I am crushed.

One of my greatest inspirations as a musician, a very large reason why I even play, died of cancer on October 6th.

Edward Lodewijk Van Halen – better known to the world as “Eddie Van Halen” or “EVH” – the world-renowned guitarist and founder of the hard rock band Van Halen, my favorite band from about ages 10-25 (stuff happened around then that knocked them down a peg, I’ll get into that later).

Eddie was a master at his instrument, both as a soloist and improviser and as a writer and rhythm player. He popularized so many crazy techniques on guitar that we all consider sort of “normal” now, but few were really doing them in 1978 when Van Halen’s first record came out. He was an ardent tinkerer, assembing an instrument that served his purposes when he realized nothing commercially available would work for what he wanted to accomplish. He had wonderful stage presence, jumping around and smiling, all while playing amazingly difficult guitar parts and making it look easy. He also sang wonderful backing vocals, blending with his bandmates and providing a radio-friendly sound making their vocal hooks sparkle.

Most of this is stuff everyone seems to be covering as they pay tribute to Edward. And it’s all relevant to why Ed was so important to me as a young musician. I’ll boil it down to the lessons I learned from studying him closely, and then go into how it shaped the musician I became. SO MUCH of my philosophy about music is rooted in things I read in interviews with him that I think paying tribute to the lessons I’ve learned is an excellent way to explain why he’s so important.

Lesson #1: If it sounds good, it is good.
What I got from this is that we’re all different. We all love what we love. We should not be ashamed if we like some music or a tone or whatever because if we love it, that’s all that matters. If you like it, that’s absolutely all that matters. If it inspires you, that’s the best thing ever.

Lesson #2: Smile!
Eddie always played with an impish smile. It was never an arrogant smile. It was borderline cocky, but it always was inviting and told you how much fun he was having playing music. I let the music take over when I play, and often that makes me smile. Not just when things are going right…but when crazy shit happens or I swing and miss on something…I smile. There was a time when I didn’t – I used to get mad and scowl, and it looked terrible. Once it was brought to my attention, I vowed to pull a Van Halen and always chill out and grin. It’s been the best thing ever. People love it when I smile while performing, and often mention how much they love seeing me grin when I’m playing – how much more fun and inviting everything seems because it makes them happy.

Lesson #3: Try everything…
There’s a phrase Ed always said about soloing, “falling down the stairs and landing on your feet”. It was always in the context of jamming/improvising. Trying things, taking it way out or just trying something new, and then sticking the landing. That has been a mantra for me ever since. I always look for creative ways to be an ensemble player, to enhance the arrangement without distracting from what’s important, and then as a soloist, I will really go for it but then bring it back for a solid finish/transition to the meat of whatever we’re playing. It’s exciting and fun, and you’re always challenging yourself, and thus setting yourself up for constant improvement.

Lesson #4: Find new ways to do things.
When I first had access to a guitar, I had only played a little clarinet and keyboards. So naturally (and perhaps subconsciously), when I was farting around with the new-to-me instrument, I tried to play the guitar with both hands on the neck. So when I realized it was kind of Van Halen’s “thing”, he immediately became my favorite guitarist. The only person I honestly remembered seeing playing guitar like that was jazz guitarist Stanley Jordan in some movie (looked it up: it was “Blind Date”), and his method was completely different – very multi-fingered and chordal. But after the Van Halen obsession began, I basically sought out every unorthodox way to make a guitar make a sound. I learned pinch/artificial harmonics. I learned natural harmonics. I learned how to tap harmonics. I learned what frets would produce what interval from the original note. I’d do crazy stuff like pull the high E string off the neck and see which notes I could make on the side of the neck (not a Van Halen thing, I just found it fun). Just anything to challenge the “normal” ways of playing guitar. Here’s a little video where I talk about some of this silliness…

