Jason Bonham found out how Eddie and Alex Van Halen’s secret fights showed themselves in Van Halen’s music.
“Me and Joe [Satriani] were talking about this,” Bonham noted during a new appearance on SiriusXM’s Trunk Nation. “There’s the way they play certain parts as if they’re having a go at each other. It’s as if one of them is making it so awkward that the other one feels awkward doing it.”
The drummer continued, ” [So], there was definitely some weird stuff that goes on where I’m going, ‘That’s not natural … to push there.’ And Mike would say, ‘It’s Eddie screwing with Alex. … He’s making him play something that’s weird.’”
When Jason first met Alex Van Halen, it didn’t go well. Bonham talked about it in a recent interview with KSHE 95, “It’s 40 years since I saw Mike play at Donington. My wife and I went to Donington – Monsters of Rock – AC/DC, Van Halen. And I got to meet Alex that day… Leonard [Haze] from Y&T introduced me. He came up – this is a classic – and I’m like, ‘Oh my God, it’s Alex Van Halen!’”
The rocker added the following about Alex’s reaction to him, “He goes, ‘Hey Leonard!’ [Haze says:] ‘This is Jason Bonham.’ And he goes, ‘So what?’ He just went, ‘So what?’”
Bonham also noted, “Nick goes, ‘We heard your dad was in the Rainbow and we were playing at Gazzarri’s next door we kind of ran around the Rainbow and kind of tried to say hi to him and Alex kind of jumped over the thing and put his hand out, your dad took a swing at him.’ [I go], ‘Oh maybe that’s why he was a little pit.’”
Jason is currently touring with Sammy Hagar, Joe Satriani, and Michael Anthony on the Best of All Worlds Tour. They are playing Van Halen classics on the tour that started last month.