EDWARD VAN HALEN BIOGRAPHY

Childhood

Edward Van Halen was born to Jan Van Halen, a Dutch father, and Eugenia, a Javanese mother, in Amsterdam, Netherlands and spent his early childhood in Nijmegen in the east of the country. The Dutch Van Halen family moved to Pasadena, California, United States, from the Netherlands in 1962. Edward immediately started classical piano training, and won several talent competitions as a child. Upon their arrival in United States, his parents immediately sought a piano tutor for him and his older brother, Alex Van Halen.

However, playing the piano, did not prove sufficiently engaging - he once said in an interview, "Who wants to sit in front of the piano? That's boring." Consequently, whilst Alex began playing the guitar, Eddie bought a drum kit and began practicing drumming. According to Eddie, while he was delivering newspapers (to pay for his drum kit) Alex would practice on it. After Eddie heard Alex's performance of the The Surfaris' drum solo in the song "Wipe Out", he grew annoyed that his brother had overtaken his ability and decided to switch and begin learning how to play the electric guitar.

Eddie was approximately twelve years old when he started playing guitar, and practiced constantly.He has stated that he would often walk around at home with his guitar strapped on and unplugged, practicing. He once claimed that he had learned almost all of Eric Clapton's solos in the band Cream "note for note" by age 14; in later interviews he stated he could never play the solos precisely, instead he would modify them slightly to suit his style.

In April 1996, in an interview with Guitar World, when asked about how he went from playing his first open A chord to playing "Eruption", Eddie 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 7pm to party and get laid, and when he'd come back at 3am, I would still be sitting in the same place, playing guitar. I did that for years — I still do that.

”

Eddie has many influences; most notably Eric Clapton, however he has also acknowledged the influence of Queen guitarist Brian May and fusion guitarist Allan Holdsworth as well as the likes of Montrose guitarist Ronnie Montrose.

Van Halen formation

Van Halen, originally called "Mammoth," was formed in 1972 in Pasadena, California, United States. The band consisted of Eddie Van Halen on guitar and vocals, his brother, Alex on drums, and bassist Mark Stone. They had no P.A. system of their own, so they rented one from David Lee Roth (who had auditioned for the band, but failed) - a service for which he charged $50 a night. Eddie quickly became frustrated singing lead vocals, and decided they could save money by letting Roth into the band. Soon, Michael Anthony replaced Mark Stone on bass. They opted to change the name of the band, reportedly due to another band operating with the same name - Roth is normally attributed with suggesting the name 'Van Halen'. Roth stated "If you name a band "Electric Blotz" in two years you are expected to play electric blotz." Naming a band after a person [or people] does not have limits.

In 1977 Gene Simmons saw one of Van Halen's shows and subsequently financed their first demo tape, flying the band to Electric Ladyland studios in New York to record "House of Pain" and "Runnin' With the Devil". Eddie disliked his playing on the demo, because he wasn't using his own equipment, and had to overdub guitar parts (which he had never done before.)

In 1977, Van Halen was offered a recording contract with Warner Bros. Records. Later that year, they recorded their first album, "Van Halen", which was released on February 10, 1978.

info : wikipedia