Necessity Is the Source of Eddie Van Halen’s Inventions
The Path to Rock Superstardom Involves Immigration, Experimentation, and the Occasional Electrocution
Fascinating interview with Eddie Van Halen as he talks about immigrating to America as a child and how he invented his method(s) of playing guitar music with Van Halen.
Rock legend Eddie Van Halen didn’t set out to change the way the guitar was played. But, as he explained to a standing-room-only crowd at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, music shaped his life—and his life shaped his music—in unexpected ways from his very first performances.
Van Halen’s father Dutch father was a classical musician who “traveled the world making music,” said Van Halen. He met Van Halen’s Indonesian mother while performing in her home country just after World War II. They got married and moved to Holland, where “life became a little rough.” Van Halen’s mother was a second-class citizen; she was stuck at home with “two rugrats” (Eddie and his brother, Alex) while her husband was away gigging for weeks at a time. So they decided to pack up the family and move to California—to “Beverly” (“it wasn’t Beverly Hills then”), said Van Halen.
Read the entire article at www.whatitmeanstobeamerican.org