Eddie Van Halen

Eddie Van Halen (born January 26, 1955, Amsterdam, Netherlands—died October 6, 2020, Santa Monica, California, U.S.) was a Dutch-born American guitarist and cofounder of the heavy metal band Van Halen, for which he served as the primary songwriter. He was known for his virtuosic electric guitar playing technique characterized by speed and the fusion of blues-based rock with classical music influences. Widely considered to be one of the greatest and most influential rock guitarists of all time, he pioneered, but did not invent, the finger tapping technique, wherein both hands are used to play arpeggios on the guitar fretboard.

Early life

Edward Lodewijk Van Halen was born in Amsterdam, the youngest child of Eugenia (née van Beers) Van Halen, who was of Indonesian descent and worked as a housekeeper, and Jan Van Halen, who was of Dutch descent and worked as a professional clarinetist and saxophonist, among other jobs. Because his parents were a mixed-race couple, the family experienced racism in the Netherlands and moved to Pasadena, California, in 1962.

Eddie and his elder brother, Alex, were trained from a young age to become classical pianists. Despite never learning to sight-read sheet music proficiently, Eddie was skilled at learning music by ear, and he won several local piano recital contests. However, despite their initial training in classical music, the brothers were drawn to rock music by bands such as the Beatles and the Dave Clark Five. At first Eddie took up the drums, and Alex played guitar. They swapped instruments when Alex became proficient at the drums, impressing Eddie with his mastery of the solo from “Wipe Out” by the Surfaris. In the book Eruption: Conversations with Eddie Van Halen (2021) by Brad Tolinski and Chris Gill, Eddie remembered: “He kept playing my drums, and when he got better, I started playing his guitar. That was the real beginning of Van Halen—that’s how it all started.”

Eddie practiced the guitar constantly. In a 1996 interview with Guitar Player magazine, he recalled: “I used to sit on the edge of my bed with a six-pack of Schlitz Malt talls. My brother would go out at 7 pm to party…and when he’d come back at 3 am, I would still be sitting in the same place, playing guitar. I did that for years—I still do that.”

In 1972 Eddie and Alex formed a band that was initially called Genesis but was later renamed Mammoth. Singer David Lee Roth and bassist Michael Anthony joined in 1974, and the band changed its name to Van Halen. The band progressed from playing backyard parties and high-school gigs around Pasadena to performing at nightclubs in Los Angeles, such as the Starwood, Gazzarri’s, and the Whisky a Go Go. In 1977 Gene Simmons of Kiss funded and produced a Van Halen demo recording, and later that year record company executive Mo Ostin and producer Ted Templeman signed the band to Warner Brothers Records.

Career and personal life

The band’s critically acclaimed debut album, Van Halen (1978), reached number 19 on the Billboard album chart and eventually sold more than 10 million copies in the United States. Van Halen features the band’s heavy take on the Kinks’ “You Really Got Me” and the original songs “Runnin’ with the Devil,” “Ain’t Talkin’ ‘Bout Love,” and “Eruption,” a blazing 102-second guitar-based instrumental that showcases Eddie’s finger tapping technique. The band followed up its debut album with Van Halen II (1979), which produced its first top 20 single, “Dance the Night Away,” and includes the tracks “Light Up the Sky,” “Beautiful Girls,” and the finger-tapping instrumental “Spanish Fly.”

Van Halen went on to release the albums Women and Children First (1980), Fair Warning (1981), and Diver Down (1982), the last of which is anchored by the hit single “(Oh) Pretty Woman,” the band’s take on Roy Orbison’s classic tune. Diver Down also includes the track “Big Bad Bill (Is Sweet William Now),” which showcases Jan Van Halen on clarinet.

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The band toured relentlessly through the early 1980s and began receiving considerable airplay on MTV. Van Halen’s sixth studio album 1984 (1984) launched the band into megastardom with the standout tracks “Panama,” “Hot for Teacher,” and the band’s only number-one hit, “Jump,” which featured Eddie on synthesizer and guitar. 1984 reached number two on the Billboard album charts, peaking behind Michael Jackson’s multiplatinum Thriller. Eddie contributed a raucous guitar solo to Jackson’s hit song “Beat It” from Thriller, and he also played a role in shaping the arrangement of the song.

After the release of 1984, artistic and personal tensions grew between Eddie Van Halen and Roth, both of whom wrestled with creative control of the band. Roth wanted to keep the band on its image-focused, pop-oriented trajectory, whereas Eddie wanted to develop a more restrained, artistically oriented approach that would showcase his work as a guitarist. Tensions in the band were exacerbated by heavy drinking and drug use. An appearance at the 1983 US Festival, for which the band was paid a whopping $1.5 million dollars, was marred by Roth’s alcohol consumption, which caused him to forget song lyrics.

Roth left Van Halen in 1985 to pursue a solo career. He was replaced by singer Sammy Hagar, who remained in the band until 1996. Van Halen continued to achieve commercial success with Hagar as its front man. In 1986 the band released their first number-one album, 5150, which features the hit song “Why Can’t This Be Love.” The next three Van Halen studio albums, OU812 (1988), For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge (1991), and Balance (1995) also reached number one on the album chart. The relationship between Eddie Van Halen and Hagar began to fray in 1996, and Hagar left the band in June of that year.

The band eventually replaced Hagar with singer Gary Cherone, who had previously fronted the glam metal band Extreme. The band’s lone album with Cherone, Van Halen III (1998), was a commercial disappointment that was widely panned by critics. Cherone left Van Halen in 1999, and the band stagnated without a singer for three years. Roth and Hagar shared front man duties during a 2002 tour that also featured each singer’s solo material. The band (with Roth and Hagar) was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2007.

In 1981 Eddie Van Halen married actress Valerie Bertinelli. The couple had one child, Wolfgang, and divorced in 2007. In 2009 he married actress Janie Liszewski in a ceremony officiated by his brother, Alex, who is an ordained minister. In 2012 Roth rejoined the band to record its final studio album, A Different Kind of Truth, which also features Wolfgang Van Halen on bass guitar. In 2019 Eddie was hospitalized with complications from throat cancer treatments, and he died in 2020 after a long battle with the disease.