Slash, Kirk Hammett To Celebrate Eddie Van Halen During Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame TV Special

The influence and importance of the late Eddie Van Halen will be acknowledged during a US TV special honoring the 2020 Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame inductees tonight, November 7.

Guns N’ Roses guitarist Slash, Metallica’s Kirk Hammett and Rage Against The Machine man Tom Morello will pay tribute to Eddie Van Halen’s legacy during the show. Van Halen passed away, aged 65, on October 6, due to complications from a two decade battle with cancer.

Van Halen were inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame in 2007, though neither Eddie nor his drummer brother Alex attended the ceremony in Cleveland.

It was announced in March that the 2020 Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame ceremony, due to be held on May 2, would be postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic. The TV special being staged in its place will be broadcast on HBO at 8 pm ET.

Nine Inch Nails and Depeche Mode are among the artists being inducted into the Hall Of Fame this year. Trent Reznor admitted earlier this year that he always considered the whole concept “absurd”, but was now “quite honored” that his group were being included. “It is just nice to see a bunch of people celebrating music as the primary thing,” he told Rolling Stone. “It felt legit.”

On Thursday, St. Vincent dropped a cover of Nine Inch Nails’ classic song, “Piggy”, one of the best-loved tracks from the band’s acclaimed 1994 album, The Downward Spiral.

Featuring Foo Fighters star Dave Grohl on drums, “Piggy” is part of a of a collection of original Amazon Music covers of 2020’s Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Inductees in time for the Induction ceremony, which airs tonight at 8PM EST on HBO and HBO Max.

This year’s inductees include Depeche Mode, the Doobie Brothers, Whitney Houston, Nine Inch Nails, The Notorious B.I.G., and T. Rex, as well as Ahmet Ertegun Award winners Jon Landau and Irving Azoff. Springsteen will speak on behalf of Landau while Diddy will celebrate the life of Notorious B.I.G.