Eddie Van Halen
Eddie Van Halen
Edward Lodewijk "Eddie" Van Halenis a Dutch-American musician, songwriter and producer. He is best known as the lead guitarist, occasional keyboardist and co-founder of the hard rock band Van Halen. He is considered to be one of the world's greatest guitarists, and one of the most influential rock guitarists of the 20th century. In 2011, Rolling Stone magazine ranked Van Halen number eight in the list of the 100 Greatest Guitarists. In 2012, he was voted in a Guitar World...
NationalityDutch
ProfessionGuitarist
Date of Birth26 January 1955
CityNijmegen, Netherlands
Everything I did is because I wanted to do it. If I weren't playing this arena, if I were playing a club, I'd still be doing it because that's what I want to do. I love playing the guitar.
'For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge' took a year to record; that's why the playing on it might sound somewhat labored. 'Balance,' on the other hand, was written and recorded in only four months, so the whole process was quicker and more immediate.
Nirvana was huge, but it didn't appeal to everyone.
I never dreamt of being a musician for my livelihood. I certainly never would have wanted to be in the business that I'm in, meaning the fame and the glory, the glitter, the rock star, the famous part.
Before the operation on my left hand I wasn't able to stretch my fingers open all the way. I've never had very big hands, but I could do the splits with them. Eventually I couldn't any more. I had a twisted tendon in my little finger that prevented me from being able to stretch.
Cancer is like a cockroach. It just comes back stronger. I'm tearing apart the immune system of the cockroach and seeing how it ticks. I've opened up my own pathology center.
The one thing I do have is good ears. I don't mean perfect pitch, but ears for picking things up. I developed my ear through piano theory, but I never had a guitar lesson in my life, except from Eric Clapton off of records.
When Van Halen started out, there was no path to fame. We just played what we liked. Even today it always comes down to the simplicity of rock and roll.
The stainless-steel frets were a major breakthrough, because of the amount of playing and bending that I do. I have to get my guitars refretted every couple of months.
Some people think a song without words isn't a real song. Tell that to Beethoven and he'll kick your ass!
I mean it's funny, playing music, how of course you want it to do well, you want them to like it, but it's not competitive like an election, it's the Olympics, it's not a Formula 1 race. The Billboard charts are just to show you what people like.
I started doing all kinds of weird stuff on the guitar, which became part of my playing. I started doing harmonics and tapping on the guitar and pulling off strings and doing all this weird stuff that no one had ever done before.
You've only got 12 notes and however you mix them up is your thing.
I was so used to doing old blues licks with the first three fingers. When I started using my pinky and finding more spread things, that's when I started getting my own style.