Van Halen

Van Halen were two things at once, and both of them enormous.

On one side, the most fun and dazzling rock band of the eighties: pure party, energy, smiles, and music that was impossible to hear without feeling good.

And on the other, the vehicle for one of the most influential musicians of the century: Eddie Van Halen, the guitarist who changed what could be done with an electric guitar.

Behind the party there was a revolutionary.

Fifty dollars and a piano

We have to start with him, because he is the heart of everything.

Eddie and his older brother Alex were born in Amsterdam, sons of Jan Van Halen, a professional Dutch musician —clarinettist, saxophonist and pianist—, and of Eugenia van Beers, born in Java, in what was then the Dutch colony of Indonesia.

The family arrived in California in 1962 with about fifty dollars and a piano. And there is one detail that gives you the measure of it: Jan, who was a real musician, had to work in the United States as a janitor and washing dishes, and played at night.

Both brothers studied classical piano from an early age. Eddie took first place at a Long Beach college's annual piano competition several years running, between 1964 and 1967. And there is a lovely irony in that: he never learned to read music. He listened to recordings of Bach and Mozart and worked them out by ear, improvising whatever he could not remember. The judges praised his "interesting interpretation".

Then came the swap that decided everything: Eddie had started on drums and Alex on guitar, until Eddie heard his brother play the "Wipe Out" solo better than he could. He handed over the drums and kept the guitar.

The band formed in 1972 and went through two names —Genesis first, Mammoth after— before settling on the brothers' surname, in 1974, when David Lee Roth came in as vocalist and Michael Anthony on bass.

A hundred seconds that changed the instrument

In 1978, on the band's first album, there is an instrumental of one minute and forty-two seconds called "Eruption". They recorded it in a single afternoon, almost by accident: the producer heard him warming up and told him to put it down.

That minute and a half changed music.

It is worth saying it precisely, because it usually gets told wrong: Eddie did not invent tapping. Playing the guitar by hammering the strings with both hands, as if it were a piano, had already been done before by Harvey Mandel, Steve Hackett and Frank Zappa, among others.

What Eddie did was put it into the vocabulary of mass-audience rock, and do it with such brilliance that from then on it became compulsory. The result was cascades of impossible notes, blindingly fast, sounds nobody had heard on a rock record.

Mike McCready, of Pearl Jam, has said that he heard it at eleven years old at his guitar teacher's house, and that it sounded as if it came from another planet: it was glorious, he said, like hearing Mozart for the first time.

A whole generation of guitarists rushed to copy him. None of them matched him, because what could not be copied was not the technique, it was the joy.

The party band

But Van Halen were not just the Eddie show.

With David Lee Roth out front —an unleashed showman, charismatic, clown and star at the same time—, Michael Anthony on bass and Alex on drums, the band was a fun machine: "Runnin' with the Devil", "Ain't Talkin' 'bout Love", "Dance the Night Away".

In 1984 came their peak, with the album of that name and with "Jump", their most famous song. And there is something delicious there: the riff everybody knows is not a guitar, it is an Oberheim synthesiser. Eddie had had that line written for years and the band had turned it down; the producer rescued it. It was Van Halen's only number one in the United States, and it stayed there five weeks.

The album reached number two and spent five weeks in that position. For three of them, what kept it from rising was "Thriller", by Michael Jackson.

Which is funny, because Eddie was playing on that album.

The gift

And here comes one of the best facts in rock.

In 1982, producer Quincy Jones needed a rock solo for "Beat It", a song with which Michael Jackson wanted to cross pop with rock. He called Eddie Van Halen, who at first thought it was a prank call.

Eddie took advantage of his bandmates being away —"who is going to find out that I played on this kid's record?"— and broke the band's internal rule about not doing collaborations.

He recorded it in two takes, in under half an hour, and charged nothing. More than that: he asked not to be credited, and in the original edition the credit for the solo was, literally, a question mark.

And he did not just play: he restructured the track. He asked for the solo to sit over the verse, with the chords changing underneath, instead of over the chorus, which meant the backing had to be re-recorded.

That solo helped make "Beat It" one of the best-selling singles in history and helped break the barrier between rock and pop on MTV. The best rock guitarist of the moment gave his genius away to the best pop artist of the moment, for free, and between them they changed music.

