The Tapes Archive

Steve Harris: The last couple albums that both hit number one, I guess that stimulates the band, keeps you guys going.

Michael Anthony: Mm hm. So actually, Sammy joining the band was pretty stimulating right there. As far as the number one albums, it’s not like we hit on any kind of a formula or anything like that, it’s just that’s just the way it happens. We don’t write for a number one album or to have a hit song or anything like that, we just write what we feel and luckily, everybody likes it.

Steve Harris: Everybody says that, though. Everybody says, “Ah, no, we never think about it. We just write the songs. We’re doing the kind music we like. It just so happens that it hits in the charts.”

Michael Anthony: Well see, if you wanna really get down to it, none of us really have to even be doing this if we don’t want anymore. I mean, we’re all pretty secure and everything. So in a way, that’s kinda the beauty of it ’cause it makes it fun now. Yo.

Steve Harris: Hi.

Eddie Van Halen:  Hi.

Steve Harris: Steve Harris. Nice to meet you.

Eddie Van Halen:  What’s happening?

Steve Harris: Need coffee or something cold?

Eddie Van Halen:  Yeah, Coke will do it.

Steve Harris: Coke. We were asking Michael, how come you guys keep going on? I mean, you’re financially secure according to Michael. But what keeps you guys going?

Eddie Van Halen:  Well, I mean, for one, the reason we started this was not just to make money. I mean, obviously, you need money to survive, but that’s not the main thing, you know?

Steve Harris: Other guys say they just did it for stardom.

Eddie Van Halen:  Oh man, that’s the last thing I did.

Michael Anthony: Well, no.

Eddie Van Halen:  I did it for money before being a star. You gotta have money to survive. I mean, honestly, that’s the one thing I can’t stand about this whole thing is being recognized and stuff like that. Especially when I got married. My wife’s an actress, man, it was even worse.

Steve Harris: Things have gotten better though, I figure.

Eddie Van Halen:  Oh, yeah, yeah. I just learned how to deal with it.

Steve Harris: Yeah, right, right. You know how to hide a little better now.

Eddie Van Halen:  Yeah.

Steve Harris: Since Sammy’s joined the group, when he sees you guys in pictures, it seems more like a family type thing now really.

Eddie Van Halen:  I mean, Sammy lives like two doors away from me out in Malibu, so, yeah, we’re buds.

Steve Harris: I guess what he’s getting at is like when Dave was in the band, it was kind of more that showbiz.

Michael Anthony: Sammy’s just like the rest of us. When we first got together, he fit like a glove. He’s like, you know. I mean listen to these guys, you know?

Steve Harris: Yeah.

Eddie Van Halen:   It never used to be that way before with Dave. With Sammy, it’s just like, I guess we’re all equals so to speak. We’re all just a bunch of goofballs having fun. Everybody just be themselves.

Steve Harris: Well we talked to Dave about two, three months back. He seems like a very responsible businessman.

Eddie Van Halen:  He’s very calculated. I mean, I figured that’s why we have a manager. I don’t wanna be a businessman.

Michael Anthony: leave all that to him. All I wanna do is play music and have a good time.

Steve Harris: But you gotta admire the guy, he almost .

Eddie Van Halen:  Oh, sure.

Steve Harris: He used to say, “Everything is under my.” Control the videos, the music, the concerts, we do.

Eddie Van Halen:  Well, I mean, every on a creative aspect or level, we control. But, you know, I don’t care. I don’t feel like going to the box office after gig and going through the receipts. If he wants to, go right ahead. You gotta trust somebody somewhere along the line.

Steve Harris: But didn’t you find it was good for disciplining the band members? Writing the music, I’m saying, in the creative process?

Eddie Van Halen:  Not really, because the music, the writing process is the same then as it is now. I come up with the music and it’s actually me that gets the ball rolling.

Steve Harris: Everybody else kind of dresses it up.

Eddie Van Halen:  Yeah, yeah. I mean, I come up with the seed, so to speak, and then we take it from there. And it used to be that way with Dave, too, so it wasn’t like he cracked a whip on anything concerning the creative process.

Steve Harris: I thought maybe he would just kind of judiciously edit it, edit out some of the more–

Michael Anthony: Well, maybe judiciously edit the clothes part.

Eddie Van Halen:  Yeah, he was more into the flash part of. Well, I don’t wanna talk about him anyway.

Steve Harris: Yeah.

Eddie Van Halen:  Talk about us.

Eddie Van Halen:  The most notable attribute of “OU812”, he says, is it’s more straightforward it seems like. The styles are a bit more rootsy, simple.

Eddie Van Halen:  I personally think it’s more of a diverse record. I mean, “Finish What Ya Started”. Why can’t this be, I mean, “When It’s Love”.

Eddie Van Halen:  “Source of Infection”. I mean you got, I mean.

Eddie Van Halen:  Yeah, there’s a lot more diverse stuff on it. I don’t think it’s really that much more straight ahead.

Steve Harris: I mean, “Finish What Ya Started” almost sounds like when you hear the intro, it almost sounds like Robert Cray or something like that.

Eddie Van Halen:  But then you have stuff like “Source of Infection”, which is old-style Van Halen, you might say. And you, “When It’s Love”, which is a ballad. And you got “Feels So Good”, which isn’t really straight ahead at all, if you ask me. And you got “Cabo Wabo”, which is almost Zeppelin-like.

Michael Anthony: There’s music on the album for any type of mood you possibly would be in, could be in at any given point in the day.

Eddie Van Halen:  I think what you might be picking up on is that it’s just a little more comfortable. ‘Cause we’ve been together, we did “5150”, which is the first album. It’s just a little more solid and comfortable. But we’re in a complicated band to begin with. I mean, how many notes you got? You got 12 notes to pick from, right? I mean, we never did out of metered stuff, like a band say like Rush or something. We’ve always been pretty much 1-4-5.

Michael Anthony: In the studio, it’s pretty much the same thing. You can dress it up and go really wild with as many effects and any of that. We try to keep it just as any kind of maybe like a garnish, just to enhance it.

Eddie Van Halen:  Just a fork and a knife .

Steve Harris: When you guys started out playing, you were a little different from the people in the audience. I mean, you may have even been a little bit younger when you were first doing clubs. And when you became popular, you were pretty much the same age as a lot of the kids. Although now I guess, you’re quite a bit older than most of your fans.

