Eddie Van Halen

Edward Lodewijk "Eddie" Van Halen (born January 26, 1955)^[1], is a Dutch-American guitarist, keyboardist, songwriter and producer most famous for being the lead guitarist and a co-founder of the hard rock band Van Halen.


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 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 the United States, his parents immediately sought a piano tutor for him and his older brother, Alex Van Halen.^[2]

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. 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.

He has stated that he would often walk around at home with his guitar strapped on and unplugged, practicing. Its said that he would sit in his room for hours with the door locked, as a teen practicing the guitar. 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.[3]

”

Eddie has many influences, most notably Eric Clapton. 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.

Related link: Van Halen

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