleepy ’cause it was so early, and I just thought, ‘Oh, yeah, sure.’ I just felt like I was among friends, and I said, ‘Yeah, I’ll show you what I’ve been trying to play.’ But, yeah, technically, I’ve gotta work on that a little bit.’ In the end, I thought, well, this is a really endearing moment because it really does show how amazing Eddie was, because…
”What I’ve noticed about it is that even when people rehearse it and they get it down, it just doesn’t even come close to the magic that he put into every note. And it’s a mental thing that you have to get used to. You have to tell yourself, ‘I’m never gonna get there. So, relax and just learn the parts and then put your own thing into it.’ Because that’s the only thing you can do. But yeah, that was a pretty funny moment.”