Michael Anthony: I don’t think we’re moved at all.

Eddie Van Halen:  No, not at all. And the funny thing is, especially we’ll say a record like “OU812”, since we do have songs like “Source of Infection” and the rockers, “Mine All Mine”, whatever. And we have “Feels So Good” and stuff like that. In the US anyway, our audiences range from 13, 14-year-old kids to my age.

Eddie Van Halen:  And when we did the Monsters tour, it was kind of funny to see people my own age out there struggling with the .

Steve Harris: Well, the interesting thing, I remember Miles Davis, he was using the guitar player, Mike Stern, for a couple years there. And one reason he used that guy was he wanted an Eddie Van Halen type of sound.

Eddie Van Halen:  Oh, really? Well, all right.

Steve Harris: Your fans kinda span a much wider range than you had thought, more like about 12 to about 85. I think a lot of people are picking up on your kind of sound ’cause–

Eddie Van Halen:  Right.

Steve Harris: It’s not the typical flash type of thing.

Michael Anthony: Right.

Eddie Van Halen:  Well, it really isn’t.

Steve Harris: I remember once you said your father, when he listened to you play, he was always very moved by it. What do you think he got?

Eddie Van Halen:  I don’t know, it’s just in my blood, I guess. To me, it’s the difference between being a true musician, so to speak. When I’m dead and gone, what I wanna be remembered for is a musician, not just a flash guitarist. Somebody who could write and play and perform. Do all, whatever it takes to be a full musician.

Steve Harris: With the myriad of imitators out, I was think sitting down the other day, trying to think what exactly it is about you that separates you from all the clones, the Eddie Van Halen clones out there. What do you think it is?

Eddie Van Halen:  I think it’s the ability to be more of a musician than just. A lot of people ask me, “How come you don’t play as fast and crazy like you used to?” Well, I’ve kind of grown into being more of a musician in a grander scheme, getting better at songwriting and things like that, so. I don’t think you’ll last in the music business space still just playing as fast as I could. So I think that’s what sets me apart.

Michael Anthony: Part of the reason why Van Halen has been around for as long as we have and will continue, also.

Steve Harris: ‘Cause the music?

Eddie Van Halen:  Yeah. Look at Jimmy Page and stuff. In the beginning he was real flash guitarist, too, on the first, second record. But he developed into a good producer, songwriter and I think that’s really what it’s all about.

Steve Harris:  In his case, it was the sound that was remembered because when you listen to the actual solos, it sounds like he’s wearing gloves or something.

Eddie Van Halen:  Yeah, but it was unique because you try and copy the stuff and it was hard, he had a touch that was real different. Take a song like “Stairway to Heaven:. Come on, it’s a classic song and the solo in it is classic, everything about it is and that’s probably the height of his career, the best thing that he’s done. If he would’ve stopped doing that then, he might’ve went on. But it’s kind of a sad case, but.

Steve Harris:: Is that what did it?

Eddie Van Halen:  Oh, I think so, yeah.

Steve Harris: You don’t think you guys can burn out musically?

Eddie Van Halen:  Ah, I think your brain burns out. You keep pumping yourself full of drugs and stuff, something’s bound the go whether it be motivation or inspiration or whatever.

Steve Harris: It’s kinda ironic that most, a lot of the greats tend to take that path.

Eddie Van Halen:  Well, a lot of the real greats die.

Steve Harris: Yeah. You guys are working more with emotions than you did before. And maybe in the beginning you concentrated more on technique whereas now it’s more–

Eddie Van Halen:  I’d say in, yeah, in the very beginning, obviously, I was just kinda learning how to play myself. So you kinda gotta have the tools before you can–

Steve Harris: Well it’s not like, the first album, I mean, it’s kind of hard to improve on that, though, I mean technically.

Eddie Van Halen:  From a guitarist standpoint, I was really developing my technique at the time and I think that I can play as fast and do whatever I want now, so I can devote my head more to what to do with it now as opposed to just doing scales and stuff.

Michael Anthony: Yeah, and as far as the emotion part goes, that’s how we were 10 years ago.

Eddie Van Halen:  that different, I just think we’re better all around.

Steve Harris: Think you’re better?

Eddie Van Halen:  Oh, yeah.

Steve Harris: Don’t you think as you get older you lose certain things, though?

Michael Anthony: But then you gain other things also. So, I mean, it’s just a constant.

Eddie Van Halen:  I think you just change. ‘Cause if we kept doing the first album, they’d go, “Hmm, they’re not changing. Sounds just like the last record.” No, really. Critic-wise, you’re fucked no matter what you do. So if he changes, oh, they’re different now. And if you don’t change, they’ll slam you for being the same. So you just go with what you feel.

Steve Harris: Do you ever go back to the older stuff and–

Eddie Van Halen:  Well, I mean, we play, we play a little bit of everything. Play stuff off the first record up to the newest.

Steve Harris: Do you ever go back and listen to it?

Eddie Van Halen:  Only on a radio.

Steve Harris: How does it sound to you now?

Michael Anthony: It holds up in its own way.

Eddie Van Halen:  I think probably as far as any of what these other bands are doing today, I think it holds up with any of that.

Eddie Van Halen:  I think recording-wise, the way it sounds and everything, it’s still contemporary. I think we’re playing good, so the playing holds up. I’ve heard some stuff and I think our songwriting’s a lot better nowadays.

Steve Harris: Is that right?

Eddie Van Halen:  Yeah, to me, it’s mainly some of the cover tunes, I’d say “You’re No Good”. I listen to that stuff sometimes and I go, “Oh.”

Michael Anthony: “Dancing in the Street” .

Eddie Van Halen:  Yeah, stuff that wasn’t really my idea to do.

Steve Harris: I see, okay, okay The truth is that then, that’s the–

Eddie Van Halen:  Oh, yeah. Come on, that’s half the reason why I built my own studio. I mean, it’s like I’d written “Jump” at least two and a half, three years before it was allowed on the record. It might’ve been not quite that long, but it was at least an album before or two. ’cause I remember in “Fair Warning”, I already had “Jump” and then we did “Diver Down” and then I built my studio and I said, “This is going on record whether you like it or not.”

Steve Harris: During the course of the band’s career, have you ever find yourself becoming too indulgent, sacrificing melodies for technique? Let’s say, for example, guitar playing wise? Did anybody tell you the solo’s a little too long? It’s a little too flashy and hold it down a little bit?

