Edward Van Halen: A Definitive Biography (9 page)

CHAPTER 10 

The End of the Beginning

As Van Halen’s career arc projected, Edward began encountering lots of problems the average person would never even conceive of. Right at the closing of the decade, Ed gave another interview with Jas Obrecht of
Guitar
Player
on December 29, 1979. His response to Jas’s very first question “How you doing?” was “Feeling a bit zombied.”

There was a hell of a lot going on in Ed’s world at the time, and not all of it was good. For starters, Edward talked about other top-of-the-line guitarists copying not only his tapping technique but also publicly performing the tapping section of “Eruption.” The first such instance was in August of 1978 when Rick Derringer opened a pair of shows for VH in West Texas. Ed had admired Rick for years for his work with the Winter brothers Edgar and Johnny as well as his own solo material—Van Halen had previously covered “Rock and Roll Hootchie Koo” as well as other tunes Rick had played on. Rick incorporated the “Eruption” tapping sequence into his own guitar solo. “He did my exact solo,” said Edward. “After the show, we’re sitting in the bar, and I said, ‘Hey, Rick. I grew up on your ass. How can you do this? I don’t care if you use the technique—(but) don’t play my melody.’ And he’s goin’, ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah.’ The next night he does my solo again, and he ends the set with ‘You Really Got Me,’ which is exactly what we do. So I hate to say it, but I just told him, ‘Hey, if you’re going to continue doing that, you ain’t opening for us.’ So I kicked him off.”

The same thing happened in June of 1979 in North Carolina when Van Halen played a stadium bill with Boston, who top-billed at the time. Tom Scholz did the same thing Rick Derringer did—he incorporated the “Eruption” tapping sequence into his own guitar solo. Edward was livid. “It was real weird, because it was a daytime thing, and I was standing onstage and the whole crowd was looking at me like, ‘What’s this guy doing?’” Eddie said. “I was drunk, and I got pissed. He never comes around. He doesn’t say ‘Hi.’ He doesn’t do anything. He just kind of hides out, runs onstage and plays, and disappears afterwards. So I started talking to the other guitarist, and I told him, ‘Hey. Tell him I think he’s fucked!’”

About exactly a month after the Boston incident, Adam Brenner had his fantasy hang-out with Edward in Seattle. Adam said, “He told McCrae [Adam’s friend] I was better than the guy in Bad Company and I should start a band, but whatever I do, he told me, ‘Don’t just copy me like every asshole in L.A., take it somewhere further, somewhere else.’”

By the mid-1980s, the tapping technique would be common not only to nearly every single rock or metal release, but the technique also extended into the jazz realm with players like Stanley Jordan. It took a few years, but there would eventually become a marked distinction between guitarists whose careers were already established when
Van
Halen
was released, and those who came onto the scene or had albums released starting around 1980 or so. Randy Rhoads, for example, came into national prominence in 1981 on Ozzy Osbourne’s first solo album
Blizzard
of
Ozz
. Randy’s solos and fills were chock-full of tapping and other techniques similar to Edward’s, but Randy proudly named Eddie as a huge influence on his playing. When Randy and other newcomers used tapping, it then became part of the general lexicon of electric guitar playing. But in 1978 and 1979, when it was new and it was the signature sound of a singular guitar player, it was different. Edward deserved a grace period of ownership of his technique, but the lure of it was too much to resist for established guitarists like Derringer and Scholz, which, in retrospect, should be an embarrassment to both of them. Ed had every right to stake his claim.

“I guess they always say that imitation is the highest form of flattery. I think this is a crock of shit,” Edward said. “I don’t like people doing things exactly like me. Some of the things I do I know no one has done… . What I don’t like is when someone takes what I’ve done, and instead of innovating on what I came up with, they do my trip! They do my melody. Like I learned from Clapton, Page, Hendrix, Beck—but I don’t play like them. I innovated; I learned from them and did my own thing out of it. Some of those guys out there are doing my thing, which I think is a lot different.”

