Eddie Van Halen, the guitar virtuoso whose blinding speed, control and innovation propelled his band Van Halen into one of hard rockās biggest groups, fueled the unmistakable fiery solo in Michael Jacksonās hit āBeat Itā and became elevated to the status of rock god, has died. He was 65.
The rock legendās son Wolfgang Van Halen announced the news on Twitter.
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āI canāt believe Iām having to write this, but my father, Edward Lodewijk Van Halen, has lost his long and arduous battle with cancer this morning,ā wrote Wolfgang Van Halen, who joined the band his father co-founded.
āHe was the best father I could ever ask for. Every moment Iāve shared with him on and off stage was a gift.ā
— Wolf Van Halen (@WolfVanHalen) October 6, 2020
TMZ first reported Van Halenās passing, saying he died in Santa Monica, Calif., with his wife Janie was by his side.
With his distinct solos, Eddie Van Halen fueled the ultimate California party band and helped knock disco off the charts starting in the late 1970s with his bandās self-titled debut album and then with the blockbuster record ā1984,ā which contains the classics āJump,ā āPanamaā and āHot for Teacher.ā
Van Halen is among the top 20 best-selling artists of all time and the band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2007. Rolling Stone magazine put Eddie Van Halen at No. 8 in its list of the 100 greatest guitarists.
Eddie Van Halen was something of a musical contradiction. He was an autodidact who could play almost any instrument, but he couldnāt read music. He was a classically trained pianist who also created some of the most distinctive guitar riffs in rock history. He was a Dutch immigrant who was considered one of the greatest American guitarists of his generation.
āYou changed our world. You were the Mozart of rock guitar. Travel safe rockstar,ā Motley Crueās Nikki Sixx said on Twitter.
FILE - *Van Halen is seen in Los Angeles, Jan. 17, 1993. Members of Van Halen, from left, left, Michael Anthony, bass guitar, Sammy Hagar, lead singer, Alex Van Halen, drums, and Eddie Van Halen, lead guitar appear in Los Angeles on Jan. 17, 1993. Eddie Van Halen, who had battled cancer, died Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2020. He was 65. (AP Photo/Kevork Djansezian, File)
The members of Van Halen ā the two Van Halen brothers, Eddie and Alex; vocalist David Lee Roth; and bassist Michael Anthony ā formed in 1974 in Pasadena, California. They were members of rival high school bands and then attended Pasad
ena City College together. They combined to form the band Mammoth, but then changed to Van Halen after discovering there was another band called Mammoth.
Their 1978 release āVan Halenā opened with a blistering āRunnin' With the Devilā and then Eddie Van Halen showed off his astonishing skills in the next song, āEruption,ā a furious 1:42 minute guitar solo that swoops and soars like a deranged bird. The album also contained a cover of the Kinks' āYou Really Got Meā and āAināt Talkin' 'Bout Love.ā
Mike McCready of Pearl Jam told Rolling Stone magazine that listening to Van Halenās āEruptionā was like hearing Mozart for the first time. āHe gets sounds that arenāt necessarily guitar sounds ā a lot of harmonics, textures that happen just because of how he picks.ā
Van Halen released albums on a yearly timetable ā āVan Halen IIā (1979), āWomen and Children Firstā (1980), āFair Warningā (1981) and āDiver Downā (1982) ā until the monumental ā1984,ā which hit No. 2 on the Billboard 200 album charts (only behind Michael Jacksonās āThrillerā). Rolling Stone ranked ā1984ā No. 81 on its list of the 100 Greatest Albums of the 1980s.
āEddie put the smile back in rock guitar, at a time when it was all getting a bit brooding. He also scared the hell out of a million guitarists around the world, because he was so damn good. And original,ā Joe Satriani, a fellow virtuoso, told Billboard in 2015.
