Guitarist Eddie Van Halen, a rock legend who founded Van Halen together with his brother Alex in 1972, died at the age of 65. The death occurred at St. John’s Hospital in Santa Monica, California, after a long battle with throat cancer. Eddie’s condition had worsened in the past 72 hours after the tumor had spread to his brain and other organs.
“I can’t believe I have to write it, but my father Edward Lodewijk Van Halen lost his long and difficult battle with cancer this morning,” his son Wolfgang wrote in his post. “He was the best father I could ask for. Every moment I shared with him, on and off the stage, was a gift. I’m heartbroken and I don’t think I’ll ever fully recover from this loss.”
Eddie Van Halen, a rock legend
A rock legend dies with Eddie Van Halen. Easy to fall into error with these definitions, but Eddie Van Halen was already a legend. He was a guitarist and a composer capable of marking an era, changing a style, inventing a new one and attracting entire generations.
Dutch, born in Nijmegen in 1955, but naturalized American – his family moved in 1962 to Pasadena, California -, over the years he has entered all the charts of the best rock guitarists. His style, his way of playing the guitar with two hands, was instrumental in the evolution of hard rock in the late seventies. He had an absolute command of the electric guitar, despite never having learned to read music.
“I don’t know anything about musical scales”
“I don’t know anything about scales or musical theories,” he said in an interview with Rolling Stone in 1980. “I don’t want to be seen as the fastest guitar in town, ready to destroy any competitor. What I do know is that a guitar rock, or blues, should be melody, speed and taste. But more important than anything else is that it has to convey emotions. I just want my guitar to play to make people feel happy, or sad, or maybe excited. “
Born a year and a half after his brother Alex, Eddie starts playing the piano, then the drums, until his brother gives him a try on his guitar. He was 12, and he tries out the first chords. A love at first sight that leads the two to found a band destined to change the history of rock forever. Their first album arrives in 1978, in a musical climate dominated by disco, punk and many sentimental songwriters.
1978: Van Halen, a revolution
The sound of “Van Halen”, the group’s debut album, rethinks hard rock and ferries it towards heavy metal. A brand new, bright and powerful sound. It takes the world of music little to realize that this was what rock fans were asking for at the time. 10 million copies sold and pride of place among rock albums of all time. Their career had just begun. It would last another 4 decades, reaching 80 million copies sold worldwide, with worldwide hits like ‘Jump’ in 1984.
But in that debut album there were already all the elements of the Van Halen revolution. In each song Eddie Van Halen manages to snatch unreleased sounds from his guitar that previously seemed simply impossible. Eruption, the second track of the album, is still his performance that most thrills those who have appreciated his music; a 1 and a half minute solo with musical spirals at the limits of the possible.
Research and innovation: the Frankestrat
From that sound, from that way of treating the strings of the guitar, an enormous, tireless work emerges. Eddie Van Halen with those performances actually raises the bar of hard rock guitarists and starts a sound revolution. The young Eddie becomes very envied by his colleagues, and soon he is given the nickname of the sexiest guitarist in the Californian scene. Almost a mockery to diminish his skill. Many then were forced to follow him, imitate him.
Eddie Van Halen was just a great composer, a great guitarist. Behind his work, his innovations, there was a powerful research work. For that debut album, like many others after, he decides to use a guitar of his own invention. The Frankestrat: Eddie loved the silhouette of the Fender Stratocaster, but he wanted it to sound like a Gibson. A thicker sounding Strat then, made with leftover pieces from other guitars.
And this guitar if he creates it, builds it tailored to his needs. Research, study and innovation have made Eddie Van Halen a rock legend. Over the years he has climbed all the heavy metal charts. For the magazine Guitar World he is the third best guitarist of all time, after Jimi Hendix and Jimmy Page. Rolling Stone places it in eighth. A milestone for all.
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Thank you Eddie Van Halen – you reinvented what it was to be a guitar hero. My sincere condolences to his family.