Eddie Van Halen

Eddie Van Halen is a Dutch-born American guitar virtuoso. He is a songwriter, guitar and amplification equipment designer. Founder (with his brother Alex) of the eponymous hard rock band Van Halen. Included in Rolling Stone magazine’s list of “100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time” (both 2003 and 2011 versions).

Eddie Van Halen popularized tapping, largely through the composition “Eruption”, after the release of which other prominent artists of his generation rushed to discover new possibilities for this guitar technique, and guitarists who followed him in subsequent decades rarely shied away from citing his influence.

Van Halen was born on January 26, 1955 in the Dutch city of Nijmegen. Father Jan Van Halen is a professional musician – saxophonist, clarinetist; mother Ezenia is a native of Java Island (Indonesia). His father gave his son his second name Lodewijk (Dutch version of the German name Ludwig) in honor of the composer Ludwig van Beethoven (Edward continued this tradition and named his son Wolfgang, in honor of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart). In 1962, when Eddie was 7 years old, Edward’s family emigrated to Pasadena, California – USA, changing his last name from van Halen to Van Halen.

When Eddie was a child, he learned to play the piano like his older brother. However, playing the piano did not appeal to him, Eddie once confessed, “Who wants to spend their life sitting at the piano? It’s boring!”

While Alex began to practice playing guitar, Eddie began to master the drum kit. But after a while the brothers switched instruments, and now Eddie was learning to play electric guitar. As a teenager, he often locked himself in his room and practiced playing the guitar.

A huge influence on young Eddie was the band Cream. Eddie would later say that he “shot” all of Eric Clapton’s solo parts “note for note”. Eddie said in an interview, “I’ve always considered Eric Clapton a guitarist who was a huge influence on me, but Jimmy Page influenced me more in terms of the incredible energy of his guitar playing”. After attending a Genesis concert in the early 70’s, Eddie became interested in this tapping technique and developed its popularity.

In October 2012, Van Halen was recognized as the best guitarist of all time by Guitar World magazine.

In the late 1990s, Van Halen was diagnosed with throat cancer; he was missing a third of his tongue, which was removed during treatment. Eddie himself confirmed this information in 2001.

On October 6, 2020, Eddie’s son Wolfgang announced that his father had passed away from cancer.

Founding of Van Halen

Van Halen’s band was originally called “Genesis”, with bassist Mark Stoneen as a member. The name was changed to “Mammoth” when they learned that there was already a band called Genesis in England.

The lineup was Eddie Van Halen (guitar), Alex Van Halen (drums) and Mark Stone (bass guitar).

They didn’t have their own amplification equipment and had to rent it from David Lee Roth, Eddie started to look at David as a vocalist, and in this case they could save money on renting equipment.

Soon Michael Anthony replaced Mark Stoner as bass player and the band line-up was complete. After a while it was decided to change the name of the band because David decided that the last name of the two Van Halen brothers “sounded cool”, as a result the band was renamed Van Halen.

Before starting to play their own music, the band played cover songs.

In 1976, Gene Simmons found himself at a Van Halen concert. Gene Simmons sensed the potential of the young band and produced a demo recorded in a Los Angeles studio.

In 1977, the band signed a contract with the Warner Bros Record company.

After several demos, the band recorded their first album in October 1977, which was released on February 10, 1978.