GUITAR VIRTUOSO BROUGHT ERUPTIVE POWER TO ROCK
EDDIE VAN HALEN • 1955-2020
Eddie Van Halen, a guitar virtuoso whose pyrotechnic riffs and solos expanded the vocabulary of hard rock, inspired legions of headbanging imitators and propelled his band Van Halen to four turbulent decades of stadium-rock stardom, died Tuesday. He was 65.
His death was announced on Twitter by his son, Wolfgang, who did not say where he died. Van Halen was being treated for throat cancer, years after losing about one-third of his tongue to the disease.
Often ranked alongside guitar-shredding rock gods Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page, Van Halen developed a sound that was thunderous, bright and blazing fast. He hammered on the neck of his custom “Frankenstrat” guitar, leaned on his whammy bar to create a wailing vibrato and popularized a technique known as two-hand tapping, in which he effectively added a sixth finger to his left hand.
“That sound rearranged the DNA of rock guitar forever,” Rolling Stone magazine wrote in 2019, describing Van Halen’s two-hand method on the instrumental track “Eruption.” An aptly named 1-minute, 42second explosion of triads and power chords, “Eruption” was the kind of song that sounded, as Van Halen once put it in a description of his band’s music, like “Godzilla waking up.”
In pursuit of rock-androll perfection, Van Halen crossed a Gibson with a Fender to build his own guitar, and said he boiled his strings and applied surfboard wax to his pickups to obtain the right sound.
His obsessive approach to music sometimes generated conf lict with his bandmates, and to some critics Van Halen seemed as much a soap opera as a rock band. Van Halen seemed to have a falling out with everyone but his brother, drummer Alex Van Halen, and battled an alcohol addiction that further strained his collaborations with David Lee Roth, the band’s charismatic original singer, and successor Sammy Hagar, a veteran rock vocalist.
The Dutch-born guitarist was raised in Pasadena, where in 1974 he formed Van Halen with his brother as well as bassist Michael Anthony and Roth, a karate-kicking showman who added raunchy, hedonistic lyrics to Van Halen’s songs.
In an era when punk was ascendant and disco ruled the charts, Van Halen’s selftitled 1978 debut was a work of cheerfully melodic hard rock, featuring songs such as “Jamie’s Cryin’,” “Runnin’ With the Devil” and an amped-up cover of the Kinks’ “You Really Got Me.” Critics were generally dismissive, calling the band a rip-off of groups such as Deep Purple and Led Zeppelin, but within a few years Van Halen was playing to sold-out arenas nationwide.
And like so many other groups of their era, Van Halen developed a reputation for wanton excess. An item buried in their contract demanded that venues provide munchies, with all brown M&Ms removed from the candy bowl. (Roth later said the color restriction was a test to ensure that the band’s contract had been
thoroughly read.)
While Roth presided over bacchanalia in the wings, Van Halen preferred a more private kind of debauchery, retiring alone to his hotel room to snort cocaine, drink vodka and write songs on his guitar. The self-described “quiet one in the band,” he reportedly lived with his parents until 1981, when he married actress Valerie Bertinelli of the CBS sitcom “One Day at a Time.”
Their relationship made him an increasingly public figure, as did collaborations with artists including Brian May of Queen, Roger Waters of Pink Floyd and Michael Jackson, for whom he contributed a searing, uncredited guitar solo on the 1983 single “Beat It.” Later that year, Van Halen and his band released the song that became their sole No. 1 hit, breaking through to a pop audience with the anthem “Jump.”
In 1985, clashes between the guitarist and singer cul
minated with Roth’s announcement that he was leaving the band to focus on his solo career, a decision that seemed to signal the end of Van Halen. Instead, Van Halen and his remaining bandmates joined up with Hagar, a rock journeyman who had sung with the band Montrose.
Nicknamed Van Hagar by some fans and critics, the new lineup released four straight chart-topping studio records but fractured amid the release of the 1996 compilation album “Best of: Volume 1.” During a tumultuous six-month span, the band breezed through three singers, brief ly working with Gary Cherone of Extreme.
Van Halen quipped that his group was infected by “LSD, lead singer disease.” A decade later, the band was struggling to repair its bonds and postponed parts of a 2007 reunion tour with Roth. When they were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame that year, only
Hagar and Anthony attended the ceremony, with Van Halen having recently entered rehab.
By most accounts, Edward Lodewijk Van Halen was born in the Dutch city of Nijmegen on Jan. 26, 1955, to Jan and Eugenia (Beers) Van Halen.
His father, a struggling Dutch classical musician who played clarinet, saxophone and piano, met his Indonesian-born wife while on tour in Indonesia.
In 1962, when Van Halen was 7, his family relocated to the United States, driven away by prejudice against his mother and unfavorable work opportunities in the Netherlands. They settled in Pasadena. His mother worked as a maid, his father as a janitor while seeking work as a musician.
Van Halen and his brother were trained on the piano before turning to rock, inspired by groups such as the Dave Clark Five and Cream, whose records Eddie slowed to a crawl to learn Clapton’s guitar solos note for note.
He had initially played the drums, making payments on his kit by working a paper route. Alex was taking guitar lessons at the time but picked up the sticks while Eddie was on the job; he soon surpassed his brother, leading them to trade instruments.
Eventually they formed a band called Mammoth, partnering with two fellow students at Pasadena City College, Anthony and Roth. The group became Van Halen in 1974, and within three years they had recorded a demo tape financed by Gene Simmons of Kiss and signed a contract with Warner Bros.
Their seminal early records included “Diver Down” (1982) and “1984” (1984), which featured “Jump” as well as the MTV standouts “Hot for Teacher” and “Panama.” It was followed by “5150” (1986), the first Hagar album and Van Halen’s first charttopping record.
After releasing one poorly received album with Cherone, “Van Halen III” (1998), the band regrouped in 2012 with “A Different Kind of Truth.” Roth was back on vocals, but Anthony was replaced by Van Halen’s son, Wolfgang, a bassist (named for Mozart) who joined the band at 15. Van Halen said it was the first time he had recorded an album sober.
In 2015, Van Halen embarked on his last major tour, joined by his brother, son and Roth, with whom he said he barely had a relationship.
His marriage to Bertinelli ended in divorce — in a memoir, she blamed drugs and infidelity on both of their parts.
In addition to his son and his brother, Van Halen is survived by his wife, Janie Liszewski, whom he married in 2009.