Greg Prato, reporting for Ultimate-Guitar.com:
Although the blues-rock guitar stylings of Kenny Wayne Shepherd seems to be quite a ways away from the style Eddie Van Halen specialized in - which touched off the shred movement of the '80s - it turns out that they were friends. So much so that Shepherd shared the bill with Van Halen at two separate points in this career.
Having recently issued a brand-new LP, Dirt On My Diamonds, Vol. 1, Shepherd spoke to Ultimate Guitar about what it was like touring with Van Halen, and also, way back when, when his father had a small part in introducing Eddie to his eventual wife - and mother of Wolfgang - Valerie Bertinelli.
Greg Prato: I believe you’re the only artist who can say they opened for Van Halen during their short-lived "Gary Cherone era" back in 1998, as well as their last-ever tour in 2015 with David Lee Roth. How would you compare those two tours and your personal experiences?
Kenny Wayne Shepherd: "They were very drastically different tours. I mean, they had two different lead singers. Although Gary Cherone did a good job, he was kind of thrown into a situation with really impossible expectations from the fans. First of all, you have David Lee Roth, and then Sammy Hagar came along and it's incredible that he was able to come in - it's a testament to the artist that he is - to a band that was so well established and had such an identity, and then by his joining the band took it in a slightly different direction and became even more successful. Right? So now you're going to do this a third time with another guy?
"And these fan bases are already divided on 'Is David better? Is Sammy better? Which era is the best Van Halen?' And then you've got this third guy coming in. It was a challenging proposition from the get-go. But he had a great voice. There were a couple of shows that ended up not happening because he had blown his voice out the night before. I think back then he was maybe struggling a little bit vocally to keep up with all the material and the nightly grind of playing and singing that stuff every night. But it was a great tour, I had a great time. And Eddie and I, that's when he and I hit it off as friends and then maintained a friendship. So that was '97, '98 or something like that. And we maintained a friendship all the way up until when he passed away.
"And obviously, we did the 2015 tour. The most noticeable difference to me was obviously Mike Anthony wasn't there. But also, David Lee Roth being there. David Lee Roth… I never saw him. He never said hello to me. Whereas in the '90s, we saw everybody and hung out with them all the time. Eddie came and found me every single day. He tracked me down and gave me a hug. We'd sit down and talk. I mean spending like real quality time together. Wolfgang, Alex – spoke to all those guys."
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