| Initially,
Alex began playing the guitar, while Eddie played
the drums. According to Van Halen lore, while
Eddie was delivering newspapers to pay for his
drum kit, Alex would practice playing on them.
It was when Eddie heard Alex's mastery of the
Surfaris drum solo in the song Wipe Out that Eddie
decided to switch and begin learning how to play
the electric guitar.
Eddie
was around age twelve when he first started
to learn guitar. He was so committed to playing
the guitar, that he played it all day, everyday.
Sometimes, he would even skip school to stay
at home and practice. By 14, he had learned
almost every Cream solo of Eric Clapton "note
for note", though in other interviews he
claims that in fact he could never learn to
play the solos precisely, and would therefore
modify them to suit his style. In an April,
1996, interview with Guitar World, when asked
about how he went from playing his first open
G chord, to playing "Eruption", he
simply replied " Practice. I used to sit
on the edge of my bed with a six-pack of Schlitz
Malt talls. My brother would go out at 7 P.M.
to party and get laid, and when he'd come back
at 3 A.M., I would still be sitting in the same
place, playing guitar. I did that for years--I
still do that."
Formation
of Van Halen
In the burgeoning Los Angeles rock scene of
mid-1970s, Van Halen's band was called Mammoth.
After finding out that this name was taken,
David Lee Roth suggested calling the band Van
Halen. KISS bassist Gene Simmons produced a
demo tape, but Simmons' KISS commitments --
as well as that band's growing internal problems
-- led Simmons to regretfully sever his professional
ties with Van Halen when Warner Brothers became
interested in the band.
Innovation
Van Halen's self-titled debut album was released
on February 10, 1978 and almost immediately
recognized as a ground-breaking record.
Sound
and technique
Edward Van Halen's famous "brown sound"
(derived from the use of a stock 100-watt Marshall
amp, a few effects, a variac to lower the voltage
of the amp to 89 volts to get high gain distortion
at lower volumes, and a "Frankenstein"
guitar Van Halen constructed using a vintage
Gibson humbucker pickup mounted in a cheap body
with an unfinished maple neck and fingerboard),
his innovative two-handed tapping techniques,
dazzling speed, and unparalleled rhythmic sensibility
influenced an entire generation of guitarists.
While
his prowess as a stunning soloist is well established,
Van Halen is also among the greatest rhythm
guitarists in rock history. Though he did not
originate the two-handed tapping technique,
Van Halen has credited Jimmy Page's guitar solo
from the song "Heartbreaker" (Led
Zeppelin II) as the inspiration for developing
it. Soon after, Van Halen developed a variety
of innovative two-handed techniques, which became
a cornerstone of his personal style.
In
support of this unusual method of playing, Van
Halen also holds a patent for a flip-out support
device which attaches to the rear of the electric
guitar. This device enables the user to play
the guitar in a manner similar to the piano
by orienting the face of the guitar upward instead
of forward.
Tuning
Though rarely discussed, one of the most distinctive
aspects of Van Halen's sound was Eddie Van Halen's
tuning of the guitar. Before Van Halen, most
distorted, metal-oriented rock consciously avoided
the use of the major third interval in guitar
chords, creating instead the signature power
chord of the genre. When run through a distorted
amplifier, the rapid beating of the major third
on a conventionally tuned guitar is distracting
and somewhat dissonant. Van Halen developed
a technique of flatting his B string slightly
so that the interval between the open G and
B is a perfect, beatless third. This consonant
third was almost unheard of in distorted-guitar
rock, and allowed Van Halen to use major chords
in a way that mixed classic hard rock power
with "happy" pop. The effect is pronounced
on songs such as "Runnin' With the Devil",
"Unchained", and "Where Have
All the Good Times Gone?".
With
the B string flatted the correct amount, chords
in some positions on the guitar have perfect
thirds, but in other positions the flat B string
creates terribly out of tune intervals. Van
Halen is quoted as saying, "...the guitar...
is just theoretically built wrong. Because every
string — the intervals are fourths, except
for from G to B, which is a third, and it's
always that damn B string that fucks it up.
So I always tune it a little bit flat, and then
when I need it in tune, I just bend it up. Because
once it's sharp, you can't make it flat! Over
the years, you know, it's just a feel thing,
you develop a feel for when you hit a certain
chord, you know how to manipulate the string
to make it in tune."
Despite
his wording above, Van Halen does not flat the
B string for everything. "The B string
is always [difficult] to keep in tune all the
time! So I have to retune for certain songs.
