Guitarist Eddie Van Halen dies of cancer at 65
Pioneering style fueled his namesake band
Family and fans mourned the loss of the Van Halen co-founder. “My heart is broken,” his son posted on Twitter.
Eddie Van Halen, legendary guitarist and co-founder of rock band Van Halen, died of cancer at 65.
His son, Wolfgang, confirmed the news on Twitter on Tuesday.
“I can’t believe I’m having to write this, but my father, Edward Lodewijk Van Halen, has lost his long and arduous battle with cancer this morning,” he said. “He was the best father I could ever ask for. Every moment I’ve shared with him on and off stage was a gift.
“My heart is broken and I don’t think I’ll ever fully recover from his loss. I love you so much, Pop.”
Eddie was something of a musical contradiction. He was an autodidact who could play almost any instrument, but he couldn’t read music. He was a classically trained pianist who created some of the most distinctive guitar riffs in rock history.
Born in Amsterdam, Van Halen moved to Pasadena, California, with his family in 1962. He and his brother, drummer Alex Van Halen, took piano lessons and started making music together when they were 6. As they got older, they played gigs around Los Angeles and formed a band in the early 1970s.
With singer David Lee Roth and bassist Michael Anthony, they released their self-titled debut album in 1978. The album opened with the blistering “Runnin’ With the Devil” and showed off Eddie’s astonishing skills in the next song, “Eruption,” a furious 1:42-minute guitar solo that swoops and soars like a deranged bird.
Van Halen released albums on a yearly timetable until the monumental “1984,” which hit No. 2 on the Billboard 200 album charts (behind Michael Jackson’s “Thriller”). Rolling Stone ranked “1984” No. 81 on its list of the 100 Greatest Albums of the 1980s.
The band released 12 studio albums, most recently “A Different Kind of Truth “in 2012.
Eddie created his own guitars because of the demands of his playing, which included dive-bomb tremolo blasts, finger-tapped arpeggios and a snare-drum-snappy tone.
“In the past, guitars with my name on them weren’t as good as my own,” Van Halen told USA TODAY in 2009.
Van Halen topped the Billboard Hot 100 chart once in 1984 with signature song “Jump.” They scored other hits throughout the ’ 80s and early ’ 90s, including “Hot for Teacher,” “Panama,” “Why Can’t This Be Love” and “Finish What Ya Started.”
Eddie’s philosophy on music stayed largely the same throughout his career: Don’t chase hits.
“That’s the worst thing that can happen to you, chasing after a No. 1 hit,” he
“He was the best father I could ever ask for. Every moment I’ve shared with him on and off stage was a gift.” Wolfgang Van Halen
said in 1994. “So many bands go, ‘We need a song like this. This is hot now.’ We’ve never worked like that. We just do what we want to.”
Eddie struggled with cancer on and off for two decades. In 2000, he started treatment for tongue cancer and had part of his tongue removed the next year. He was declared cancer-free in 2002. “I’m not in remission; the cancer is gone,” he told Guitar World in 2004. “There is nothing that can keep me down.”
In 1981, Eddie married actress Valerie Bertinelli, whom he met backstage at a Van Halen concert. The couple divorced in 2007. Their son, Wolfgang, 29, replaced Anthony on bass and began touring with Van Halen in 2007.
In 2009, Eddie married stuntwoman and publicist Janie Liszewski.
Outside his work with Van Halen, Eddie recorded the guitar solo in Michael Jackson’s “Beat It,” from the 1982 album “Thriller.”
“I did it as a favor,” Eddie told Rolling Stone in 1984”
Van Halen is among the top 20 bestselling artists of all time and the band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2007. Rolling Stone magazine put Eddie at No. 8 in its list of the 100 greatest guitarists.