Eddie Van Halen:  Well, not really.

Michael Anthony: Sometimes live when Ed starts getting into it.

Steve Harris: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

Eddie Van Halen:  Yeah, you, too. I don’t think, I tend to. Like say a song like “When It’s Love” on “OU812”, the solo fits. I wouldn’t do a solo that I did in “Source of Infection” in a song like “When It’s Love”. And I don’t think I’ve really done a solo that doesn’t fit a tune, so to speak. I mean, you pretty much know if something sounds good or not.

Steve Harris:  If something’s not gonna sound good, then everybody’s gonna and everybody will hear it.

Eddie Van Halen:  Yeah.

Steve Harris: Ever been clashes in the band? Like Michael wants this, but .

Eddie Van Halen:  Not really, no. We’re very similar in knowing if something stinks or not.

Steve Harris: What about your producer? How much input does he have?

Michael Anthony: How much input do we have?

Eddie Van Halen:  Yeah. We produce it ourselves, so.

Steve Harris: But you did the last one yourselves?

Eddie Van Halen:  Yeah, yeah. Well, the one before, too, basically. Mick Jones got there when we were done. We felt really bad so we ended up writing one more song with him just to make him feel like he was a part of it. No, I swear to God. And “1984” was the first album done in my studio and that, pretty much we did ourselves, too.

Steve Harris: But that wasn’t credited to you, right?

Eddie Van Halen:  No, no. Well, Ted was still our official–

Steve Harris: Your official mentor.

Eddie Van Halen:  His name was still on it.

Michael Anthony: Executive producer.

Eddie Van Halen:  He wasn’t that involved.

Steve Harris: Well, it seemed that from the very beginning you guys pretty much had control of the reins ’cause even he–

Eddie Van Halen:  Well, not completely.

Steve Harris: Oh really?

Eddie Van Halen:  Otherwise, songs like “Dancing in the Streets” would-I hate to say it, but.

Steve Harris: I remember saying one time you got–

Eddie Van Halen:  It really me off because say, “Diver Down”, that album was half cover tunes. “Pretty Woman” on it. It had “Where Have All the Good Times Gone” and I’m just going, “Enough.” I’d rather–

Eddie Van Halen:  That was Templeton.

Steve Harris:  Yeah, yeah.

Michael Anthony: Right?

Eddie Van Halen:  Oh yeah. Well, it was Dave and Ted. They were very, their philosophy was sort of if you redo an old hit, you’re halfway there because it’s already been done. And I remember saying, “I’d rather bomb with my own shit than make it with somebody else’s.”

Steve Harris: Think of the time you could save on writing tunes, man.

Eddie Van Halen:  No, but that pissed me off because I remember the lick I had for “Dancing in the Streets”

Michael Anthony: the synthesizer .

Eddie Van Halen:  Let’s write my own song.

Eddie Van Halen:  Is that right? I’m like, “No, no.” But at that time, I wasn’t in the position to say no. And then finally we kind of–

Steve Harris: That shows a major change in the band right there.

Eddie Van Halen:  Oh, yeah.

Steve Harris: Decided to become a lot more.

Eddie Van Halen:  That was “1984”. “1984” was first album actually where we did what we wanted.

Michael Anthony: Yeah.

Eddie Van Halen:  That might be part of the reason why a certain person left.

Steve Harris: Guns and Roses.

Michael Anthony: Nice tattoos.

Steve Harris: Nice tattoos, great headband.

Eddie Van Halen:  Great hair, too.

Eddie Van Halen:  Great hair, great hair, love it. You just asking what we think of them?

Steve Harris: No, I’m just saying they’re trying to represent sort of these new bad boys who seem to be destroying themselves in public on drugs and alcohol.

Eddie Van Halen:  Well, you see something like that’s popular right now. It’s like–

Steve Harris: Is it popular? It seems like they’re–

Michael Anthony: It’s a fad, it’s like–

Eddie Van Halen:  You gotta be popular if you sell that many records.

Steve Harris: No, I mean that kind of sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll type of lifestyles. But I was just saying you guys seem like you’re very clean now.

Eddie Van Halen:  Absolutely, nothing’s really changed, we just don’t do it in public as often.

Michael Anthony: Kinda gotta get a handle on when to do it and when not to do it, you know?

Eddie Van Halen:  Yeah.

Steve Harris: You can do anything to excess.

Eddie Van Halen:  Well, I still like a cop of buzz and have fun. We go out and party, but this point in time, it’s like–

Michael Anthony: Kinda gotta know when to pull the plug.

Steve Harris: After a while, I guess it becomes tiresome as well.

Michael Anthony: Yeah. It drags you down. It’s a little harder to get up every morning.

Eddie Van Halen:  It loses its .

Michael Anthony: You wanna be able to go out on the road and play longer than a week.

Steve Harris:  Really, uh huh. Did you ever go through a period where you thought it was getting a little too intense and–

Eddie Van Halen:  Yeah, it kinda happened with me around 83, 84. It was more, eh, forget it. God. Yeah, I went a little overboard.

Michael Anthony: All of us did. All of us have at one point or another, but and that’s the great thing about having these bros of mine–

Eddie Van Halen:  Somebody tell you, “Hey, man, chill out.”

Michael Anthony: and says, “Hey.” A lot of times everybody’s getting wild together and nobody sees what’s going on until all of a sudden it’s too late. And then it’s like, well, see you, guys.

Eddie Van Halen:  And you find a Bon Scott in a car dead with a bottle in his hand.

Steve Harris: Not placing the onus on Dave or anything, but I guess his leaving the band maybe sort of cleared the air a little bit for you.

Eddie Van Halen:  I’d have to say, yeah. It really lifted a cloud.

Steve Harris: Well, when he first left, I mean, was it a feeling of relief or was it a feeling of more shock?

Michael Anthony: It was shock. It was definitely shock because we’d just come off our biggest record.

Eddie Van Halen:  Yeah.

Eddie Van Halen:  And we like–

Michael Anthony: Here’s the thing you’ve been working for your whole life and you’re just playing and you’re real popular and all of a sudden, it’s like, well, what do we do today?

Eddie Van Halen:  Now what?