And when I use the Floyd onstage, I have to
unclamp it and do it real quick. But with a
standard-vibrato guitar, I can tune it while
I'm playing." (Here he was referring to
an early version of the Floyd Rose system, which
had no fine tuners on the bridge.)
Use
of Floyd Rose system
Van Halen was also key in the development of
the Floyd Rose double-locking fulcrum vibrato
system for electric guitars. Frustrated with
the Fender-style vibrato system's inability
to stay in tune under heavy use, Eddie Van Halen
went on to collaborate with Floyd Rose on improvements
to Rose's device. Among Van Halen's suggestions
were the supplemental tuner knobs on the vibrato
unit itself which allow the player to fine-tune
the pitch of the guitar after the string locking
clamps were enabled; these fine-tuners are now
a integral feature on Floyd Rose-type vibrato
systems. Though Rose incorporated many of Van
Halen's suggestions, he was slow to give credit
for the guitarist's technical contributions,
ultimately resulting in a degree of animosity
between the two former collaborators.
More
recently, Van Halen designed and patented the
D-Tuna device, which enables a player to quickly
detune the lowest string on a Floyd Rose vibrato-equipped
guitar down a full step, extending the effective
tonal range of the guitar. Ever practical, Van
Halen plays with a non-floating tremolo configuration
that allows lowering of pitch only; he shuns
the full floating configuration due to its inherent
lack of tuning stability. The floating tremolo
configuration is particularly susceptible to
tuning degradation when a broken string sets
the unit into imbalance on its pivot point;
typically, the tuning will go sharp from the
loss of tension previously supplied by the broken
string. To counter this, Van Halen's tremolo
unit is configured to rest on the surface of
the guitar when not in use. This serves as a
stopping point for the fulcrum rotation, thereby
compensating for any loss of tension due to
a broken string.
Van
Halen's agility with guitar vibrato systems
is virtually unmatched; his recorded work with
the unique transposing TransTrem vibrato system
on the Steinberger line of guitars has yet to
be surpassed. Among Van Halen's peers, only
Steve Vai has similarly experimented with extending
the guitar's vocabulary with the vibrato unit,
although it can be argued that Vai's vibrato
antics are not as groundbreaking or revolutionary
as Van Halen's earliest pioneering efforts.
Expansion
Later Van Halen albums such as Fair Warning
and Diver Down displayed Eddie's prowess on
keyboards, which were featured most prominently
on the landmark album 1984, arguably the defining
rock and roll release of the 1980s.
Edward
Van Halen also played a role in getting R&B
videos played on MTV. He was called in by Quincy
Jones to play guitar on the song Beat It, from
Michael Jackson's famous 1982 album, "Thriller".
The combination of Jackson's pop sensibilities,
Quincy Jones' production and Van Halen's guitar
work melded several genres of music, and helped
each to find new fans. Concurrently, Van Halen's
song Jump was played in discos, inner-city R&B
clubs, and on rock radio.
Van
Halen did soundtrack work for movies such as
Back To The Future, Bill & Ted's Excellent
Adventure, Twister (film) and Wild Life, and
has recorded with Brian May, Jeff Porcaro, and
Thomas Dolby. He built his trademark red and
white striped "Frankenstrat" guitar
(originally black and white) by hand, using
an imperfect body and neck picked up (used)
at a discount.
Later
years
The 1990s and early-2000s proved to be a rough
time for Van Halen. He battled alcoholism, lost
his mother to cancer, was treated for tongue/mouth
cancer, had hip replacement surgery, and separated
from Valerie Bertinelli (whom he married in
1981), as his band split with their third lead
singer, Gary Cherone.
Van
Halen has one son, Wolfgang William Van Halen,
born March 16, 1991. He was named after Wolfgang
Amadeus Mozart, and nicknamed "Wolfie".
Wolfie has played at some of his father's concerts
on their 2004 reunion tour with Sammy Hagar.
Eddie named his line of signature Peavey Guitars
after his son, and between 1993 and 2004 was
also sponsored by Peavey Electronics to use
their 5150 Amplifiers, which he had a part in
designing. In 2004 the Peavey company and Eddie
split ways, and Eddie launched reissues of his
famous "Frankenstrat" guitars with
Charvel.
External
links
Official
Van Halen Website
Van
Halen News Desk (unofficial news of present
and former Van Halen band members)
Sources
April
1996 Guitar World Interview
The radio interview on Q 106.5
|
