“IT WAS A MOMENT OF GREAT JOY, PLAYING WITH THIS GUY…”

IN 1983, TWO OF ROCK’S GREATEST GUITARISTS, BRIAN MAY AND EDDIE VAN HALEN, JOINED FORCES IN THE STAR FLEET PROJECT. NOW, IN AN EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH TG EDITOR CHRIS BIRD, BRIAN PAYS TRIBUTE TO HIS LATE FRIEND, AND TELLS THE STORY OF THE EXTRAORDINARY MUSIC THEY MADE TOGETHER...

- Chris Bird 

“He was the greatest,” Brian May says. “There was no one who could match him, no one who could come close. There will never be another one of him.”

It is just a few days after the death of Eddie Van Halen that Brian is speaking to Total Guitar, and as he admits: “I haven’t really processed it at all. When I think about it I get this kind of physical shock. It’s punched a big hole in my heart.”

They had known each other a long time, first meeting in the late 70s, when Brian was already a major star with Queen, and Eddie was the new kid on the block; his explosive displays on the first Van Halen album marking him as the most revolutionary figure in guitar playing since Hendrix.

The two men had much in common, not least their self-built guitars – Brian’s ‘Red Special’ and Eddie’s ‘Frankenstein’. And in 1983, their close friendship resulted in them teaming up for a remarkable one-off venture – Star Fleet Project, a three-track minialbum credited to Brian May & Friends.

As Brian says now: “A couple of days after I heard the news about Eddie, I went back to Star Fleet. I started revisiting all the feelings I had when we were in the studio doing that, and it sort of healed my soul a bit. I thought, ‘Yeah, this is what I should be doing at this time.’”

He also explains that Star Fleet had been on his mind only a week before his friend passed away. “I was looking at reissuing all my solo albums, and Star Fleet obviously is one of them. At some point it would be lovely to revisit it in depth, but at the moment I’m not. It doesn’t feel right now.