Steve Harris: Kinda like the abused wife who thought she had to depend on her husband for years and all of a sudden she finds herself free, but she’s kinda shocked because–

Eddie Van Halen:  Very well put. You said it, not me.

Steve Harris: You told , Eddie, but you said it for a while there, your dependency on alcohol was so bad that you had to drink in order to write, in order to–

Eddie Van Halen:  Well, it was more of a. I don’t think I’ve ever honestly written a song without having to have the heat going. And it’s just the kind of thing where I’d be playing and then I’d get stumped and I’d go. You know what I mean? It’s just kind of association and that’s all I ever knew.

Steve Harris: You get on a roll.

Eddie Van Halen:  I mean, ever since I started playing, I drank Schlitz malt talls, blop, blop, blop, blop. Hey, great idea, right? And it was tough doing it without. I’m still drinking beer now, but actually, I did the whole Monsters tour without drinking a drop of alcohol. Yeah, that was really interesting, performing without drinking. I had to somehow figure out a way to make that nervous energy work in a positive way. What I used to do was just numb it.

Michael Anthony: The rest of us could tell the way he was jumping around and all over the stage. It’s like, wow, it’s a different person on stage.

Michael Anthony: Slow down, Ed, slow down.

Steve Harris: Do you think it changed your playing it all on that tour? I mean, when you get in front of people, I imagine the buzz is the same whether or not you’re slightly snockered or sober.

Eddie Van Halen:  Well, it’s a different kind of buzz. I mean, you get nervous. I get nervous. You think after having done it so much, you’re not nervous anymore, but I get really nervous. So I used to drink to numb the nerves. I mean, it’s a cheap excuse, but it’s the truth. And I just fell into that habit. I still have a couple beers before I play. It’s just habit.

Eddie Van Halen:  It’s also a disease, but.

Steve Harris: But it wasn’t the type of thing where like Michael, you would like see Eddie maybe 12 o’clock the next day and it wasn’t like he’d get up in the morning and have a drink or anything. It’s never got to the point where–

Michael Anthony: Sometimes.

Eddie Van Halen:  Well, that’d be before.

Michael Anthony: Sometimes we all did.

Michael Anthony: In the morning, we still wouldn’t have gone to sleep yet.

Eddie Van Halen:  No, but did you ever have to say, “Hey, man, you gotta knock this shit off.”?

Michael Anthony: Oh, yeah and they said the same thing to me at times when they see me. It’s happened to all of us.

Eddie Van Halen:  I wasn’t really that much of a hard drinker; beer could fuck you up, too, if you rink enough of it, especially the Bull.

Steve Harris: The other thing he said was he read that you had cleaned up your act since the death of your father.

Eddie Van Halen:  Yeah, that helped a lot because my dad was an alcoholic and he was basically pickled on the inside. Everything went. He asked both Alex and me not to follow in his footsteps. So Al quit; he’s been sober, shit, for almost two years.

Michael Anthony: It’s longer than two years.

Eddie Van Halen:  No, it’s almost two years.

Eddie Van Halen:  Cold turkey.

Michael Anthony: Yeah.

Eddie Van Halen:  Went cold turkey.

Eddie Van Halen:  Well, yeah. I tried it for a while, but I just felt like, huh? Something’s missing. But I’m like maybe a 10th of what I used to be.

Steve Harris: Some of the greater artists, he says, kind of go on this course of self-destruction whereas he says that in your case, you guys just seem to be regular guys. There doesn’t seem to be any craziness now.

Eddie Van Halen:  Everything in moderation.

Michael Anthony: I guess it’s just something you outgrow.

Eddie Van Halen:  Well, yeah, well, you kind of outgrow it and you kind of kinda learn as you go along. I mean, you should have seen us on our first tour in 78. And I was the one who was telling you guys–

Michael Anthony: Yeah.

Eddie Van Halen:  I swear to God, I’ll never forget in England after 11 months of touring and here’s everyone just going crazy, destroying the whole town going, “Hey, guys, don’t forget, we’ve gotta go home next week and we gotta start doing another record,” because the first record goes gold or platinum or whatever you think you’ve made it. Slaps you upside the head and you wanna stay up there, you got another record to do. And it was me actually pulling the reins back on the guys. I wanted the band to work and go on and make history, so to speak.

Michael Anthony: At that time we actually would have a band meeting. And then to bring everything out in the open. Hey, you’ve been duh, duh, duh and you were oh. And that’s the way we did it then.

Steve Harris: That’s right.

Eddie Van Halen:  You learn from all that.

Michael Anthony: We still have band meetings.

Steve Harris: You still these band meetings, huh?

Michael Anthony: Well, yeah. It’s for different reasons, but.

Eddie Van Halen:  That’s how we kept each other in line. And now, you learn from all that stuff.

Steve Harris: But in that sense, I mean, it always has been a democracy.

Eddie Van Halen:  Oh, yeah.

Michael Anthony: Always.

Steve Harris: Talked about when Dave left it became a democracy, but no, it’s always been–

Eddie Van Halen:  It’s always been a democracy, yeah.

Michael Anthony: Yeah, nothing’s changed since Sammy’s been with us. It’s still a democracy.

Eddie Van Halen:  Yep and he loves it ’cause he kinda did things backwards, joining a band from a solo career. Most peoples leave a band to start a solo career.

Steve Harris: That’s right, yeah.

Eddie Van Halen:  So he’s in heaven, too. He’s only gonna do a quarter of the work now.

Steve Harris: And not only that, but he has 25% input from very beginning.

Eddie Van Halen:  Oh, sure.

Steve Harris: Which is amazing because the new member kind of.

Eddie Van Halen:  That was the only thing, only doubt I think that Sammy had was how he would fit in to this band that’s been going for 10 years. When he realized how simple and easy and how open we work, he said, “Shit, yeah.”

Michael Anthony: From the very first note we all played together, I mean, everybody’s mouth kind of hung open and we said, “Yeah.”

Steve Harris: But a question for you, Eddie. If you had never started playing the guitar, what do you think you would’ve channeled your energy into?

Eddie Van Halen:  Well, I was too small to play football.

Michael Anthony: Porno star.