Lesson #5: Serve yourself and never pander to your audience
Pretty ironic that a guy who ended up being a pretty seasoned cover band guy who does nothing BUT pander to audiences would say this was a major lesson he learned, but it’s true. When it comes to my own music, I want to be happy with it. I honestly have never done music to gain others’ approval, even in the context of cover bands. I always want to LOVE what I’m doing, and I’ve gotten better at saying “no” as I’ve grown older. I’m sincerely proud of what we do in Chandler and The Bings, because I put my personality into everything. And when creating my own music, I’ve only sought to make the sounds in my head into pieces of music or songs. And it’s cool if other people like the stuff I write, but in the end it doesn’t matter. I made it. I like it. Or at least I’m satisfied that I tried. Ed was ALWAYS on this program. He wanted to play what HE wanted to play, no matter how much fans bitched, or the climate didn’t seem right for whatever music it was. He was going to create what he wanted to create, and that was a lesson that really hit home to me. If you try and satisfy others, you’ll never be happy, but if you work to create things that are meaningful to you and you dig? You win no matter what. Other people liking it is just frosting.

Lesson #6: Don’t be a prick
This is where we get into the darker and sadder side of my love-hate relationship with my childhood/teen/young adult guitar idol. Starting in the mid-90s, a lot of stories came out of him being a dick to Sammy, then a dick to Dave, then talking shit about Michael Anthony. It was becoming more and more apparent that he was just a bitter and angry person. It’s likely his substance abuse problems caused a lot of this behavior, but it still ruined him for me. His treatment of Michael Anthony was the worst, though. Mikey never did anything but support Eddie, play excellent bass, and was a major part of the vocal brilliance of Van Halen. So not only did Eddie go back on the deal they had as a band to split everything four ways and make him sign away his rights to the publishing in 2000 or so, he made him take a major pay cut to participate in the 2003-2004 reunion tour with Sammy. Mike did it for the fans and his friend Sam. A “lost” interview from 1981 or 1982 came out at some point in the early 2000s and Ed spends a large amount of the article shitting on Mike, so this wasn’t something new. He basically didn’t bother to tell Mike about the 2007 reunion with David Lee Roth – just got Wolf to play bass and went with it. I vowed to never give them another dime after all that mistreatment of Mikey. I read Sammy’s autobiography which was very illuminating about a lot of the behind-the-scenes stuff that went down “On The Inside”. That basically made me write him off as a bitter prick. But it was 2015 or so, when Eddie did an interview where he claimed Michael Anthony had to be shown how to play all the parts – that somehow he was a fundamentally basic and untalented musician – that was it for me. Fuck Eddie Van Halen. Fuck his EVH gear, fuck his legacy, FUCK THAT GUY. I was done.

Every now and then I’d try to enjoy Van Halen the way I once did, but it was basically impossible. I’d always think about how much of a prick Eddie was, and I learned by his shitty example that I never wanted to be like him as a man. Because, to me, he wasn’t one. I’m sure he was better to a lot of people in his life, and I know this changed while he was fighting his cancer and I’ve heard he mended a lot of bridges, including the one with Sammy. But I think it was most people forgiving him, not him reaching out to apologize. And since I don’t know him or how he really was, I take all the nice stories of his kindness and generosity and mix them with all the bad shit and then put that in the context of what he meant to me and that’s why I’m spending all this time writing about him. EVH could be a prick. But he could also be a sweetheart. I’ve definitely been a prick from time to time, but I’ve never fucked over a bandmate the way he did. Weirdly, though, his death made it possible for me to enjoy his music again the way I did when I was little, because the imprint he left was so good it outweighed a lot of the bad things I was hung up on for so many years. If the people involved could forgive him and mourn him, there was no sense in me continuing to be mad. I really hate when people are offended on behalf of people, and I’m not going to be one of those people.

I’m just going to enjoy his music, and think about how he and the boys made me happy when I was a kid. I’m going to focus on how much he and the band inspired me to become a better musician. And I’m going to fucking smile while I play, jump around, and when I improvise, I’m going to always try to fall down the stairs and land on my feet. Because that’s what Eddie would do.

Rest in peace, King Edward, and thank you for everything (the good and the bad). I love you.

TMS