Van Halen also played guitar on one of the biggest singles of the 1980s: Jacksonās āBeat It.ā His solo lasted all of 20 seconds and took only a half an hour to record. He did it as a favor to producer Quincy Jones, while the rest of his Van Halen bandmates were out of town.
Van Halen received no compensation or credit for the work, even though he rearranged the section he played on. āIt was 20 minutes of my life. I didnāt want anything for doing that,ā he told Billboard in 2015. āI literally thought to myself, āWho is possibly going to know if I play on this kidās record?āā Rolling Stone ranked āBeat Itā No. 344 on its list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. Jacksonās melding of hard rock and R&B preceded the meeting of Run-DMC and Aerosmith by four years.
But strains between Roth and the band erupted after their 1984 world tour and Roth left. The group then recruited Sammy Hagar as lead singer āsome critics called the new formulation āVan Hagarā ā and the band went on to score its first No. 1 album with ā5150,ā More studio albums followed, including āOU812,ā āFor Unlawful Carnal Knowledgeā and āBalance.ā Hit singles included āWhy Canāt This Be Loveā and āWhen Itās Love.ā
Hagar was ousted in 1996 and former Extreme singer Gary Cherone stepped in for the album āVan Halen III,ā a stumble that didnāt lead to another album and the quick departure of Cherone. Roth would eventually return in 2007 and team up with the Van Halen brothers and Wolfgang Van Halen, Eddieās son, on bass for a tour, the album āA Different Kind of Truthā and the 2015 album āTokyo Dome Live in Concert.ā
Van Halenās music has appeared in films as varied as āSuperbad,ā āMinionsā and āSingā as well as TV shows like āGleeā and āItās Always Sunny in Philadelphia.ā Video games such as āGran Turismo 4ā and āGuitar Heroā have used his riffs. Their song āJamieās Cryinā was sampled by rapper Tone Loc in his hit āWild Thing.ā
For much of his career, Eddie Van Halen wrote and experimented with sounds while drunk or high or both. He revealed that he would stay in his hotel room drinking vodka and snorting cocaine while playing into a tape recorder. (Hagarās 2011 autobiography āRed: My Uncensored Life in Rockā portrays Eddie as a violent, booze-addled vampire, living inside a garbage-strewn house.)
āI didnāt drink to party,ā Van Halen told Billboard. āAlcohol and cocaine were private things to me. I would use them for work. The blow keeps you awake and the alcohol lowers your inhibitions. Iām sure there were musical things I would not have attempted were I not in that mental state.ā
Eddie Van Halen was born in Amsterdam and his family immigrated to California in 1962 when he was 7. His father was a big band clarinetist who rarely found work after coming to the U.S., and their mother was a maid who had dreams of her sons being classical pianists. The Van Halens shared a house with three other families. Eddie and Alex had only each other, a tight relationship that flowed through their music.
āWe showed up here with the equivalent of $50 and a piano,ā Eddie Van Halen told The Associated Press in 2015. āWe came halfway around the world without money, without a set job, no place to live and couldnāt even speak the language.ā
He said his earliest memories of music were banging pots and pans together, marching to John Philip Sousa marches. At one point, Eddie got a drum set, which his older brother coveted.
āI never wanted to play guitar,ā he confessed at a talk at the Smithsonianās National Museum of American History in 2015. But his brother was good at the drums, so Eddie gave into his brotherās wishes: āI said, āGo ahead, take my drums. Iāll play your damn guitar.āā
He was a relentless experimenter who would solder different parts from different guitar-makers, including Gibson and Fender. He created his own graphic design for his guitars by adding tape to the instruments and then spray-painting them. He said his influences were Eric Clapton, and Jimi Hendrix.
Van Halen, sober since 2008, lost one-third of his tongue to a cancer that eventually drifted into his esophagus. In 1999, he had a hip replacement. He was married twice, to actress Valerie Bertinelli from 1981 to 2007 and then to stuntwoman-turned-publicist Janie Liszewski, whom he wed in 2009.