Toto guitarist Steve Lukather is now working with Alex Van Halen on an upcoming album of unreleased Van Halen songs. He recently opened up about his decades-long friendship with the late Van Halen legend Eddie Van Halen in an interview with Guitar Player.
Lukather recalled that their musical styles rarely overlapped in the studio. Their personal bond ran deep, rooted in shared experiences as friends and family men rather than as collaborators.
“Eddie was good to me, man. We were very encouraging to each other,” Lukather said. “But here’s the funny thing: our music hangs were not many, but our friends’ hangs were deep. We talked about our families, and everything, you know? But early on, I remember I was doing the solo to [Toto’s] ‘Girl Goodbye,’ and someone walked in with the Van Halen album.”
He then described the moment he first heard Eddie’s now-iconic guitar work, an experience that left him stunned and reconsidering his own abilities.
“I was sitting there doing a few takes and shit, and then someone said, ‘Stop everything. I want you to hear something.’ He dropped the needle on ‘Eruption,’ and I’d never heard anything like that,” Lukather said. “I was like, ‘What the f*ck was that?’ It was jaw-dropping, obviously. The first time I heard that, I was 19 years old, while working on that record, and I fell off my chair.”
That jaw-dropping introduction, Lukather said, sparked a curiosity that eventually blossomed into a genuine friendship with Eddie.
“I said, ‘Well, there’s really no point in continuing on anymore…’ [laughs] I was like, ‘What was that? How do you do that? Who makes that noise? I must be friends with him now.’ That’s really what I thought… and that’s kind of what happened,” Lukather said. “I met Eddie at the California World Music Festival in ’78, we got to know each other and started hanging out a lot around 1980.”
Lukather went on to describe how that early spark of admiration developed into a lasting, supportive relationship built on mutual respect.
“And then, we became really, really close friends. We lived near each other and had a lot in common in terms of our views on life, music, and family,” he said. “And even though we didn’t play anything like each other, Ed and I were always so supportive of what each other was doing. Ed was always supportive of what I was doing and what my band was doing.”
He also shared some personal memories that highlighted the closeness of their bond, including a candid preview of one of Van Halen’s biggest hits.
“He’d always show up at the gigs, and Ed and I would play each other’s stuff whenever we had new stuff. I remember hearing the demo for ‘Jump’ in 1983. I said to Ed, ‘There’s your number one record, Ed. Jeez,’” Lukather said. “And when he started with Music Man, I was the tiebreaker for which pickup he liked best. He went with mine, so that was cool.”
That closeness was forged in the late ’70s and early ’80s. It went on to shape both men’s careers for decades, extending far beyond casual friendship and into genuine creative collaboration.
Their musical paths crossed in one of the most famous rock collaborations of the 1980s. Lukather played the main guitar part on Michael Jackson’s “Beat It,” while Eddie Van Halen contributed the song’s iconic solo. The two also shared gear and worked together on multiple projects over the years, including Eddie’s guest appearance on “Twist the Knife” from Lukather’s 1989 self-titled solo album.
That history of trust and collaboration is now central to the unreleased Van Halen material Alex Van Halen has been developing. Rather than serving as a guitarist on the project, Lukather is acting as a co-producer, helping shape recordings that Alex has said were originally intended to become the next Van Halen record. Lukather has been clear that he will not play a note on any Van Halen song, positioning himself instead as a trusted creative partner who understands how Eddie worked.
Alex Van Halen has pointed directly to that decades-long friendship as the reason he chose Lukather for the task. He has said that Eddie and Lukather were very good friends who often worked together, and that no one else could go through this process with him the way Lukather can.
