Rock band

Van Halen exploded onto the national rock scene in 1977 with a distinctively heavy sound, a wisecracking, over-the-top lead singer, and a guitar player whose fiery, innovative solos would earn accolades from music critics and some of his most famous colleagues. Though the band changed singers after achieving their first Number One hit, Van Halen has remained one of the biggest attractions in rock, its combination of heavy metal energy and pop songcraft almost singlehandedly preparing Top Forty radio for the bevy of crossover metal acts that followed them.

At the heart of this high-profile show business enterprise is Edward—known popularly as Eddie and, to his wife, Ed—Van Halen, a shy, near-reclusive musical inventor who tinkers with his guitar day and night. "It's the free-flowing energy and imagination of Edward's playing that captures the music's spirit," commented Musician's J. D. Considine, who called the guitarist's solos "flashy, unpredictable and totally idiomatic, adhering to a logic that seems to apply solely to electric guitar." That sound, along with the thunderous bottom end provided by bassist Michael Anthony and drummer Alex Van Halen—Eddie's older brother—have kept the band at the top of the metal heap despite the departure of theatrical frontman David Lee Roth in 1985 and subsequent arrival of veteran singer-guitarist Sammy Hagar. Though Van Halen's 1991 album, For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge, received mixed reviews, it shot to Number One on the U.S. charts, and the group's tour to support the album bucked a national trend of dismally low ticket sales.

From Ivory to Metal

The Van Halen brothers were born in the Netherlands in the 1950s. Their father, Jan, a professional clarinetist and saxophonist, fought with the Dutch Resistance against the Nazis. He met his wife, Eugenia, in Indonesia. Jan Van Halen encouraged his sons to be musicians, but didn't approve of rock and roll. Both boys took classical piano lessons. When Eddie was eight and Alex about ten, the family moved to the United States, settling in California. There the brothers discovered rock music. "I got a paper route so I could pay for my $41.25 St. George drum kit," Eddie told Considine, "and while I was out throwing the papers, my brother was playing my drums. He got better, so I said, 'Okay, you can keep the damn drums.'" The younger Van Halen picked up the guitar at age 12, thus beginning a long and passionate love affair with the instrument.

Neither of the brothers fared particularly well in school, but they persisted in their musical pursuits, eventually forming a band together, which they called Mammoth. The brothers played various instruments—at one time Eddie played piano and Alex wielded saxophone. Eddie sang, and after going through a number of bass players, he and Alex recruited Michael Anthony. "Then I got'sick of singing," Eddie remembered, "and we got Dave [Roth] in the band." Roth had been singing in a group called the Red Ball Jets and owned a public address system. The quartet that would become Van Halen coalesced throughout 1974 and 1975, playing Los Angeles hard rock clubs like Gazzarri's on the famed Sunset Strip.

"Van Halen" Classier Than "Rat Salade"

Eddie wanted to call the group Rat Salade, but Roth felt Van Halen sounded classier. They soon generated a large local following and were signed by Warner Bros. Records; in 1978 they released their debut LP, Van Halen. It took the rock world by storm. Eddie's lightning-fast solos—characterized by screaming tremolo-bar effects and his patented fingertapping technique—signaled a new era in hard-rock guitar. Roth's flamboyant vocals, trademark shriek, and quirky humor gave the group personality. The first single, a remake of the Kinks' 1964 hit "You Ready Got Me," was a substantial hit.

Reviews of the first LP, however, like those of many subsequent Van Halen albums, were mixed. Melody Maker called Van Halen "an outstanding and thoroughly recommended (but only to the converted) debut," and correspondent Steve Gett referred to it as "unquestionably one of the greatest heavy-rock releases of our time." Meanwhile, Charles M. Young—reviewing the record for Rolling Stone—noted that "Van Halen's secret is not doing anything original while having the hormones to do it better." But critics were never terribly relevant to the band's career. Metal fans adored them, making a hero of Eddie and cheering Roth's cock-of-the-walk theatrics. Their 1979 sophomore effort, Van Halen II, sold tremendously and yielded the hit "Dance the Night Away," a rock anthem that crossed a memorable pop hook with Eddie's singular riffing. Despite its popularity, Timothy White dismissed the album in Rolling Stone, referring to the group's "stilted instrumental blarings" and chiding Roth for his wolf-whistling improvisations. Melody Maker's Gett, on the other hand, called Van Halen II "a more constructive and better balanced HM [heavy metal] package than one might at first have expected."