Ed also expressed frustration about the jealousy of other guitarists and asserted that people outright hated him. “Other musicians, they’re jealous,” he said. “The more they hate you, the better you are. I mean, no other guitarist is gonna hate another guitarist if they’re no good. You’re no threat.” Eddie added, “There’s a lot of people who don’t know me who hate me, because they think I’m some egoed-out motherfucker, but I’m not at all. That’s just one thing that I never expected.” Eddie specifically noted a sour encounter with Joe Perry of Aerosmith: “I walked up to shake his hand, and he looked at me and walked away.”

Edward’s love of Charvel guitar parts turned sour when the company began marketing a copycat version of Ed’s Strat-style body with a humbucker and a tremolo. Edward had been close to Wayne Charvel, the company’s founder, but Wayne sold the company in November of 1978 to Grover Jackson. Grover proceeded to produce the copycats and sell them for a thousand dollars. “It’s my guitar design that’s keeping them in business,” said Eddie. Of his original guitar concept, he said, “It looks like a Strat, but it only has one pickup in it, one volume knob, no tone, no fancy garbage… . I’m not saying my guitar is ‘Wow, the new guitar,’ but it is a guitar that you could not at the time buy on the market.” With regards to Grover Jackson, Edward said, “This guy kind of exploited my idea, so I’m suing him. See, I feel kind of fucked doing that, but all I want him to do is stop. I don’t give a damn about the money.” He added, “Here I am just a punk kid trying to get a sound out of a guitar that I couldn’t buy off the rack, so I build one myself and now everybody else wants one.”

Even Eddie’s paint job was being copped. He said, “Just the other night, Christmas Eve, I went to the Whisky. A band called Weasels was playing, and the lead guitarist had a guitar exactly like mine. I just don’t understand how someone could walk onstage with my guitar, because it’s my trademark. You know, when people see a freaked-out striped guitar like that, with one pickup, one volume knob, they obviously know it’s mine.” Striped guitars would be a common sight at any guitar retailer in the 1980s.

The “flattery” didn’t stop at guitars. Pickup maker Seymour Duncan also raised Eddie’s ire. He told Obrecht: “See, I’ve rewound my own pickups before, and a guy named Seymour Duncan, I got pissed at him too. He called me up and said, ‘Can we use your name for a special pickup?’ And I said no. Next time I pick up
Guitar
Player
Magazine
, there’s a special Van Halen model customized Duncan pickup. I called him up and said, ‘What the hell’s goin’ on?’ So he stopped finally. It’s just kind of weird you know.”

He even figured out he was getting fleeced at guitar shops. At one particular store, Eddie said, “I was smart, and I had my roadie go in and get a price list. They didn’t know that I knew the price list, so I walked in with him. I go, ‘How much do you want for this?’ And they quoted me a price a grand above what it said on the paper. I said, ‘Wait a minute, man, it says right here that it’s… ’ And they said, ‘Oh, oh,’ and tried to make excuses. I hate dealing with people like that. That’s another reason why I build my own.”

Interviewers were also getting under his skin. “I hate doing interviews. I just can’t stand it,” Eddie said. “They always fuck me over. They always write things that twist and bend what I say.” His complaints were mostly about the teen-scream mags like
Creem
and
Circus
. But when a
Guitar
World
interviewer asked him what he thought about other high-profile guitarists, Eddie snapped, “I hate doing this because you’re going to make me come off like an asshole. Enough people hate me already.”

Ed was open in his admiration for Obrecht as well as journalist Steven Rosen, who wrote for almost every rock and guitar magazine around. But Edward also talked about how awkward radio interviews were for him, saying, “I remember once I did a radio interview in the beginning—and I’m not much of a talker, really… Dave’s real good at it. You’re excited when you’re listening to him… I can’t do that. So here’s Dave motor-mouth getting the guy all jazzed up, and then he turns to me and goes, ‘I understand you and your brother are from Amsterdam, Holland.’ And I go, ‘Yeah.’ That was it! Big long pause. I just wasn’t ready for a big long story. It’s like I’m not an entertainer with my mouth, but everyone expects you to be.”

