Details about rare EDWARD VAN HALEN guest performance on THOMAS DOLBY album are revealed

Published September 8 2024 at 14:29

In a surprise announcement it was just revealed that Edward Van Halen did one of his very rare guest appearences on Thomas Dolby's 1992 album 'Astronauts & Heretics'.

The information came to light in a brandnew interview with English musician Thomas Dolby on the Jeremy White Show podcast.

Here's an excerpt from the interview:

Interviewer:

On the 'Astronauts' record, early 90s, you had Eddie Van Halen guest on a couple of tracks.  Huge Eddie Van Halen fan, big Eddie audience on the channel, uh, what was your relationship with Eddie and how did you get him to play because....the greatest of all time, right? 

Thomas Dolby:

Yeah, absolutely! 

Interviewer:

And I've never heard you talk about Eddie before so this is why I wanted to know, wanted to ask you... 

Thomas Dolby:

So my wife Kathleen Bella and his then wife Valerie Bertinelli had worked together over the years in TV and stuff and they knew each other... um, Kathleen, who doesn't really follow rock and roll at all, has this amazing story about how her friend Val had a new boyfriend and you know, he needs to go to work and so they drove, they drove down, they drove to somewhere called Irvine and up this sort of path and there's a trailer there and she's just talking to Eddie and he's, you know, a very friendly guy and everything - he had said to her, like they'd been out to dinner, and she'd said: 'What do you do?' and he said: 'I'm the best rock and roll guitarist on the planet!'

Interviewer:

Oh my God - that's what he said? Oh that is amazing! 

Thomas Dolby:

And so then she was in his trailer right, at Irvine, and just talking and he said: If you don't mind I just have to warm up, you should go right ahead, so without looking down he just picks up a guitar and starts absolutely shredding and you know how relaxed his face always is, doing that you know so she can't believe what she's seeing that this, you know, little notes are coming out of this guitar and then she follows him out to the stage with Val and there's like 15,000 people out there going nuts!

Much more details about Edward's recording on the Thomas Dolby album is revealed in this 9 minute interview, which you can listen to here, as well as the actual tracks that Edward are performing on: