Eddie Van Halen

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In an April 1996 interview with Guitar World, when asked about how he went from playing his first open G 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 7 P.M. to party and get laid, and when he'd come back at 3 A.M., I would still be sitting in the same place, playing guitar. I did that for years — I still do that."http://www.guitarworld.com/allaccess/interviews/1996-04-corganvh.html

His main influence was Eric Clapton. He has also acknowledged the influence of Queen guitarist Brian May and fusion guitarist Allan Holdsworth, of whom he has said: "He's the best in my book."

Formation of Van Halen

The initial incarnation of "Van Halen" manifested around the time Ed graduated from high school and was a three-piece consisting of Ed, Alex, and bass player Mark Stone - a friend from high school. However, the band was not performing under the name "Van Halen", but under the name "Mammoth". In this lineup, Ed played lead guitar and sang lead vocal. They had no P.A. system of their own, so they rented one from David Lee Roth, who had auditioned for the band, but had failed as he was not an accomplished vocalist at the time. David charged Mammoth $50 a night to rent his P.A. system. After a year playing with this lineup, Ed became frustrated singing lead vocals, and figured they could save money by letting David Lee Roth into the band because he had the P.A. system. Eventually Roth agreed to join the band.

Bassist Mike Anthony first saw Mammoth performing at the same festival as his band "Snake", which he fronted. A year or so later Ed and Alex realized they needed a new bassist as Mark Stone had a hard time with the instrument and couldn't remember all the songs the band was covering. Michael Anthony was called over to David Lee Roth's dad's house to jam (at this time the band rehearsed in Roth's Dad's basement). Anthony accepted because he knew Mammoth was playing well-known clubs in Pasadena while Snake was just playing local parties. Roth was not at this first jam of what would eventually become the first incarnation of "Van Halen", but Ed, Alex, and Michael Anthony jammed late into the night and when it was all over Michael Anthony was the new bass player for Mammoth. At first Anthony thought he would just play bass but eventually he was asked to sing backup vocals and this became a trademark of the Van Halen sound. Roth is typically accredited with eventually suggesting the band simply call itself Van Halen (although the name "Rat Salad" was also considered). With this lineup (Ed, Alex, Anthony, and Roth) Van Halen started playing clubs in Pasadena and Hollywood more frequently and to increasingly greater audiences.

Van Halen quickly developed a "following" or a legion of fans who made it a point to see the band play wherever they happened to be performing. For Van Halen's part, they worked hard to increase their popularity through self promotion: before each gig they would pass out flyers at local high schools in Pasadena and the vicinity. Van Halen fans soon became notorious for being rowdy; at an audition for a club in Pasadena the band was denied because their fans were too rowdy. At a backyard barbecue where Van Halen were performing the police were called in to break up the party but were met by a mob of Van Halen fans who flipped over police cars and handcuffed one officer to a tree.

Van Halen's appearance also helped boost their popularity. When they played before audiences in Pasadena everyone thought they were a Hollywood band because of the way Dave dressed and behaved on stage. When they performed in Hollywood everyone thought they were from Pasadena because Ed, Alex, and Anthony were always in jeans and T-shirts.

There are bootleg recordings of many of Van Halen's early shows where they would play original material (some of which made it onto the band's first two albums) along with cover versions including songs by Deep Purple, Cream and ZZ Top. Roth has been known to say they tried to cover and write songs people could dance to in order to boost popularity. However, Roth's penchant for wanting to play cover songs purportedly annoyed Ed (especially on the album Diver Down: Ed and Dave apparently argued a lot over whether or not Dancing In The Streets - which Dave liked and Ed didn't - would make it on the album).

In 1976 Gene Simmons saw Van Halen performing at an L.A. club and decided he wanted to record some of the material they were playing. Eventually Simmons flew the band to Electric Lady studios in New York to record a demo. The songs on this demo were "House of Pain" and "Runnin' With the Devil". Ed disliked his playing on the demo because he wasn't using his own equipment and had to overdub guitar parts, which he had never done before. Ultimately Van Halen ended up with a demo tape but no recording contract. As Simmons was getting back with his band Kiss, he decided to forgo any more involvement with the band.

