Eddie Van Halen, grinning guitar icon for a rock-loving generation, dies at 65

LOS ANGELES — Eddie Van Halen, the all-American guitar hero who, with his namesake hard-rock band Van Halen, redefined the sound and possibilities of the electric guitar in the 1970s and ‘80s, died on Tuesday at age 65. The cause was throat cancer.

His death was first reported by TMZ. Van Halen was an immigrant kid who emerged from Pasadena with an ear for hard-rock hooks and wild guitar flash in the Jimi Hendrix tradition. His speed and innovations along the fretboard inspired a generation of imitators, as the band bearing his name rose to MTV stardom and multiplatinum sales over 10 consecutive albums.

In contrast to the shadowy gothic blues of Black Sabbath, or the pagan thunder of Led Zeppelin, the band Van Halen delivered muscular hard rock in Technicolor. The group’s sound and image were vivid reflections of its Southern California home, with a lead guitarist in bright colors and a welcoming, good-time grin.

“Ed’s a once-or-twice-in-a-century kind of guy. There’s Hendrix and there’s Eddie Van Halen,” friend and guitarist Jerry Cantrell of Alice in Chains said during Grammy weekend in January 2019. “Those two guys tilted the world on its axis.”

His iconic, road-battered guitar, named Frankenstein, was pieced together to his personal specifications in 1975 from the components of other instruments — a $50 body, a $75 neck, a single Humbucker pickup and crucial tremolo bar. With a red surface crisscrossed frantically with black and white stripes (and traffic reflectors stuck to the back), it remains one of the most recognizable guitars in rock ‘n’ roll.

The idea was to stretch out and get loud, he once said, as he referenced the fictional metal act Spinal Tap, whose members bragged on camera that their amplifiers went all the way up to 11.

“While they’re going to 11,” Van Halen joked during a 2015 appearance at the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C., “I was already going to 15.”

At age 25, Van Halen married popular TV actress Valerie Bertinelli, 21, in a 1981 wedding swarmed by paparazzi. A decade later, they had a son, Wolfgang, who grew up to join the family business as bass player in the band. The couple separated in 2001 (and divorced in 2007).

Edward Lodewijk Van Halen was born Jan. 26, 1955, in Amsterdam to a Dutch father and a Dutch-Indonesian mother. His father, Jan, was a classically trained clarinet and saxophone player who traveled the world playing music and passed his obsession onto his sons, Eddie and Alex.

Van Halen is survived by his second wife, Janie Van Halen , whom he married in 2009; son, Wolfgang; and brother, Alex.