Eddie Van Halen at a concert in 1982.
Photo: Getty Images, Ross Marino/Rock Negatives. All rights reserved.
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When I was 11 I had a guitar teacher who played me “Eruption”. The music sounded like it came from another planet. I was just learning the basic chords at the time, AC/DC stuff or Deep Purple stuff. “Eruption” was beyond my horizon, but it was a revelation – like hearing Mozart for the first time. Eddie is the master of the riffs: “Unchained”, “Take Your Whiskey Home”, the beginning of “Ain’t Talkin’ ‘Bout Love”. He creates sounds that are not typical guitar sounds, but textures and harmonies that only arise through his specific technique.
The riff on “Unchained” sounds like another instrument was smuggled in. A lot can be explained by his technique: He holds the plectrum between his thumb and middle finger, which gives him the opportunity to pick the strings with his index finger. (When I realized that, I tried it too, but it was too bizarre.) But beneath all his technical prowess, there’s something else slumbering: Eddie has soul.
It’s like Hendrix: you can recreate your stuff, but there’s the factor X that you can’t reproduce. Eddie had that spark. Years ago I saw him on the Van Halen Reunion Tour and when he first strummed the strings I felt the same way I did when I was an eleven year old tot.
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