Groupies and Rubble

Soon Van Halen was touring the world, playing to large crowds and sparking considerable gossip about their backstage activities. Stories detailing the band's demands of M&Ms candies—with the brown ones removed—became legendary in music circles. Alex earned the reputation of a notorious womanizer. Eddie, the perpetually shy one, married actress Valerie Bertinelli; the two flouted expectations by remaining together throughout the band's spectacular ascent, though 1990 reports of the guitarist's alleged problems with drugs and alcohol also hinted at tension in the marriage. Roth's peculiar charisma alternately confused and amused interviewers. "To call him vain would be an understatement," wrote Gett in a 1979 profile. "Narcissistic would be more appropriate."

In the same article, Roth, nonetheless, perhaps best described the band's appeal: "It's energy, man, it's youth—that's what everybody's about, at least in some way, no matter how many five-syllable words you may know. A part of you is 15 years old, and that's where Van Halen comes in." Roth's worldview made many diehard rockers look tame by comparison. He told Musician's Young, "You make a few good friends, you burn a trail across the world, leaving a permanent shadow of groupies and rubble as never before in the history of rock 'n' roll, and one day, it's Miller Time."

Van Halen's third record, Women and Children First, delivered the hard rock goods on "Everybody Wants Some!" and "The Cradle Will Rock..." Rolling Stone's David Fricke commented, "Megalomania of this kind is an acquired taste, yet the haste with which Women and Children First bullied its way into the Top Ten suggests that there's a little Van Halen in everybody." Fricke also praised Eddie's playing, noting that the guitarist "harnesses feedback almost as well as [sixties guitar innovator] Jimi Hendrix did and displays smarts plus speed in his solos."

Eddie a Guitar Hero

Other musicians were even more emphatic about Eddie Van Halen's gifts: "That incredible virtuosity combined with that beautiful grin allows me to forgive him for letting David Lee Roth stand in front of him," Pete Townshend, leader of the famed British rock band The Who, remarked in Rolling Stone; groundbreaking guitarist-composer Frank Zappa thanked Eddie "for reinventing the guitar"; in Musician, Andy Summers of the pop/new wave trio the Police called him "a natural virtuoso," adding, "What impresses me is his passion, his spirit and his musicality. Really, I think he is the greatest rock guitarist since Hendrix." For all the comparisons to Hendrix, Eddie revealed in Musician that his guitar hero was actually England's Eric Clapton, guitarist for the Yardbirds, Cream, Derek and the Dominoes, and later, an accomplished solo artist. In the early days, Eddie would play Cream records at a slow speed to learn every single note of every solo.

Van Halen followed up Women and Children First with 1981 's Fair Warning, which included the upbeat single "So This Is Love." Of the band's customary recording process, Alex explained to Melody Maker contributor Gett, "We take all the stage gear into a big room and play. [Producer] Ted Templeman just sits there and controls the dials behind a two-way mirror. We play, he sits there and puts it on the album." The band favored this live approach for its time-efficiency—they were often in a hurry to get back on the road—and for the spontaneous feel of the result. In any case, Fair Warning, which Melody Maker lauded as "a masterblast of American metal," was a more laborious affair: Eddie told Guitar Player that it "took longer than any album we've ever done." Thus they favored a faster, more simple approach to their next LP, Diver Down. Recorded in 12 days, the album contained a number of cover tunes, including a hit version of Roy Orbison's "Pretty Woman" and another Kinks song, "Where Have All the Good Times Gone?" Jan Van Halen sat in with his sons on one track, leading them on a foray into swing; Diver Down also contained some acoustic blues. Melody Maker didn't like it much: "The worst yet?" asked a reviewer rhetorically—answering, "Probably." Even so, the faithful rushed to buy it.

Crossover Success

In 1982 Eddie recorded a guitar solo for Michael Jackson's "Beat It," one of several huge hits from Jackson's enormously popular album Thriller. On the strength of the solo alone, Jackson reached a corner of the rock market that had previously eluded him. Despite the immense revenues generated by the song, Eddie accepted no payment for his work on it. As in many other instances, he was playing for the fun of it. The publicity, however didn't hurt the band. 1984, released that year, featured "Jump," Van Halen's first Number One hit. With a simple synthesizer hook, played by Eddie, the song—which Roth had vetoed two years before—brought the group to Top Forty radio and almost by itself created "Lite Metal." The album contained a number of other hits with popular videos, notably the raunchy "Hot For Teacher." Rolling Stone would eventually include 1984 in its Top 100 Albums of the Eighties, mostly because of "Jump."

