Japanese Violinist Covers Eddie Van Halen’s “Eruption”: Metal Meets Classical Again

In a 1992 jour­nal arti­cle “Erup­tions: heavy met­al appro­pri­a­tions of clas­si­cal vir­tu­os­i­ty,” musi­col­o­gist Robert Walser explored the link between heavy met­al and clas­si­cal music–the way in which met­al gui­tarists stud­ied clas­si­cal music and cre­at­ed “a new kind of gui­tar vir­tu­os­i­ty.” Pub­lished by Cam­bridge Uni­ver­si­ty Press, Walser’s essay comes to focus on Eddie Van Halen’s “Erup­tion,” the “solo that trans­formed rock gui­tar.” He writes: “Released in 1978 on Van Halen’s first album, ‘Erup­tion’ [see an extend­ed live ver­sion below] is one minute and twen­ty-sev­en sec­onds of exu­ber­ant and play­ful vir­tu­os­i­ty, a vio­lin­ist’s pre­cise and showy tech­nique inflect­ed by the vocal rhetoric of the blues and rock ’n’ roll irrev­er­ence.” The solo fea­tures rhyth­mic pat­terns rem­i­nis­cent of J. S. Bach’s famous ‘Pre­lude in C major’, while “the har­mon­ic pro­gres­sions of ‘Erup­tion’ lead the lis­ten­er along an aur­al adven­ture,” much like you’d find in the music of Vival­di. None of this was an acci­dent. As a young­ster, Eddie Van Halen was raised on a diet of Mozart and Beethoven.

Above, you can watch “Jill,” a mem­ber of the Japan­ese met­al band Unlucky Mor­pheus, per­form a vio­lin-dri­ven ver­sion of “Erup­tion.” It’s clas­si­cal meets met­al once again, except this time a clas­si­cal instru­ment takes the lead. Enjoy.

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Relat­ed Con­tent:

14-Year-Old Girl’s Blis­ter­ing Heavy Met­al Per­for­mance of Vival­di

Watch Some of Eddie Van Halen’s (RIP) Great­est Per­for­mances: “Shred­ding Was Eddie’s Very Essence”

The Great Illus­tra­tion That Accom­pa­nied Eddie Van Halen’s Appli­ca­tion to the U.S. Patent and Trade­mark Office (1987)

15-Year-Old French Gui­tar Prodi­gy Flaw­less­ly Rips Through Solos by Eddie Van Halen, David Gilmour, Yng­wie Malm­steen & Steve Vai

Musi­cal Come­di­an Reg­gie Watts Rein­vents Van Halen’s Clas­sic, “Pana­ma”