As if you didn’t already hate 2020 enough! This one is a monumental loss, not just among rockers but music fans in general. One of the guitar heroes that the mainstream *has* heard of, and an influence on everybody – and I mean, *everybody* who has ever picked up an electric guitar since 1978. The tributes that have flooded in from performers from right across the musical spectrum testify to that, as did every one of my social media feeds – within an hour of hearing this news, everybody shut up about Covid-19, politics, Brexit or whatever and posted messages, pictures, video clips all paying respects to Eddie Van Halen. It really does feel like the end of an era, this is the guy who redefined almost single-handedly the use of guitar in rock music.
Edward and brother Alex Van Halen formed the band in 1972, going through a couple of name changes before settling on using their own surname in 1974. By then bassist Michael Anthony had completed the line-up, alongside flamboyant lead singer David Lee Roth. The band caught the attention of Gene Simmons from KISS, who was impressed by their show and, after producing a demo, attempted (unsuccessfully) to get them signed to his band’s management. Eventually they were picked up by Warner Bros and recorded their debut album with producer Ted Templeman. A support slot to Black Sabbath (then in their final throes with Ozzy Osbourne) brought them to wider attention in both the US and the UK, with audiences used to the doomy, grinding guitar sound of Tony Iommi were astonished by this newcomer who popularised the ‘finger-tap’ technique and introduced it to hard rock.
From there on the band went from strength to strength; the debut included many songs which became classic rock staples such as ‘Ain’t Talkin’ Bout Love’, ‘Runnin’ With The Devil’ and of course the solo guitar showcase ‘Eruption’. Their run of success continued for five more years, while Eddie persistently scooped up awards for ‘Best Guitarist’. By 1982 he was so in demand that no less than the King of Pop, Michael Jackson brought him in to play on a song he had intended to cross over to a rock audience, ‘Beat It’. That brief solo, performed free of charge and as a favour to producer Quincy Jones, served to bring Eddie Van Halen to mainstream attention, and in the process make it fashionable for the next few years for every pop star to incorporate a lead guitar solo in their hit records. It is no coincidence that the album Van Halen next came up with following this collaboration (‘1984’) was a huge hit, led by the international hit single ‘Jump’. They headlined at the US Festival, a huge event held in Southern California in 1983 and were booked to perform in England for the first time in years at the Monsters of Rock festival at Castle Donington the following summer, as special guests to headliners AC/DC, on a stellar bill that also included Ozzy Osbourne, Gary Moore, Y&T and Motley Crue. That performance (at the time, critically lambasted) would turn out to be the final time that the classic line-up of Van Halen performed live in the UK.
The band parted company with David Lee Roth the next year, which disappointed many who were entranced by the flamboyant playing of Eddie alongside the vaudeville act of Roth. To many people’s surprise the group chose Sammy Hagar as the new frontman, while Roth went solo. The new line-up confounded expectations by lasting a decade, producing several albums, but they never really shook off the ‘Van Hagar’ jibes from those who preferred the showmanship of ‘Diamond Dave’ over the undeniable vocal and musical talent of Hagar. In 1996 Hagar quit the band, to be replaced by Extreme vocalist Gary Cherone for 1998’s ‘Van Halen III’. That album was a critical and commercial failure, and with nu-metal now the trend EVH’s style was now perceived as outmoded. The group quietly parted ways with Cherone and disappeared for several years until reuniting with Hagar in 2002 for a tour, then Roth in 2006, a reunion (now minus Anthony, replaced by Eddie’s son Wolfgang on bass) which produced their final studio album ‘A Different Kind of Truth’ in 2012. By this point Eddie had been diagnosed with cancer and had overcome several surgeries in order to continue playing.
Eddie Van Halen’s playing style has been imitated by so many who followed in his wake, that it has become stock – the fast fingers and tapping was taken up by many others and expanded upon, but all who came along afterwards would cite Eddie as a major influence. In an interview in Kerrang published in 1984, Jimmy Page surmised (correctly) that Eddie had been a piano player, adding that ‘you need damn good timing to do that’, when referring to the lead solo on Michael Jackson’s ‘Beat It’. (Eddie, and brother Alex, had trained on classical piano at a young age.) Page also admitted that he was amazed by the style of playing, so much so that he had tried unsuccessfully to emulate it himself.
As stated earlier, the passing of this innovative, legendary musician has heralded the closing of a chapter in music, as the years pass we will inevitably lose more prominent figures from the world of classic rock, but this (and the death of Rush drummer Neil Peart at the start of this year) has been significant in so far as it has had so many music fans stop, and take stock of just what a legacy was left by the Dutch-born guitarist who came to epitomise American hard rock.
I’ll add a few tributes from across the rock spectrum, posted via social media:
Rock Gigs And Blogs 