“He turned it up, and it was uncontrollable”: Eddie Van Halen on the time Billy Corgan played through his rig – and why his setup shocked the Smashing Pumpkins frontman

Back in 1996, Guitar World arranged a generation-spanning guitar hero meeting of the minds.

Smashing Pumpkins frontman and electric guitar trendsetter Billy Corgan – never shy about talking up influences that were seen in certain circles of the day as uncool – sat down with one of his idols, Eddie Van Halen, to talk all things guitar.

That fascinating chat was captured for posterity by this very publication, but the off-camera parts were just as interesting.

In 2009, Van Halen recalled in another Guitar World interview how Corgan – prior to the start of their conversation – played through his rig, and was shocked by what he discovered when he found it difficult to wrangle.

“I remember when Billy Corgan interviewed me,” Van Halen recounted. “[We were] up in the studio, and my rig happened to be set up. I was playing and he walked in – he kinda nervously said, ‘Can I try it?’ I said, ‘Sure!’

“He turned it up and it was just uncontrollable. He goes, ‘Where’s your distortion pedal?’ [I said] ‘There isn’t one.’”

Though Van Halen was by no means a ‘guitar through the amp only’ purist, he told GW that there was a lesson to be learned in the interaction.

“If you have a great-sounding guitar, and, of course, a good amp, and you know how to make the guitar talk – that’s the key.”

The aforementioned 2009 GW interview with Van Halen revolved around his then-new EVH Wolfgang signature guitar, a prototype of which the guitar legend used exclusively during Van Halen’s first reunion tour with David Lee Roth, in 2007.

Van Halen and his tech, Matt Bruck, recalled the exhaustive process of getting the guitar exactly correct, with the latter emphasizing both the model’s quality, and EVH’s aforementioned ‘a good guitar and a good amp is the key’ philosophy.

“One of the primary concepts of Ed having his own [EVH] brand was that we wanted to be able to visit any EVH dealer in the world on the day of the gig, grab a 5150 [amp] and a Wolfgang, and do the gig, and there would be no difference between it and Ed’s gear.”