As far as touring goes, Edward stated that 1979 “will probably be the last ten-month world vacation,” noting that he’d prefer the band slow down a little and play fewer gigs. This notion would return to him several times over the next few years.

The Birth of Frankenstein and Retiring Jan

There was a silver lining in all of this, however. Because Charvel was copying his guitar design and others were copying his paint jobs, Edward decided to modify his original black and white guitar from the first album. He said, “I really went to town painting it all freaked out, and I put three pickups back in, but they don’t all work—only the rear one works.” This was the birth of the famous red, white, and black striped Frankenstein guitar—Edward added the red paint at that moment. He said, “I just did it to be different, so every kid who bought one like that model would go, ‘Oh, man he’s got something different again.’ I always like to turn the corner on people when they start latching on to what I’m doing.” The repainted guitar made its first appearance on the
Van
Halen
II
tour. From there on, it would forever be associated with its creator. Eventually, it has become renowned as one of the single most important musical instruments in recorded human history.

In December 1979, no longer available for the Best New Talent poll—Edward was named
Guitar
Player
’s Best Rock Guitarist, edging out his one-time idol Jimmy Page. His feats had earned him his first major accolade, and definitely not his last. After winning the award, Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow played a show at Long Beach Arena. Edward went down there to finally give Ritchie a piece of his mind after being dissed by him years earlier, but the meeting actually went well. Edward said, “I went down there, in a way, with a vengeance, you know. I just felt like saying, ‘Hey motherfucker, remember me? About three years ago, when you treated me like shit?’ But I didn’t. I just said hello, and he knew me just through records and radio, and he complimented me.”

Still pining, Eddie ended his interview with Obrecht directly asking him, “When are you gonna do a cover story on me?” Jas responded, “In 1980, I hope.” Ed replied, “Yeah, that’d be great. Tell him [the editor] you want to do a cover story on me. Shit, Best Rock Guitarist, you know. And I see clowns on the cover… Being on the cover would be like a dream come true for me.”

In November of 1979, the film
Over
the
Edge
starring Matt Dillon was released. The film seriously resounded with the teenage youth at the time. The movie focused on the growing national trend of newly developed suburbs designed with adults in mind but not teenagers, who thus had nothing much to do but party and raise hell, when all they really needed was parental attention. The film featured several rock bands of the moment including Cheap Trick, The Cars, The Ramones, and Little Feat. Van Halen’s “You Really Got Me” is featured during a prominent party scene in the film and the result was a fairly widespread introduction of Van Halen to many kids.

After two years of touring and two platinum albums under their belts, Edward and Alex retired their father in 1979. Earlier in April, regarding money, Edward told
Guitar
Player
, “The first thing I’m going to do is get my dad to retire. Even just the weekly checks out of our corporation we’re making more than he is in a week. So Al and I said, ‘Quit your job.’ He’s been working seven days a week ever since we came to this country and we’re gonna buy him a boat and retire him so he can go fishing.” After the retirement, Eddie said, “On my dad’s birthday… we retired him and bought him a boat. I want to make my people happy.” It was a beautiful gesture to their father for all his years of hardship, not to mention the devastating psychological effects of the loss of his finger.

The final date of the 1979 tour on October 27 was huge for Edward and the band: it was their first time to ever headline their hometown arena, the Forum. However, the triumph was completely marred by night’s end. “When we played the Forum, my mom and dad came,” he said, “and when my mom came home, the house got ripped off for about twenty gold and platinum albums, which is real fucked because playing the Forum is like a dream come true. I’ve seen everyone play there. It was a hell of an event for me, and I come home and the back door is smashed in and all the records are gone. It’s such a drag. To tell you the truth, I’m not into the star bullshit at all.”

“Welcome to the music business, boys.” Surely, Jan never could have imagined any of this. He knew full well the potentials and pitfalls of the industry, and he had definitely seen the best and worst sides of it firsthand. But early retirement? Gold and platinum albums? Headlining the Forum? Burglaries? For better or for worse, their profiles would only increase in part due to continued album and touring success, and in part based on personal decisions.