With Roth at the helm, Van Halen - which also featured Michael Anthony on bass - became one of the most popular groups on the Pasadena rock circuit, playing backyard parties, strip clubs, and whatever other venues they could find. So it was cheaper to get him in the band.” “We were renting his PA every weekend for $35 and getting $50 for the gigs. “Roth was the only guy who had a PA,” Eddie said. The duo formed a series of bands in the early 1970s with names like the Broken Combs, the Trojan Rubber Company, and Genesis, but never got significant traction until they came across the charismatic son of a wealthy doctor named David Lee Roth. One fateful day, frustrated that he couldn’t nail the Surfaris’ “Wipe Out” on the drums, Eddie swapped instruments with Alex, and the change stuck. An infatuation with the Dave Clark Five caused Eddie to take up the drums, while Alex tried his hands at guitar. The family immigrated to America when Eddie was seven and settled in Pasadena, California. And at night we’d hear him playing classical music downstairs. We’d listen to all those march records, and Al and I would parade around the table in the living room and take pots and pans, doing all that kind of stuff. Every morning at six o’clock he’d have to go up there freezing his ass off and play marches. “So he joined the air force band, and he played marches. “It was difficult to make money playing his type of music,” Eddie told Rolling Stone in 1995. His father, Jan, was gifted at the clarinet, saxophone, and piano. That’s so frustrating.”Įdward Lodewijk Van Halen was born in Amsterdam, Netherlands, on January 26th, 1955, a year and half after his older brother, Alex. “I come offstage and get compliments up the ass. “I suppose what bothers me is that often the kids don’t even notice when I’m bad,” he told Rolling Stone. Still, no matter who was fronting the group or when they had their last hit, fans never stopped flocking to Van Halen concerts to worship at the altar of Eddie Van Halen. The 2000s were marked by battles with alcohol, erratic public behavior, and nostalgic reunion tours with Hagar and Roth, but very little in the way of new music. I just want my guitar playing to make people feel something: happy, sad, even horny.”Įven through Montrose’s Sammy Hagar replacing original frontman David Lee Roth in 1985, Van Halen ruled the rock world from their explosive self-titled LP in 1978 - perhaps the most perfect debut by any group in rock history - all the way to the mid-1990s, when they parted ways with Hagar. All I know is that rock & roll guitar, like blues guitar, should be melody, speed, and taste, but more important, it should have emotion. “I don’t want to be seen as the fastest guitar in town, ready and willing to gun down the competition. “I don’t know shit about scales or music theory,” he told Rolling Stone in 1980. Saying goodbye is the hardest thing I have ever had to do so instead I say so long, I will see you again soon in a place with no pain or sorrow. Our journey together has not always been an easy one but in the end and always we have a connection and love that will always be. “I never knew it was possible to cry so many tears or feel such incredible sadness. “My heart and soul have been shattered into a million pieces,” his wife Janie Van Halen wrote on Instagram. My heart is broken and I don’t think I’ll ever fully recover from this loss.” Every moment I’ve shared with him on and off stage was a gift. “He was the best father I could ever ask for. “I can’t believe I’m having to write this, but my father, Edward Lodewijk Van Halen, lost his long and arduous battle with cancer this morning,” his son Wolfgang Van Halen wrote. Eddie Van Halen, the legendary guitar innovator and virtuoso who led Van Halen through five decades and three lead singers, establishing himself as one of the all-time great players in rock history, died Tuesday after a long battle with cancer.
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