EDDIE VAN HALEN
1955-2020
On October 6th, 2020, Edward Lodewijk Van Halen died, having long suffered with throat cancer. His son Wolfgang broke the news on Instagram. Eddie Van Halen’s death is an enormous loss to the guitar community. While there will never be one indisputable ‘Best Guitarist in the World’, no one can deny that Eddie changed the face of rock guitar. His contributions to guitar technique, guitar and amplifier design, and songwriting are some of
the greatest ever.
Edward Van Halen was born in the Netherlands on January 26th, 1955, to a Dutch father and Indonesian mother. They emigrated to the USA in 1962. Eddie learned the drums while his brother Alex played guitar, but they soon switched instruments, creating the core of a band that would change the world.
Music has never been the same since the release of Van Halen’s first, self-titled album in 1978. It wasn’t just that no one else could play guitar like that. No one else had imagined the guitar could sound like that. Every guitarist knows about his two-handed tapping, but that was only a fraction of the Van Halen revolution. It was the first time a saturated high-gain Marshall tone had been achieved and recorded, and that made possible a slew of new techniques.
Palm-muted legato that sounded like alternate picking; adding open strings to pentatonic licks for unexpected note combinations; enormous wide stretch licks with huge interval jumps; endless whammy bar tricks, especially with pinched harmonics. Eddie had invented a new guitar language, and at just 23 he already spoke it more fluently than anyone has since. From their debut album onwards, all his ideas were immaculately delivered with his glorious vibrato.
It wouldn’t mean a thing without great music though, and Van Halen had it. Ain’t Talkin’ ’Bout Love, Runnin’ With The Devil and I’m The One had memorable riffs to rival AC/DC and Sabbath. While Van Halen copyists flooded the 1980s only to be forgotten, there is still hardly a mainstream radio station in the world that doesn’t regularly play some classic Van Halen.
Van Halen continued to innovate, and each album held some moment of unprecedented wizardry. Spanish Fly showed Eddie could play classical guitar with equal fire. Cathedral used a delay pedal to create harmonies every bit as cleverly as Brian May. Mean Streets revealed yet another sound a guitar simply shouldn’t be able to produce. And it was all done with outstanding groove and feel. Eddie could play his guitar just behind the beat, tastefully hitting chords a few milliseconds late—not late enough to sound out of time, but placed perfectly to make everything sound sexy. It’s a feel more often heard on James Brown records, but rare in a rock guitarist. Almost all his imitators missed it.
Perhaps it was Eddie’s ability to groove like an R&B guitarist that made him appeal to Michael Jackson. When the King of Pop called him to play on Beat It, it was the first time metal guitar licks crossed over with mainstream pop. Thanks to Eddie’s unbelievably musical guitar tone, his screaming harmonics didn’t alienate pop fans. The ‘brown sound’, as Eddie called it, meant that however wild and aggressive his playing was, he never sounded harsh. The result was possibly the most successful rock/ pop crossover single of all time.
Following Beat It, Van Halen moved even further into the mainstream, climaxing in their global #1 hit Jump in 1984. The first Van Halen album had changed the sound of the guitar and written the blueprint for early 80s metal. By combining hard rock with synths on 1984, Van Halen created the sound of the late 80s. Parting ways with original vocalist David Lee Roth, they brought in Sammy Hagar and enjoyed continued radio success with keyboard crossover tunes like Dreams and Right Now. From 1978-1995, every Van Halen album sold at least two million copies in the US. Van Halen and 1984 sold 10 million each.
Eddie’s huge contribution to music is matched by his contribution to gear design. He helped develop the Floyd Rose locking tremolo, later claiming that his name should have been on the patent. The homemade Frankenstein guitar he played was the first notable use of a humbucker in a Strat body, providing the template for all guitars built to shred. In 1992, he released the first 5150 amp, manufactured by Peavey. This amp, and subsequent versions of the 5150 released under his own EVH brand, have become the benchmark for metal guitar tone. Eddie even invented the D-tuna, which allows Floyd Rose users to drop the pitch of the sixth string by two frets without unclamping the nut. Drop-tuned metal bands give thanks.
Like all the greats, Eddie had an enormous impact on his peers. Hearing the news, Brian May wrote: “What a talent – what a legacy – probably the most original and dazzling rock guitarist in history. I think of him as a boy – an innocent prodigy – always full of joy, always modest – and those truly magical fingers opened a door to a new kind of playing. I treasure the moments we shared. His passing leaves a giant hole in my heart.”
Tony Iommi’s tribute read: “I’m just devastated to hear the news of the passing of my dear friend Eddie Van Halen. He fought a long and hard battle with his cancer right to the very end. Eddie was one of a very special kind of person, a really great friend.”
Underlining Eddie’s importance to subsequent generations of rock, Tom Morello wrote: “Apex talent. An unparalleled titan in the annals of rock ’n’ roll. One of the greatest musicians in the history of mankind. Rest In Peace, King Edward.”
By almost singlehandedly inventing shred guitar, developing the equipment to make it possible, and writing unforgettable songs, Eddie has secured a place among the most important electric guitarists ever to live. Rock guitar feels bereft without him, but the ideas and equipment he gave us still have endless music to make...
“What a talent – what a legacy – probably the most original and dazzling rock guitarist in history”
BRIAN MAY