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01
When Van Halen became successful, one of the first things Eddie and his brother Alex did with their earnings was to tell their father he could retire and take things easy for the rest of his life.
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02
October 2012: after a seven-month reader poll with 500,000 votes, Guitar World magazine declared Eddie Van Halen the Greatest Guitarist of All-Time.
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03
Eddie Van Halen was the younger son of Eugenia van Beers and Jan van Halen, and the younger brother of Alex Van Halen. His father was Dutch and his mother from Rangkasbitung, Java, Dutch East Indies now Indonesia, of Indonesian, Dutch, and one-eighth Italian descent. Jan van Halen played clarinet on Big Bad Bill Is Sweet William Now from the 1982 album Diver Down. The family moved to Pasadena, California, in 1962, and the boys spoke no English upon arrival.
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04
He once said in an interview that he built his own guitar, the Frankenstrat, using a Fender body with a Gibson double-coil pickup. Later, he added a non-functioning single-coil pickup and extra wiring to confuse those trying to make unauthorized copies.
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05
Eruption, a track from Van Halen’s 1978 debut album, was originally just a guitar warm-up exercise. One day in the studio, the engineer happened to be recording as Eddie played it — and the rest is history, though Eddie reportedly didn’t like how it sounded.
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06
Eddie liked to say that David Lee Roth and Sammy Hagar’s problems with the band were due to LSD — Lead Singer Disease.
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07
He met David Lee Roth while both attended Pasadena Community College in the 1970s.
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08
When Quincy Jones called to ask Eddie to record a guitar solo for Michael Jackson’s Beat It, Eddie thought it was a prank. Once convinced, he offered to record it free of charge; during the session, a monitor speaker in the control room caught fire, prompting someone to exclaim This must be really good!
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09
He debuted the EVH Wolfgang guitar, which he described as the culmination of his years of knowledge and experience with guitars. Eddie quietly road-tested this guitar during the band’s reunion tour.
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10
Eddie was a recovering alcoholic. His father died of complications from alcoholism, and his paternal grandfather was also an alcoholic.
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11
While often credited with inventing the tapping technique, Eddie actually popularized it within rock; the technique had existed for years.
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12
Van Halen was originally named Genesis, but Eddie was unfamiliar with the British band of that name at the time.
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13
After his death, his remains were cremated and his ashes scattered in the ocean off Malibu, California, where he lived.
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14
With Valerie Bertinelli, he had one son, Wolfgang Van Halen, born March 16, 1991.
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15
Eddie’s first guitar was a Teisco Del Ray electric with four pickups, bought for $70.
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16
He had a reputation for modesty about his guitar talents, sometimes stating that Van Halen songs were successfully made from riffs he didn’t think were very good.
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17
In 1999, he had hip replacement surgery.
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18
He became engaged to Janie Liszewski on August 4, 2008.
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19
Eddie was guitarist for the rock group Van Halen.
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20
He was the ex-son-in-law of Andrew Bertinelli and Nancy Bertinelli.
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21
When asked to perform the guitar solo on Beat It, producer Quincy Jones asked what fee he wanted. Van Halen said just make sure there was a crate of beer in the studio when I get there.
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22
He was brother-in-law of Stine Schyberg.
