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| Eddie Van Halen onstage in 1982 AP PhotosAdd caption |
NEW YORK (AP) — Eddie Van Halen, the guitar virtuoso whose blinding speed, control and innovation propelled his band Van Halen into one of hard rock’s biggest groups and became elevated to the status of rock god, has died. He was 65.
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| Legend has it that the name Van Halen, seen etched in concrete at the corner of Allen and Villa in Pasadena, Calif., was done by brothers Eddie and Alex Van Halen when they lived in Pasadena, Calif., in their younger years, where a sidewalk memorial has begun after Eddie's death from cancer at age 65, Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2020. Guitar virtuoso Eddie Van Halen is being mourned across the world of music. Artists from Lenny Kravitz to Kenny Chesney are honoring Van Halen, whose blinding speed, control and innovation propelled his band into one of hard rock's biggest groups. (AP Photo/Andrew Dalton) |
A person close to Van Halen’s family confirmed the rocker died Tuesday due to
cancer. The person was not authorized to publicly release details in advance
of an official announcement.
“He was the best father I could ask for,” Van Halen’s son Wolfgang wrote in a
social media post. “Every moment I’ve shared with him on and off stage was a
gift.”
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| FILE - In this Aug. 5, 2004 file photo, Van Halen guitarist Eddie Van Halen performs in Phoenix. Van Halen, who had battled mouth cancer, died Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2020. He was 65. (AP Photo/Tom Hood, File) |
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 band’s self-titled debut album and then with the blockbuster record “1984,” which contains the classics “Jump,” “Panama” and “Hot for Teacher.”
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.
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| FILE - This July 14, 1984 file photo shows Van Halen guitarist Eddie Van Halen, left, performing "Beat It" with Michael Jackson during Jackson's Victory Tour concert in Irving, Texas. Van Halen, who had battled cancer, died Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2020. He was 65. (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio, File) |
Eddie Van Halen was something of a musical contradiction. He was an autodidact who could play almost any instrument, but he couldn’t 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.
Honors came from the music world, from Lenny Kravitz to Kenny Chesney. “You
changed our world. You were the Mozart of rock guitar. Travel safe, rockstar,”
Motley Crue’s Nikki Sixx said on Twitter. Added Lenny Kravitz: “Heaven will be
electric tonight.”
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| FILE - Musician Eddie Van Halen poses with his "Frankenstein guitar" before the "What It Means to Be American" program at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History in Washington on Feb. 12, 2015. Van Halen, who had battled cancer, died Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2020. He was 65. (Photo by Owen Sweeney/Invision/AP, File) |
The members of Van Halen — the two Van Halen brothers, Eddie and Alex;
vocalist David Lee Roth; and bassist Michael Anthony — formed in 1974 in
Pasadena, California. They were members of rival high school bands and then
attended Pasadena 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 “Van Halen” opened with a blistering “Runnin’ With the
Devil” and then Eddie Van Halen showed off his astonishing skills in the next
song, “Eruption,” a furious 1:42 minute guitar solo that swoops and soars like
a deranged bird. The album also contained a cover of the Kinks’ “You Really
Got Me” and “Ain’t Talkin’ ’Bout Love.”
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| FILE- The rock group Van Halen, clockwise from left: Alex Van Halen, Eddie Van Halen, Michael Anthony and Sammy Hagar appear in a 1988 photo. Eddie Van Halen, who had battled cancer, died Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2020. He was 65. (AP Photo/File) |
Van Halen released albums on a yearly timetable — “Van Halen II” (1979),
“Women and Children First” (1980), “Fair Warning” (1981) and “Diver Down”
(1982) — until the monumental “1984,” which hit No. 2 on the Billboard 200
album charts (only behind Michael Jackson’s “Thriller”). Rolling Stone ranked
“1984” No. 81 on its list of the 100 Greatest Albums of the 1980s.
“Eddie 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,” Joe Satriani, a fellow
virtuoso, told Billboard in 2015.
