Eddie Van Halen: Master of Guitar Technique, Hard Rock Innovator

Eddie Van Halen

Classically trained pianist and riveting guitarist Eddie Van Halen is one of the most influential and innovative rock guitarists of the 20th Century. His unique tuning and playing technique changed the way many musicians viewed instrumental tone and the capabilities of the electric guitar, and his technique is unrivaled by any in his generation of guitarists.

Van Halen was born Edward Lodewijk Van Halen on January 26, 1955 in the Netherlands and emigrated to the United States in the 1960's with his family. His parents encouraged both him and his older brother Alex to begin piano lessons as young children, which sparked both their musical imagination and started them thinking about a future career in music. Van Halen was captivated by the British Invasion movement, and particularly inspired by the Dave Clark Five, and he began to play drums, with Alex Van Halen playing guitar. Eventually the brothers traded instruments, as while Eddie was working a paper route diligently to pay for his drum kit, Alex was practicing the drums and honing his skills. The younger Van Halen brother started to play electric guitar at around age twelve, and was so taken by it that he often played it all day, seven days a week and would occasionally skip school to practice. By fourteen, he had learned nearly every guitar solo played by Eric Clapton while he was in Cream note-for-note, although he would improvise some to try to create his own special style.

The Van Halen brothers started to play small outdoor parties and clubs in Los Angeles. Playing a combination of covers and originals, and guitar greats like Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page started to notice the younger brother's natural talent for the guitar. The brotehrs found flamboyant singer David Lee Roth and bassist Michael Anthony in the early 1970's, and the quartet became a group called Mammoth. It was with Mammoth that Eddie Van Halen began to experiment with new playing techniques, and adopted his signature "two-handed tap" technique. This technique combined with Van Halen's adept skills at phrasing obtained through classical training rocketed him to the top of the local music scene. Acknowledging the founding brothers of the band, Mammoth became simply Van Halen by the mid-1970's.

It was shortly after the band's renaming that Eddie Van Halen began to design his own guitars, using the model of the Fender Stratocaster as a starting point. He covered the body of the guitar in tape strips to create different designs and create a genuinely unique look for his instrument that influenced many other guitarists to improvise with the aesthetics of their own instruments in the 1970's and through the 1980's. In 1977, Van Halen received a record contract with Warner Brothers and released their debut, Van Halen in 1978, spurring a long line of multi-platinum albums and world tours. Eddie Van Halen was almost at once described as the best living rock guitarist, and he won a variety of awards from guitar magazines yearly for his work with Van Halen, and his work with Quincy Jones who asked him to play guitar on the Michael Jackson hit "Beat It" in 1982; he aptly recorded the guitar solo in one take and went into history as a rock guitar legend.

In 1984, Eddie Van Halen added keyboards to broaden the sound of the band and began to sing lead on many songs. The result of the keyboards and vocals change was the monster hit "Jump" on the 1984 album. The albums Fair Warning and Diver Down also showcased his impressive keyboard skills and 1998's song "How Many Say I." Though Van Halen cycled through several lead singers, including Roth, Sammy Hagar and Gary Cherone, Van Halen's guitar work remained strong and memorable, and he continued to be asked frequently to appear on soundtracks and the albums of other artists, including Brian May of Queen and Roger Waters.

Even though musically, Eddie Van Halen and David Lee Roth were a winning team, their personalities were at major odds; Van Halen was reclusive and quietly creative, and struggled silently throughout the early to late 1980's with substance abuse problems, while Roth was a typical high-energy frontman. Roth also often didn't sing all the words to Van Halen's songs during live performances, which created further tension between the two. Singer and bassist for Kiss Gene Simmons stated that Van Halen had also approached him in the early 1980's about possibly replacing guitarist Ace Frehley, but Simmons encouraged Van Halen to stick it out with his band.

David Lee Roth's 1985 solo endeavor Crazy From the Heat was hated by his Van Halen bandmates, and prompted them to encourage his exit later the same year. The band, at the urging of Eddie Van Halen approached famous rocker Sammy Hagar and went on to record a series of platinum albums with him throughout the rest of the 80's and part of the 1990's. The band did not produce work during this time that was quite as cutting-edge as when Roth was a part of the group, but they were able to appeal to a wider group of music enthusiasts with their efforts, hitting the top of the Billboard pop charts. It was during this period in Van Halen's history that Eddie Van Halen began to disapprove of Hagar's work ethic, hoping to take the band further and work on songwriting and moving the music forward. The band worked with singer Gary Cherone only to return to Hagar in 2004, though Hagar shortly left citing he would never agree to work with Eddie Van Halen or the band again after a public dispute on-stage during their tour.

The 1990's and beyond marked a personal turn for Eddie Van Halen. He fought alcoholism, lost his mother to cancer and underwent treatment wtice for tongue and mouth cancer. He also split with long-time wife Valerie Bertinelli. It has been reported recently that Van Halen has fallen once again into alcohol abuse, and he has ceased to be productive, giving lackluster performances uncharacteristic of his astounding technical playing skills and creative talent.

Eddie Van Halen released a line of signature Peavey guitars between 1993 and 2004 and was sponsored by Peavey Electronics to use their 5150 Amplifiers, for which he was partially responsible in his performances. Unfortunately, in 2004 Eddie began to sell his own design of Charvel guitars called "EVH Art Series Guitars," modeled after his earlier "Frankenstrat" guitars while he was still under contract with Peavey and he lost the contract. Since 2004, Eddie Van Halen has been mostly in hiding, regrouping and working on his guitar design.

Continue to Van Halen (2) >>