Words matter. These are the best Eddie Van Halen Quotes, and they’re great for sharing with your friends.
I’m not a rock star. Sure I am, to a certain extent because of the situation, but when kids ask me how it feels to be a rock star, I say leave me alone, I’m not a rock star. I’m not in it for the fame, I’m in it because I like to play.
It’s all about sound. It’s that simple.
We’re musicians. We make music for a living. It’s that simple. Nothing else matters.
I just consider myself slightly left-of-center. I’m not your average bear. I – what’s the word? I’m not – normal.
I never took guitar lessons. I took classical piano lessons from the age of six when we lived in Holland.
Music is for people. The word ‘pop’ is simply short for popular. It means that people like it. I’m just a normal jerk who happens to make music. As long as my brain and fingers work, I’m cool.
Actually, if I could deliberately sit down and write a pop hit, all my songs would be pop hits! Let’s put it this way. I play what I like to hear. And sometimes I like to hear something poppy, and sometimes I don’t.
I’m blessed with a good pair of ears. That’s how I fooled my piano teacher. I’d watch his fingers and I’d listen to it, and I just kind of basically learned it by myself.
The stainless-steel frets were a major breakthrough, because of the amount of playing and bending that I do. I have to get my guitars refretted every couple of months.
I’m writing, and just doing the same thing I always do.
I never dreamt of being a musician for my livelihood. I certainly never would have wanted to be in the business that I’m in, meaning the fame and the glory, the glitter, the rock star, the famous part.
I never took guitar lessons. I took classical piano lessons from the age of six when we lived in Holland. And when we moved to America, it was just the typical thing except I was really good at it; so was my brother.
My son, Wolfgang, plays drums, guitars and bass.
It’s always a Catch-22 situation. They hate you if you’re the same, and they hate you if you’re different.
It’s all about sound. It’s that simple. Wireless is wireless, and it’s digital. Hopefully somewhere along the line somebody will add more ones to the zeros. When digital first started, I swear I could hear the gap between the ones and the zeros.
I can’t read music. Instead, I’d do stuff inside the piano, do harmonics and all kinds of crazy things. They used to put me in these annual piano contests down at Long Beach City College, and two years in a row, I won first prize – out of like 5,000 kids!
The piano is a universal instrument. If you start there, learn your theory and how to read, you can go on to any other instrument.
When I’m home on a break, I lock myself in my room and play guitar. After two or three hours, I start getting into this total meditation. It’s a feeling few people experience, and that’s usually when I come up with weird stuff. It just flows. I can’t force myself. I don’t sit down and say I’ve got to practice.
I grew up on a lot of early Beatles, DC5, Cream, Clapton, Page, Beck and Hendrix.
Every song is like a kid. How can you have that many kids and have a favorite? Which one do I like to hang most with?
I’m the one in the band that said I’m not going on tour unless we do a record.
When Van Halen started out, there was no path to fame. We just played what we liked. Even today it always comes down to the simplicity of rock and roll.
If you have a great-sounding guitar that’s a quality instrument and a good amp, and you know how to make the guitar talk, that’s the key. It starts with the guitar and knowing what it should sound and feel like.
There’s a plaque on our wall that says we’ve sold over 65 million albums, and I don’t feel I’ve accomplished anything. I feel like I’m just getting started.
Obviously you have to have rhythm. If you have rhythm, then you can play anything you need. If you have rhythm and you love music, then play and play and play until you get to where you want to get. If you can pay the rent, great. If you can’t, then you’d better be having fun.
David Lee Roth had the idea that if you covered a successful song, you were half way home. C’mon – Van Halen doing ‘Dancing in the Streets’? It was stupid. I started feeling like I would rather bomb playing my own songs than be successful playing someone else’s music.
A good producer brings out the best in the artist he’s working with. You shouldn’t be able to listen to something and say, ‘So-and-so produced this album.’
When I was growing up and listening to bands like the Dave Clark Five, the groove was what initially got me going. I really like that funky, heavy groove.
You know, most people, they want to go to Hollywood. They want to be a star. They want to be a rock star. That thought never entered any of our minds, the Van Halen family.
It’s funny, when bands or younger musicians ask me: ‘So, what does it take to make it?’ Well, first explain to me what you mean by ‘making it’: Do you want to be a rock star or do you want music to be your livelihood?
I’ve had a hip replacement, I’ve beaten cancer, I had my hand operation, and I stopped drinking. Something inside of me just went, ‘I’m done.’
Every song is like a kid. How can you have that many kids and have a favorite? Which one do I like to hang most with? Probably the one that I haven’t hung most with recently.
I don’t really know what inspires me to write the music I do, but usually, the music will set the tone for the lyrics.
Everything I did is because I wanted to do it. If I weren’t playing this arena, if I were playing a club, I’d still be doing it because that’s what I want to do. I love playing the guitar.
It’s always about the music, never about anything else.
I was trying to take the band in a direction that I thought was appropriate, and Roth was trying to take the band in more of a Las Vegas direction. And there he is.
If you want to be a rock star or just be famous, then run down the street naked, you’ll make the news or something. But if you want music to be your livelihood, then play, play, play and play! And eventually you’ll get to where you want to be.
I don’t feel a day older when it comes to my approach to music or what gets me off than when I was a teenager. I’ve always been into different kinds of stuff and when I play I like to play loud. I like my arm hairs to move and I like my body to vibrate ’cause I like the feel of it; I’m still a teenager at heart.
I’ll be making music ’til the day I die. I’ve done all kinds of stuff, and more is coming.
If I can help a kid discover a liking, or even a passion for music in their life, then that’s a wonderful thing.
We make music for a living. Like I’ve always said, if you like what you’re doing, you’re halfway there; if someone else likes it, that’s even better. If they don’t like it, at least you like it. Not to be selfish, but you kind of have to be.
On ‘Van Halen,’ I was a young punk, and everything revolved around the fastest kid in town, gunslinger attitude. But I’d say that at the time of ‘Fair Warning,’ I started concentrating more on songwriting. But I guess in most people’s minds I’m just a gunslinger.
It comes back to the same old question people are always asking me: ‘When are you going to do a solo record?’ Well, if I did, it would probably be similar to ‘Baluchitherium,’ meaning it would be Van Halen music – which I write anyway – but without singing.
I’ll always leave the same set of strings on my guitars when I’m recording. If I break one I’ll just replace it instead of putting on a whole new set of strings.