Eddie Van Halen:  I’m still working on that. Yeah, because I used to love playing football. In junior high, I was on the football team and I sprained my thumb after a scrimmage game and I said, “Fuck this.” And I started playing. No, I already played guitar, that’s why I quit the football team. But I have no idea, honest to God truth ’cause it’s the only thing that I felt was mine, all mine, no pun intended. I have no idea what I’d be doing ’cause there’s no way in hell I could do a nine-to-fiver kind of thing. I’m just not that type of person.

Steve Harris: Yeah, obviously you’re very good with your hands though, so I’d imagine would’ve gotten involved in something.

Eddie Van Halen:  Yeah, porno star. No, I don’t know. Yeah, I would’ve done something with my hands obviously.

Steve Harris: Have you ever done anything else? I mean, you’ve–

Eddie Van Halen:  Piano, played piano and that’s it.

Steve Harris: That’s it.

Eddie Van Halen:  Yeah, started playing piano at six years old in Holland, both Alex and I. It was like practice, practice.

Steve Harris: European stuff.

Eddie Van Halen:  Yeah, I won a few trophies and shit like that. And I got to be 12 years old and I said I’ve had it, wanna do something of my own.

Steve Harris: But I mean, you still are adept at playing the keyboard.

Eddie Van Halen:  Oh, yeah. I mean I play on the keyboard, I write on ’em and.

Eddie Van Halen:  I thought that was something you just kind of picked up–

Eddie Van Halen:  No, no, no, I was trained to be a classical pianist like a Vladimir Horowitz.

Steve Harris: You can actually sit down and–

Eddie Van Halen:  I used to be play the music. No, no, no, I never learned how to read, Al did. I always fooled the teacher. Well, I had good ear. Swear to God, I never learned how to read. I took lessons for six years and never learned how to read. Always fooled the teacher.

Steve Harris: That’s almost inconceivable.

Eddie Van Halen:  Well, that’s why my dad always kinda got a kick outta me because I had ears, I just picked the stuff up.

Michael Anthony: Yeah, that’s kind of another difference, too, between somebody who can sight read and just play. When I was taking music, I could read and everything, but I was really no good at being at sight reading. I’d go home and I’d check it out, whatever. When I’d play, I wouldn’t even really read the music either because I was no good at doing that and playing right off the bat either. I never liked reading music actually.

Eddie Van Halen:  I mean, I wish I could, tell you the truth.

Steve Harris: It’s so easy though. I mean, when I was–

Eddie Van Halen:  Yeah, well see, for me, it’s hard. I don’t know why, I just get this mental block against reading music.

Steve Harris: But it’s weird because you could teach somebody who never could play an instrument or never plays an instrument to read music.

Eddie Van Halen:  I never took any lessons on guitar either.

Steve Harris: Yeah, right.

Eddie Van Halen:  And I think if I did and I learned how to read and everything, I probably wouldn’t come up with all the weird shit that I do.

Steve Harris: That’s probably true.

Eddie Van Halen:  So it’s kind of limiting, actually doesn’t leave much room for–

Steve Harris: Creativity.

Eddie Van Halen:  Yeah.

Steve Harris: One more question before we line you up against the wall here.

Eddie Van Halen:  All right.

Steve Harris: He says of all the heavy metal hard rock bands that are out now, it’s still Van Halen that brings out the most violent impulses.

Michael Anthony: I guess we could take that as a compliment.

Eddie Van Halen:  No, it’s funny, just the other day I was driving out to the beach and somebody had been driving my truck and there was our tape in there and I turned the radio on and whenever the tape’s in there, it goes on automatically. And I swear to God, “Mine All Mine” was playing and before I knew it, I was driving 90 miles an hour, I swear to God.

Steve Harris:  It hits you the same way.

Eddie Van Halen:  Yeah, it really freaked me out.

Steve Harris: Speaking of which, out of all the glut of bands there, is anybody producing anything of any quality?

Eddie Van Halen:  Yeah, I don’t really listen to stuff. It’s like, say with Guns and Roses, the only thing I know about them is what I see on MTV, which I barely watch anyway. It’s just if my wife is watching, I walk through that room and who is that? I’m not really that up with current events.

Steve Harris: But I mean, one of the clones you guys have spawned on, I mean obviously you’ve seen some of the product. I mean, how, how does it look to you guys?

Eddie Van Halen:  I don’t know.

Steve Harris: You don’t know?

Eddie Van Halen:  I don’t really listen. Well, like they say there are the sprinters and the marathoners and there are a lot of sprinters out there, but we’re still running the marathon.

Eddie Van Halen:  I guess it would be interesting to see where some of these bands will be 10 years from now. I think that’s the true test.

Steve Harris: The wall, the wall is open.

Sammy Hagar: Hey, you guys talking about . we’re hearing a bunch of bullshit over here.

Eddie Van Halen:  Hey, man.

Sammy Hagar: Jesus Christ, you’re lying. That’s not the truth, that’s not the way it is.

Eddie Van Halen:  Hey, all we were doing is relaying what you were saying in there to them.

Steve Harris: I guess on that note, we’ll line you up against the paper here and get–

Eddie Van Halen:  I tell you, man, together us four, we gotta be the silliest mother fuckers you’ve ever met in your life.

Steve Harris: I guess that’s what keeps you going, man.

Michael Anthony: Oh, yeah, man, it’s just constant–

Eddie Van Halen:  That’s why they split us up because you get all four of us together.

Michael Anthony: You won’t get a straight answer.

Eddie Van Halen:  You won’t get nothing out of us.

Second interview

Eddie Van Halen:  I started playing ’cause I was just your typical insecure person being jerked around by girlfriends or people at school, this and that. I felt, this sounds stupid, I felt lonely. I was just your basic loner. So I started playing guitar. I just kinda fell into it. I didn’t know what else to do except play guitar. I got so into guitar that I would sit there hours on end, not go out, not go to parties, not do anything except lock myself in my room and play guitar. Ask Alex, he knows. He would go out with his old lady and come back at three o’clock in the morning and I’d still be up playing. I probably wrote more songs within that two, three-year period of time than I ever will and it was because I was depressed.

Interviewer: So was this like your friend, the guitar?

