Watch Red Hot Chili Peppers give Eddie Van Halen tribute song live debut

Red Hot Chili Peppers gave their new single and tribute song to Eddie Van Halen its live debut at the weekend – watch footage below.

The band released the song, titled ‘Eddie’, last month as the second preview of their forthcoming 13th album, ‘Return Of The Dream Canteen’.

• READ MORE: Eddie Van Halen, 1955 – 2020: a colossus who turned guitar solos into a firework display

In a press release, frontman Anthony Kiedis explained the story behind the tribute: “Sometimes we don’t realise how deeply affected and connected we are to artists until the day they die. Eddie Van Halen was a one of a kind.

“The day after his death Flea came into rehearsal with an emotional bassline. John, Chad and I started playing along and pretty soon with all our hearts, a song in his honour effortlessly unfolded. It felt good to be sad and care so much about a person who had given so much to our lives.

“Although the song doesn’t speak to Eddie by name, it talks about his early days on the Sunset Strip and the rock n roll tapestry that Van Halen painted on our minds. In the end, our song asks that you not remember Eddie for dying but for living his wildest dream.”

Watch the band play ‘Eddie’ at Austin City Limits on Sunday night (October 9) below.

‘Eddie’ follows on from the August release of ‘Tippa My Tongue’, which came as our first taste of the Rick Rubin-produced ‘Return Of The Dream Canteen’. The album itself will arrive this Friday (October 14) via Warner.

Earlier this year, the band told NME they had a “loose plan” to release another new album in the immediate future, just months after their last, ‘Unlimited Love‘. “We’re gonna put out music by the handful – literally,” Kiedis said. “Don’t be surprised if another wheelbarrow of songs comes your way in the near future. We have a lot of shit to turn people onto.”

Speaking about the new album, the band said in a statement: “We went in search of ourselves as the band that we have somehow always been. Just for the fun of it we jammed and learned some old songs. Before long we started the mysterious process of building new songs. A beautiful bit of chemistry meddling that had befriended us hundreds of times along the way.”

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