Pure Eddie: he did it for the music, not for the money.

Comings, goings and the end

The band's story had everything. David Lee Roth left in 1985 —he says he left, others say he was pushed, and the versions never matched—. Sammy Hagar replaced him, and he too left in 1996 and came back for a while. Michael Anthony was pushed aside in 2006, and his place was taken by Wolfgang, Eddie's son, who was fifteen at the time.

Fights, reunions, the classic rock soap opera. But above all the drama there was always Eddie's guitar.

Eddie fought cancer for twenty years: tongue first, in 2000, which forced him to have a third of it removed; then throat and lung. He died on 6 October 2020, at sixty-five, of a stroke, with all that history behind him.

The music world stopped to mourn him. It was not just another guitarist who had gone: the man who had taught the electric guitar to do new things had gone.

What to remember

Van Halen are proof that fun and genius are not at odds: you can be the band that makes a whole stadium dance and, at the same time, change the history of an instrument.

Put on "Eruption", "Jump", "Panama" or "Ain't Talkin' 'bout Love", and you will hear pure, happy rock, and you will hear a guitarist who made the guitar sound the way nobody had made it sound before.

Eddie Van Halen played with a smile, and you can hear that smile.

He was a revolutionary who did not look like one, because instead of turning serious and solemn, he played like a happy child with the best toy in the world. He gave rock joy and he gave the guitar a new language.

Few people leave a mark that big while smiling that much.

Sources

Van Halen, American hard rock band formed in Pasadena, California, in 1972 by brothers Eddie (guitar) and Alex Van Halen (drums), born in Amsterdam; the group was first called Genesis and then Mammoth, and took the name Van Halen in 1974, when vocalist David Lee Roth and bassist Michael Anthony joined, the latter replacing Mark Stone. Their parents were Jan Van Halen, a professional Dutch musician —clarinet, saxophone and piano—, who in the United States worked as a janitor and dishwasher, and Eugenia van Beers, an Indo-Dutch woman born in Java; the family arrived in California in 1962 with about 50 dollars and a piano. Eddie and Alex studied classical piano and Eddie took first place in the annual piano competition at Long Beach City College between 1964 and 1967, despite never having learned to read music. The brothers swapped instruments after Eddie heard Alex play the "Wipe Out" solo. The instrumental "Eruption" (1:42), recorded on 8 September 1977 at Sunset Sound and released on the debut album "Van Halen" (1978), popularised two-handed tapping in mass-audience rock, although the technique had precedents in Roy Smeck, Emmett Chapman, Harvey Mandel, Steve Hackett and Frank Zappa. Mike McCready, of Pearl Jam, wrote for Rolling Stone's list of the 100 greatest guitarists that hearing "Eruption" at eleven years old "sounded like it came from another planet… it was glorious, like hearing Mozart for the first time". The "Jump" riff was played on an Oberheim OB-Xa synthesiser; the single reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 on 25 February 1984 and stayed there five weeks, the band's only number one. The album "1984" reached number two on the Billboard 200 and remained five weeks in that position, three of them behind "Thriller" by Michael Jackson and the rest behind the "Footloose" soundtrack. In 1982, at Quincy Jones's request, Eddie recorded the "Beat It" solo in two takes and in under half an hour, without charging and asking not to be credited —in the original edition the credit appeared as a question mark—; he also proposed restructuring the track so that the solo sat over the verse. David Lee Roth left the band in 1985, in circumstances on which the accounts differ; Sammy Hagar replaced him that same year and left in June 1996; Michael Anthony was pushed aside in 2006 and replaced by Wolfgang Van Halen. Eddie Van Halen died on 6 October 2020, at 65: his death certificate records a stroke as the immediate cause, with pneumonia, myelodysplastic syndrome and lung cancer as underlying causes, as well as squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck; he had been treated for tongue cancer in 2000. Externally authored text, edited and verified for Rebobinados. Interpretations of the meaning of their work are offered as the author's reading. No song lyrics are reproduced, for copyright reasons. Information drawn from Wikipedia, Billboard, Rolling Stone, Guitar Player, Consequence and other press coverage.