Eddie Van Halen:  It was a piece of wood that was part of me that I slapped together myself. And I just looked at it and I said, this piece of wood could never hurt me unless I fell on it. You know? Playing guitar always helped me through emotional, bummed out times ’cause I had something. Instead of turning on TV or doing drugs, I felt like I had something. It wasn’t like, oh, I’m bummed out, I better play my guitar. It’s like, I can say that now because that’s what I did if I did get depressed. I don’t wanna sound like a geek, but guitar really means a lot more to me than an instrument. It’s part of me, period. My mother and father used to tell Alex and I, “Get a job, have something to fall back on.” Here I am 21 years old going, “Oh, God, Al, what are we gonna do?” So Al has this bright idea and he goes, “Here, put this blue overall on.” And we went down to San Marino, which is a real rich section, South Pasadena area. And Alex would go knock on the doors and say, “Hi, I’m from San Marino department of whatever,” and I’d be sitting out in the gutter, taping up the house number to paint the number on the house and Al would charge ’em three bucks. And that’s how we made money to buy–

Interviewer: Wait a minute, you just conned them into thinking that you had to paint the number?

Eddie Van Halen:  Oh yeah, yeah.

Interviewer: But what if they already had a number on their house?

Eddie Van Halen:  We’d say, well, it’s mandatory. Once a year, it has to be done. Al was a very good talker.

Interviewer:You got away with it, really? For how–

Eddie Van Halen:  Until one day after we did this for about a month and a half every day, a cop happens to pull up and he goes, “Hey, what are you doing?” I’m going, “Al!” So he just, he kicked us out, outta the city.

Interviewer: Was it very much like you were the younger brother sort of getting into these scrapes that Alex was devising?

Eddie Van Halen:  I depend on Alex, I really do. Sounds hokey, but I love him so much. Even if he wasn’t my brother, he would be my best friend. That’s why we can fight without hurting each other, still get things out. I used to love The Dave Clark Five. So I bought myself a drum set and I’d be out throwing the papers as a paper boy to make money to pay for the $125 drum set. And Alex would be home practicing “Wipe Out”. And he got better than me. And he was taking flamenco guitar lessons at the time and I picked up his guitar. The majority of the ideas I come up with, I write on piano and then apply to guitar. And nobody believes me. Just like no one believes me that Eric Clapton is the only guitarist that I ever copped licks from. What I used to do is I’d sit down with a turntable and listen to the live Cream stuff and take the turntable and put it on 16, not 33 or pm, but 16, which is real slow. And I’d take the balance and put it to the left or the right, whichever side the guitar was on, and crank it up and play along. And it sounded like, real, it’s an almost an octave lower when you turn the speed down to 16. But I learned everything note for note.

Interviewer: It seems to me, however, that I mean, as far as stuff like people think when they think in terms of guitarists and they think of 60s guitarists, you may not have listened to them with the exception of Clapton, but what you’re doing is you’re taking the same instrument that they used and it’s like you’re moving it into another dimension. I mean, it’s like you’ve created this whole other kind of language. You do stuff that I never heard before and that doesn’t mean that you’re better or that you’re–

Eddie Van Halen:  Yeah.

Interviewer: You know what I mean? It’s just like it’s the next step almost.

Eddie Van Halen:  Oh, I don’t at all feel that I’m better. If I kick the bucket tomorrow, the only thing I want people to at least think of me as or respect me or whatever, is that I have done things on guitar that no one else has done. I’ll beat the outta my guitar to get any kind of noise I can out of it.

Interviewer:  Now why do you think you get those noises out of it and other people haven’t before?

Eddie Van Halen:  Anger.

Interviewer: You don’t know what it is that makes Van Halen good?

Eddie Van Halen:  No, because when Dave, Al, Mike, and I get along great it’s no different than when we can’t stand each other.

Interviewer: Are there really times when you can’t stand each other?

Eddie Van Halen:  Sure. Come on, you’re married. Aren’t there times when you don’t feel like putting up with your husband? I mean, Valerie will admit to putting a hammer to my head sometimes.

Interviewer: A hammer to your head?

Eddie Van Halen:  Okay, not a hammer. Maybe a door to my face, whatever. Whenever you know or spend a lot of time with one person, it’s inevitable that you fight, period. Alex and I, we’re brothers. Without him, I don’t know how I would handle all of this and we fight more than anyone I’ve ever known, but we also get along better than anyone I know. That helps me getting along with anyone else around me just like getting along with Valerie. We fight so much that we get everything out.

Interviewer: At what point did you know that Van Halen was gonna be something special?

Eddie Van Halen:  I always thought Van Halen was gonna be something special. To me, Van Halen was special when we played backyard parties ’cause it was me.

Interviewer: What were you like then?

Eddie Van Halen:  The same jerk I am now.

Interviewer: What’d you play? What’d you look like?

Eddie Van Halen:  I played guitar and–

Interviewer: I know you played guitar.

Eddie Van Halen:  Yeah, I didn’t look too much different actually. But to me, Van Halen was always something, something special to me because it was the main part of my life.

Interviewer: You’ve said that the guitar is your first love. Is that still true?

Eddie Van Halen:  There are different kinds of love. I mean, I wouldn’t trade my wife in for another guitar. It’s just part of me, period. Actually, it kept me from growing up. Really. Like my father, two things he always says is, “You only live once,” and, “There’s nothing better than a good life.”

Interviewer: He’s a real major role model to you. I mean, you never had any other heroes that you looked up to? No movie stars, no musicians, nothing, it was him?

Eddie Van Halen:  I’ll tell you, Alex and I and my mom, dad, we’re a very close family and I almost play to please them, to give their seal of approval and go, “Yeah, I like that.” That means more to me than 20,000 people in an arena cheering. What I’m doing on stage is me. That’s the only thing I can do. Seriously. I put everything I got into what I do on record or live. And I’m glad people like it, but it’s just very funny. Even though I’m in my late 20s.

Interviewer: How late?

Eddie Van Halen:  It’s 10 to two. I still feel like I’m a jerk kid. Like when I was in high school, when chicks didn’t want to go out with me ’cause I didn’t have a car or this and that.

Interviewer: All right, all right, all right, now stop.

Eddie Van Halen:  I still feel the same way.

Interviewer: You have been named best rock guitarist by, what is it, “Guitar Player Magazine” now for five years in a row, you are married to one of America’s sweethearts. Okay? You get kids screaming in concerts. What’s it gonna take to make you feel like that people really do appreciate you and you’ve got something going for you? I mean, it seems a little bit over modest.