Despite this breakthrough to mainstream success, Roth left Van Halen the following year. Eddie told Musician's Considine that Roth was trying to get a film made and that the band was "basically in the twilight zone, not knowing whether Dave wanted to do a record or not." Eventually Eddie, Alex, and Mike let the singer go. The "musical tension" that critics had admired in the band had at last, reportedly, turned into outright animosity. Roth went on to a successful solo career. After weighing the options, Eddie invited former Montrose member Sammy Hagar to try out for the spot vacated by Roth. Hagar remarked, "It was magic. Boom. Overnight. Instantly. Automatically." Perhaps no one was as pleased as Eddie. "When we walked out of that studio," explained the guitarist, standing on a chair to demonstrate, "Pretend the chair ain't there." The old tension turned into a new camaraderie; Van Halen was having fun again. "This is the real Van Halen," Eddie proclaimed. Of the new addition Considine remarked, "Sammy has plenty of range and can scream like a banshee, but his sound is always under control. To a certain extent, it's the vocal equivalent of Eddie's guitar sound, combining a cutting edge with an underlying warmth. Best of all, Sammy's melodic instincts are so in sync with Edward's that the songs move forward like a sonic juggernaut."

Fans Didn't Miss Roth

The reaction of metal fans to Roth's departure could be measured in part by the results of Hit Parader's 1986 "Man of the Year" readers' poll. Roth came in first, and Eddie in fourth; they would both retain the loyalty of Van Halen fans. The first post-Roth Van Halen record, 5150, was another monster hit. Taking its title from police code for an escaped mental patient—a label so beloved by self-proclaimed oddball Eddie that he used it for the name of his home recording studio—5150 boasted the radio-friendly single "Why Can't This Be Love?" Critics missed Roth's eccentricity; Roy Traskin's Musician review was typical in its declaration that "Van Hagar is just another rock 'n' roll band, boasting one brilliant musician [Eddie] and one boring frontman." Melody Maker pragmatically concluded, "Van Halen used to be flash and sleazy. Now they're just flash. For the most part the songs are just as good and, anyway, all of their albums have been flawed. So don't worry about it." 5150 went to Number One three weeks after its release, and Van Halen continued to sell out huge arenas.

The next album, OU812, was released in 1988 and went to Number One in two weeks. The group fared brilliantly on that year's "Van Halen's Monsters of Rock" tour. In 1991, to even greater fanfare, Van Halen released For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge, which earned them a bevy of awards. Billboard deemed the group top album rock artist, and For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge received the favorite heavy metal/hard rock album nod at the American Music Awards. In 1992, Van Halen nabbed its first Grammy award. Hagar was honored as 1992's outstanding vocalist at the San Francisco Bay Area Music Awards. And the album's sales were phenomenal—it went double platinum; For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge was credited by many retailers as the single impetus for bringing rock fans back into record stores after a long slump. Similarly, the group's barnstorming 1991 concert tour was one of a very few that flourished in that recessionary season. Critics were harder to please than fans, of course; Rolling Stone's John Milward complained that with the addition of Hagar "the band has substituted an increasingly dense sound for a distinct personality." But For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge yielded a clutch of hits, including "Top of the World," the hard-rocking "Poundcake," and the melodic "Right Now"—the innovative video of which made it to Entertainment Weekly critic Jim Mullen's "Hot Sheet."

And the top of the world is where Van Halen has remained—after more than a decade of touring and recording. A generation of young guitarists has attempted to match Eddie Van Halen's innovative style, though he averred in a Guitar Player interview, "I don't like people doing things exactly like me." In 1991 Eddie unveiled an Ernie Ball-Music Man guitar he'd had designed to his specifications, only agreeing to put his name on it after a rigorous development process. He dismissed persistent questions about a solo album by declaring that with Van Halen he could do anything he wanted. "I tell ya, to boil the whole thing down," he told Musician's Considine, "it's just a whole lot of fun. I've never had so much fun in my life."

—Simon Glickman