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| FILE - David Lee Roth, left, and Eddie Van Halen of Van Halen perform on Aug. 13, 2015, in Wantagh, N.Y. Van Halen, who had battled cancer, died Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2020. He was 65. (Photo by Greg Allen/Invision/AP, File) |
Van Halen also played guitar on one of the biggest singles of the 1980s:
Jackson’s “Beat It.” 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. “It was 20 minutes of my life. I didn’t
want anything for doing that,” he told Billboard in 2015. “I literally thought
to myself, ‘Who is possibly going to know if I play on this kid’s record?’”
Rolling Stone ranked “Beat It” No. 344 on its list of the 500 Greatest Songs
of All Time. Jackson’s melding of hard rock and R&B preceded the meeting
of Run-DMC and Aerosmith by four years.
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| FILE - Eddie Van Halen of Van Halen performs on Aug. 13, 2015, in Wantagh, N.Y. Van Halen, who had battled cancer, died Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2020. He was 65. (Photo by Greg Allen/Invision/AP, File) |
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 —some critics
called the new formulation “Van Hagar” — and the band went on to score its
first No. 1 album with “5150,” More studio albums followed, including “OU812,”
“For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge” and “Balance.” Hit singles included “Why Can’t
This Be Love” and “When It’s Love.”
Hagar was ousted in 1996 and former Extreme singer Gary Cherone stepped in for
the album “Van Halen III,” a stumble that didn’t 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 on bass for a tour, the
album “A Different Kind of Truth” and the 2015 album “Tokyo Dome Live in
Concert.”
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| FILE - Valerie Bertinelli, left, arrives at the premiere of the film "America's Sweethearts" with husband Eddie Van Halen in Los Angeles on July 17, 2001. Van Halen, who had battled cancer, died Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2020. He was 65. (AP Photo/Kevork Djansezian, File) |
Van Halen’s music has appeared in films as varied as “Superbad,” “Minions” and
“Sing” as well as TV shows like “Glee” and “It’s Always Sunny in
Philadelphia.” Video games such as “Gran Turismo 4” and “Guitar Hero” have
used his riffs. Their song “Jamie’s Cryin” was sampled by rapper Tone Loc in
his hit “Wild Thing.”
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.
(Hagar’s 2011 autobiography “Red: My Uncensored Life in Rock” portrays Eddie
as a violent, booze-addled vampire, living inside a garbage-strewn house.)
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| FILE - Musician Eddie Van Halen and his wife Janie Liszewski attend the Esquire 80th Anniversary and Network Launch Event in New York on Sept. 17, 2013. Van Halen, who had battled cancer, died Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2020. He was 65. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP, File) |
“I didn’t drink to party,” Van Halen told Billboard. “Alcohol and cocaine were private things to me. I would use them for work. The blow keeps you awake and the alcohol lowers your inhibitions. I’m sure there were musical things I would not have attempted were I not in that mental state.”
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.
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| 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) |
“We showed up here with the equivalent of $50 and a piano,” Eddie Van Halen
told The Associated Press in 2015. “We came halfway around the world without
money, without a set job, no place to live and couldn’t even speak the
language.”
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.
“I never wanted to play guitar,” he confessed at a talk at the Smithsonian’s
National Museum of American History in 2015. But his brother was good at the
drums, so Eddie gave into his brother’s wishes: “I said, ‘Go ahead, take my
drums. I’ll play your damn guitar.’”
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| FILE - In this June 22, 2004, file photo, Eddie Van Halen plays the final chord of "Jump" during the Van Halen concert at the Continental Airlines Arena in East Rutherford, N,.J. Eddie Van Halen, the guitar virtuoso whose blinding speed, control and innovation propelled his band Van Halen into one of hard rock’s biggest groups, died Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2020. Van Halen, who had battled cancer, was 65. (John Munson/NJ Advance Media via AP) |
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.
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| FILE - Eddie Van Halen, left, embraces his son Wolfgang Van Halen after the rock group Van Halen officially announced their North American tour during a news conference in Los Angeles on Aug. 13, 2007. Eddie Van Halen, who had battled cancer, died Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2020. He was 65. (AP Photo/Kevork Djansezian, File) |
“I’m so grateful Wolfie and I were able to hold you in your last moments,”
Bertinelli wrote on Instagram, showing an image of their baby son. “I will see
you in our next life.”
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AP Music Editor Mesfin Fekadu contributed to this report.
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