Eddie Van Halen:  Okay, I don’t feel like I’m over modest, but I guess maybe I am. Everyone always tells me, “Hey, get outta your wimpy attitude about yourself,” and this and that. But I started playing guitar to have something on my own that I like to do and people will look at me and go, “Hey, he’s good at something.” I never bargained for all of this. I don’t think I’m any different than anyone who comes to see us play. It really isn’t an inferiority thing, it’s just the way I feel, playing guitar is part of me. If Van Halen ever goes and people don’t like us anymore, I’m not gonna go get a day job or. I’m gonna continue playing guitar because that’s what I love to do.

Interviewer:  Is there part of you, is there a fear somewhere in you that if you gave into all this adulation and if you started to believe the publicity and the applause and the hysteria and the kids grabbing at you and that kind of, “Eddie, Eddie,” do you think that that would hinder your creativity?

Eddie Van Halen:  No. I get more hung up thinking about how to avoid it.

Interviewer: Yeah, but why do you wanna avoid it?

Eddie Van Halen:  Because I don’t like it.

Interviewer: You don’t like applause? Then why are you on a stage?

Eddie Van Halen:  I like applause.

Interviewer:  Then why don’t you just play guitar in your house then?

Eddie Van Halen:  That’s what I did for years.

Interviewer: Okay, but now you’re on a stage,

Eddie Van Halen:  But then you get to a certain age where you gotta have some kind of income.

Interviewer: Come on, that’s not the only reason you’re doing it.

Eddie Van Halen:  Just about.

Interviewer: You don’t like sliding across the stage and making an audience go crazy?

Eddie Van Halen:  You saw my knees.

Interviewer:  I saw your knees.

Eddie Van Halen:  Think I like to hurt?

Interviewer: I see the look on your face, too, And you got a real look of joy on your face sometimes when you’re playing. I mean, you may have that on your face in your house when you’re playing alone as well, I don’t know.

Eddie Van Halen:  I do. I know some people who love that spotlight, that being in the middle and causing the hysteria, whatever. Alex pointed this out to me. He said, “Next time you do a guitar solo, look.” And he said, “You can slide on your knees or kick your amps and do whatever you want, but the people cheer loudest when you just stand still and play.” And that makes me very happy that they appreciate what I do on the guitar, not on my knees, you know?

Interviewer:  You don’t feel like a rockstar?

Eddie Van Halen:  What is a rockstar? Sounds like one of the Flintstones. It does. Hi, I am from Bedrock, I’m a rockstar. When I think rockstar, I think of a person posing, wearing skin tight satin pants or spandex. I’m not like that. I wear the clothes I do on stage because they’ll beat me up if I don’t. ‘Cause that might just seem cool out there the way I look right now.

Interviewer: See, I think you should–

Eddie Van Halen:  Because I love to play.

Interviewer: When you started out, what did you envision for Van Halen? I mean, when you were playing for $100 a week, what were your dreams?

Eddie Van Halen:  Okay, what I dreamt was that we would be famous, but not famous in the way the word means. Not that I could walk down the street and everyone would go, “Hey, that’s him.” Not like that, but famous in a way that people like the music we make. I would love to be the invisible man and just play.

Interviewer: Why don’t you stand behind a curtain then?

Eddie Van Halen:  ‘Cause they won’t let me. My brother used to throw drumsticks at me. “Move, move, jump around.” I mean, I don’t jump up and down and slide at my knees in the studio, I play.

Interviewer: How do you–

Eddie Van Halen:  That’s all I ever bargained for was I love to play, I wanna play.

Interviewer: Do you like playing more when you’re on stage and you’re sliding on your knees and you’re jumping up and down? I mean, does it give you an extra added kick?

Eddie Van Halen:  No, when Alex would throw drumsticks at me and not really beat me up, but everyone used to yell at me, “Move, move.” Do this, do that. I was afraid to do or move the way I felt like moving and what I’m doing now, no matter how ridiculous or whatever I look, sometimes I see pictures of myself, I’m going. But what the hell, that’s me. Whereas back then, I would try and move the way I was supposed to. Hi, I’m a rock star, I’m a lead guitarist. I better look like every other lead guitarist otherwise I won’t be accepted. What I’m saying is that the way I move is me.

Interviewer: There’s lots of people who work hard and who don’t have the same kind of talent. I mean, who don’t have a gift for being able to create melodies and things. That’s a gift, that’s talent, no? I’m not just saying it’s something that comes easy to you and it just rolls off your fingers, you devote your life to it.

Eddie Van Halen:  I guess what I don’t like is, okay, the word ‘gift” is like something that was just handed to you or given to you by some unknown power. I don’t know, I don’t even tune normal.

Interviewer: You don’t? How do you tune? You mean just how it sounds right to you?

Eddie Van Halen:  Yeah, if people have perfect pitch, I probably drive them nuts.

Interviewer: Why?

Eddie Van Halen:  Because standard tuning, like what a piano is tuned to is A 440. Those are the cycles of the overtones and vibrations of that note, A, above middle C, 440. I don’t tune to A, I tune down.

Interviewer: Why?

Eddie Van Halen:  Because certain harmonics come out better depending on how you tune. Sometimes I tune up depending on what kind of sound I want.

Interviewer: The point remains is that you don’t go by these rules anyway, okay? So you created your own rules, you created your own–

Eddie Van Halen:  Do you see a book in this room? I hate books.

Interviewer: Any kind of books? Reading books or just you mean guitar books or music books?

Eddie Van Halen:  I like entertaining books, but anything concerning theories, anything that someone wrote that’s supposed to set some kind of this is the way you’re supposed to do it makes me gag. I mean, I wouldn’t sit there and do. I wouldn’t do the weird stuff I do on guitar if I took lessons. I just enjoy playing, period. Whether it’s by myself or with people or with machines or just in my own mind while I’m going to sleep.

Interviewer: How can you go to sleep if you hear these melodies in your mind? Don’t you wanna just get up and get them down on the tape?

Eddie Van Halen:  That’s why I have all this stuff here. So when I wake up, whatcha you call it? “Girl Gone Bad”, I woke up around 5:00 in the morning, Valerie and I were in a hotel, I forget where it was. And all of a sudden I just, I had this riff in my head. You know, this thing. And I didn’t wanna wake her up so I grabbed a little cassette machine and I hopped in the closet.

Interviewer: The closet?

Eddie Van Halen:  Hopped in the closet. Oh, it was during or before “Fair Warning”.

