I always think of Butch Trucks when I see bands like Van Halen.  Look at David Lee Roth's naked chest, tight pants. And the way everyone in Van Halen dresses. 

Butch would trash this band big time. Indeed most people who have played with the Allman Brothers would be embarrassed to be in Van Halen. 

But Dickey took up for Led Zeppelin when Butch trashed the way they dressed and jumped around. And Dickey and Gregg were fans of the Stones. They only thing I ever heard Dickey say about Eddie was " The young electric guitar players today want to sound like Jimi Hendrix or Eddie Van Halen and aren't interested in what Clapton plays or B. B. King or me and Warren". 

 Here is one of several ways Butch told this. "They didn't give us any chance of making it! They told Phil that if we got that singer out from behind that organ and stuck a salami down some tight pants and got him to jump around like Mick Jagger, maybe you might have a chance to make it".  Butch Trucks told that several times and it didn't vary much. 

But supposedly according to Butch all six of them said "**** that". We will dress and act normal like musicians we like such as Miles Davis, Coltrane, Freddy King and don't care at all about looking like these clown bands even if it means we aren't that successful." 

So unlike the way many popular rock bands dressed and performed on stage, the Allman Brothers wanted to do it like regular musicians without all the wild colored cloths and jumping around. 

But that kind of approach finally got on stage with the ABB when Zakk Wylde got on stage with them. I won't go into what Butch said about that:)  Warren laughed it off but Allen Woody was a bit negative about it too. 

Beyond the optics of Van Halen, I wonder what Butch’s thoughts might have been regarding their actual musicianship.  In particular, the musicianship of Alex Van Halen....

Regarding Dickey’s comment about young players wanting to sound like Hendrix or EVH, a bit ironic given EVH at least has cited Clapton as one of his biggest influences and hero’s.  

So much so in the early years Van Halen played Cream tunes in their early teens playing backyard parties all over Pasadena.  Along with The Who, Grandfunk Railroad, Sabbath, Queen, and    many other classic rock bands.

Say what you will about their “look,” but VH had the chops and three part harmonies as well as “swing” in their music which was unique in the world of hard rock.

While not everyone’s cup of tea, Van Halen in their early years were as unique in hard rock as the ABB were in their particular genre.  It’s this commonality that made them both hugely successful.

@chain Van Halen hit superstardom and like the Rolling Stones or Pink Floyd, hung onto it. It seems personal problems and distractions and in band fussing such as Queen of Hearts rejected for Brothers and Sisters and Butch and Gregg in particular apparently unhappy with the country slant Dickey put the band on with Brothers and Sisters, when the ABB had a number one, multimillion selling album and became a headliner in the largest venues, they just didn't have it in them to hang on to it. By 1975 it was slipping away and Gregg, Dickey and Butch didn't seem to give a darn. They got hot again in 1989 but never again were they as big as Van Halen, The Rolling Stones etc and never had another big album after Brothers and Sisters ( number one for five weeks and over four million copies sold). 

Yes I think Butch thought bands that dressed like Van Halen and had tight wild colored pants and all the jumping around like David Lee Roth and Robert Plant was BS. There is little doubt about it. He slammed Plant and Page in the 2000s and claimed he and Duane Allman walked out on Led Zeppelin calling it a BS band. But if you recall, Dickey (then voted out) was asked and Dickey challenged Butch saying Duane liked Jimmy Page and Zeppelin. Dickey said it wasn't how Duane and the rest of us want to look and play but Dickey indicated Butch was wrong about Duane trashing Led Zeppelin. 

I'm not sure who Butch's drum heros were but Jaimoe's were the jazz and big band greats. Jaimoe said all of his cool licks is stuff he lifted from old school guys like Max Roach, Buddy Rich, Cozy Cole, Sonny Payne and several others. But Jaimoe also said since Butch's suicide that usually when someone complimented him for something I did that night on the drums, it was usually a response to something Butchie did. Nice compliment for Butch. 

Warren attended the VIP last dress rehearsal before the 2007 VH tour with DLR, as did other recognizable players like Slash and others.  I believe Warren also wrote a tribute to EVH last October following his passing.  I think Warren is a VH/EVH fan, even if he doesn't play in that style at all and wouldn't know what to do with a double-locking tremelo system.

@zambi

That’s right...Warren was in attendance for that last 2007 Van Halen tour rehearsal....And he did write a nice tribute to EVH after his passing.  Here it is:

@chain I remember reading that when Eddie passed away. I know where Butch was coming from. It would be like a big David Allen Coe fan or a Harley rider showing up in Sturgis, South Dakota dressed like the guys in Van Halen or Robert Plant or David Bowie.  It's not the macho way. 

But that is not most of us here. You can be dressed in a space suite and if the music grabs us then people on this site will dig it. 

There was a difference in how Allen Woody and Otiel would dress on stage. Woody was more of a Gregg Allman type with cloths. 

Yes Eddie Van Halen was a turning point for how electric guitar could be expressed in music in a new and different way. Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton are others that made a huge change it guitar playing and spawned immitators. Not long after Eddie became famous, lots of local and regional and some national bands suddenly had guitar players copying Eddie's tricks and style. He was as revolutionary as Hendrix. 

EDDIE VAN HALEN'S FATHER!!! He was tapping on the neck way, way back!! 

Eddie's uncle. I'm sure he taught Eddie how to tap. Look closely. 

Sorry. The accents are so pronounced you can barely tell they are speaking English.