A year later, in 1977, Mo Ostin and Ted Templeman of Warner Bros. records saw Van Halen performing at the Starwood in Hollywood. Although there were few people in the audience that night, the two were so impressed with Van Halen that within a week they offered them a recording contract with Warner Bros. records, which Van Halen signed. In October of that year, Van Halen entered Sunset Sound Recorders studio and recorded their first album, Van Halen.

Innovation

Van Halen's self-titled debut album was released on February 10, 1978 and became recognized as a ground-breaking hard rock masterpiece almost immediately .

Sound and technique

Edward Van Halen's approach to the guitar involved several distinctive components. His innovative two-handed tapping techniques, use of natural and artificial harmonics, speed, melodicism, and rhythmic sensibility influenced an entire generation of guitarists. One critical aspect of his playing has been his guitar tone, the Brown sound. Van Halen achieved his distinctive tone by using an (allegedely) stock 100-watt Marshall amp, a Variac to lower the voltage of the amp to change the tone, and a "Frankenstrat" guitar Van Halen constructed using a Charvel Stratocaster-type body, a vintage Gibson humbucker pickup sealed in paraffin wax (to reduce microphonic feedback), a pre-CBS Fender tremolo bridge (later to be a Floyd Rose bridge) and a single volume control, with a tone knob in its place. The now-famous single pickup, single volume knob guitar configuration was arrived at due to Van Halen's lack of knowledge in electronic circuitry: upon installing the humbucking pickup, he did not know how to wire it into the circuit, so he then applied the simplest working circuit to get it to function. His later guitars include various Kramer models from his period of endorsing that company (most notably the Kramer "5150", which Kramer in its Gibson-owned days base their Kramer 1984 design off of, an unofficial artist signature model) and three signature models: the Ernie Ball/ Music Man Edward Van Halen Model, the Peavey EVH Wolfgang, and the Charvel EVH Art Series. All but the Charvel model are discontinued.

In support of his large variety of two-handed tapping techniques, Van Halen also holds a patent for a flip-out support device which attaches to the rear of the electric guitar. This device enables the user to play the guitar in a manner similar to the piano by orienting the face of the guitar upward instead of forward.

Before the release of Van Halen's eponymous first album, Van Halen would often play solos and his more complex riffs with his back to the live audience. This was done at the advice of his bandmates to prevent any guitar players from stealing his style and technique before the album came out in 1978.

Amp

It's been claimed widely that Eddie Van Halen's #1 Marshall amp has either been both completely stock or slightly/heavily modded. Techs who claim to have seen inside his amp such as Chris Merrem and Doug Roccaforte allege that at the time of the recording of Van Halen's first album, the Marshall was completely stock. However, amp tech Mark Cameron claimed he found a schematic of EVH's amp in amp tech Jose Arrendo's shop after he died that showed numerous modifcations that had been performed by Jose. Regardless of whether the amp was modded, the fact is that its serial number was 12301, which dates it to the transitional period at Marshall of 1967-1968 when the circuit of the 100 watt Marshall 1959 changed gradually from the 'Bass' circuit to the 'SuperLead' circuit. The fact that most '12000 series' (serial number in the twelve thousand range) transistional amps made during this period were a mixture of the two circuits makes it more plausible that Ed's amp was in fact stock, since the mixture of the two circuits provides a tone not dissimilar to Eddie's.

The infamous use of the variac with this amp has caused great confusion among guitarists and fans alike. Sending the reduced mains voltage of 90v into the amp does not increase distortion but actually reduces the amount the amp can produce. It's also unlikely that it was used to lower volume, since the actual reduction in volume from running a fully cranked Marshall 100w amplifier at 90v is slight. The most likely use of the variac was to produce the high end roll off and increased compression in the preamp distortion that is a result of a lower B+ voltage in the preamp and phase inverter sections of the amp, but also presumably to reduce the harmful effects of the "resistor mod" that was performed on the amp in the early days of Van Halen.

The so called "resistor mod"