Interviewer: You’ve had that sitting around all this time?

Eddie Van Halen:  Not the way it is on record, but musically, note for note exactly the same.

Interviewer: And you wrote it on a piano?

Eddie Van Halen:  Except in the living room floor with a Prophet-10 synthesizer that blew up on me, started smoking.

Interviewer: Why?

Eddie Van Halen:  So I went and got, I don’t know, it’s like everything I touch either it blows up or that’s basically the way I like sound is on the verge of dying. You know, like certain harmonics just. I mean you do that. That sounds like a horse or something. Here’s my elephant again. Here’s my mice. Sometimes, man, just the speakers in my amp just sound like they’re ripping apart, you know, doing. Oh, this isn’t my amp. This record was so important to my mental health.

Interviewer: Why?

Eddie Van Halen:  Because if this album bombed, I probably would’ve broken my guitar and became a race driver.

Interviewer: No, really? You don’t have–

Eddie Van Halen:  I would’ve kept playing, but I surely would’ve been very like, well, I guess what I like, no one else likes. And I started thinking, well, God, if this album bombs, I can’t force myself to think pop or commercial. What comes outta my head is what is there.

Interviewer: But did you think this was an experimental album?

Eddie Van Halen:  No, this was an album that is very, very much me.

Interviewer: More than the others?

Eddie Van Halen:  Oh, yes.

Interviewer: You can play many different style of guitar, can’t you? I mean, you were telling me before you could play “Crossroads” note for note.

Eddie Van Halen:  Eric Clapton.

Interviewer:  How old were you? How old were you when you learned that?

Eddie Van Halen:  Before I ever saw Derek and the Dominos.

Interviewer: So that was like in your teens, right?

Eddie Van Halen:  I was about 15.

Interviewer:  Do you feel that what you play on stage with Van Halen is being the guitar hero or is that what you want to play? I mean, are you happy?

Eddie Van Halen:  Whenever I’m playing, I play what I wanna play.

Interviewer: You’re not doing excessive flashy work because you feel it’s that role that you’ve been put into?

Eddie Van Halen:  No way. Look, at least I admit it, I’m a very self-centered, selfish–

Interviewer: You’re selfish and self-centered?

Eddie Van Halen:  Well, I mean, I thank God and everyone that people like what I do, but I didn’t start playing to be a star; I’m obsessed with music. I mean, I sit here and play and I’ll get off more sitting here by myself than being on stage in front of 20,000 people.

Interviewer: Really, more?

Eddie Van Halen:  Yes.

Interviewer: Really?

Eddie Van Halen:  Yeah.

Interviewer: Why?

Eddie Van Halen:  I don’t know. I guess when I’m alone, I don’t have to worry about what anyone thinks of what I do.

Interviewer: Were people always telling you you were nuts?

Eddie Van Halen:  No, they didn’t tell me I was nuts. I just, it was my own insecurities, I guess, that made me feel afraid, scared, easily intimidated, whatever.

Interviewer: What’s changed that? Has the success of this record changed that to some degree?

Eddie Van Halen:  I’m very proud of this record because a lot of my life went into it and having the success that it’s having proves to me that what I like isn’t so bad after all. I don’t know, things like “Cathedral” on “Diver Down”, “Sunday Afternoon in the Park” or whatever. I like a lot of different things. I’m not into, hey, let’s, hey, pop tune hit single, man, yeah. I’m not into the Archies or whatever you call it, that kind of bubblegum or. I couldn’t tell you if “Drop Dead Legs” is more of a hit than “Jump” because I like both. I could never have predicted “Beat It” being a hit. I don’t think.

Interviewer: Could you have ever thought “Jump” would be a number one single?

Eddie Van Halen:  I was hoping that it would get in the Top 10.

Interviewer: You’ve been in the Top 10 before, weren’t you?

Eddie Van Halen:  I don’t think so.

Interviewer: Wasn’t “Pretty Woman” 11?

Eddie Van Halen:  I think “Pretty Woman” made it to 11, that’s not Top 10.

Interviewer: Okay.

Eddie Van Halen:  Whatever. I guess you’ve made it when you’re on “Solid Gold”.

Interviewer:  Is “Jump” on “Solid Gold”?

Eddie Van Halen:  Yeah, I saw them.

Interviewer: Listen, they’re using it for the basketball games. Did you know that?

Eddie Van Halen:  That’s what people have been telling me, yeah. One thing is that just because this record did so good, it puts no pressure. People are already asking me like, “Hey, how about next time around?” or whatever.

Interviewer: You mean to top that? Like how can you top it?

Eddie Van Halen:  See that’s what I mean to top what?

Interviewer: Do you get a lot of pleasure from your music? I mean, when you–

Eddie Van Halen:  Pleasure, yes.

Interviewer: Yeah, I mean when you play something that you really just love or you think of a melody and you play it and you get it down on tape and then you fix it or you play it back or whatever you do, noodling around as you put it, does it make you happy?

Eddie Van Halen:  Let me put it this way, I love it and it’s a euphoric feeling. I don’t put it above my life. I don’t put it above my brother and my family, people I love, it’s just different. But it’s something that I have that’s, like earlier we were talking about gift or talent. It’s the gift or talent is the ability to use your brain to focus in on something. Anybody can do what I do if they had that will.

Interviewer: Oh no, come on.

Eddie Van Halen:  Yes.

Interviewer:  Anybody could sit down and play the way you do or think up melodies or hear things in their heads?

Eddie Van Halen:  If they were as obsessed to the point where I am and if they were into it like I am.

Interviewer: Yeah, but the reason that you’re into it and the reason you’re obsessed is because partially ’cause you can do it and because there’s a talent there.

Eddie Van Halen:  No, no. The talent is having the will and knowing what you wanna do. I know so many people, man, they just run around like chickens without a head.

Interviewer: Yeah, but they might not be able to–

Eddie Van Halen:  They have no focus.

Interviewer: But they also might not be able to sing a song or play a guitar. I mean, I can’t–

Eddie Van Halen:  Because they have no focus. If you approach it and felt the same way about it as I do and you’re obsessed in the point I am and didn’t play guitar for money or whatever, didn’t get into it for that reason, just because it got you off in some way that you really enjoyed it. Anyone who thinks and approaches music or the noise I make, or the instruments that I fool around with with the same attitude that I do, can do.