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• The Essential Van Halen Album Guide
• The Ultimate Van Halen Playlist
How did you start playing guitar?
My brother and I were forced to take piano lessons, and it wasn't
fun for me. I heard music in my head, but I wasn't allowed to play
it. Then I bought myself a drum kit, and somehow my mom convinced
my brother Alex to take flamenco-guitar lessons. I had a paper
route to pay for the drum kit, and while I was out throwing papers,
Alex got better than me on the drums, so I said, "OK, fuck you.
I'll play your guitar."
What were the first songs you learned to
play?
The Ventures: "Pipeline," "Wipe Out," that kind of stuff. My
brother and I loved Dave Clark Five, but they weren't really a
guitar-oriented band. The first time I turned an amp all the way to
10 and it distorted, I went, "Yeeeah! This is fun."
You ended up covering another Sixties classic, the
Kinks' "You Really Got Me," on your first album.
At our shows, we used to do that and "All Day and All of the Night"
and, you know, just a bunch of old, semi-obscure rock tunes. I
always liked taking old songs and turning a prop plane into a jet
plane. To me, that's what "You Really Got Me" sounds like. Ours is
like whooosh [laughs].
How important were the Kinks for you?
I just like songs. I don't mean to sound like a prick or nothin',
but I've never really been that much of a fan of bands outside of
Cream. And I don't really listen to anything nowadays. The last
record I might've bought was Peter Gabriel's So. With
Cream, I was more a fan of their interaction live. You know, they
were an example of "What's the difference between jazz and rock
& roll? We just play louder." That's all. We get 12 notes. Do
what the fuck you want with 'em, you know?
Your biggest innovation was two-handed tapping —
using both hands to fret notes simultaneously. Where did you get
the idea?
I was watching Jimmy Page going [sings hammering guitar
lick], like that, with one hand, in "Heartbreaker." I thought,
"I can play like that, and you wouldn't know if I was using this
finger [points to left hand] or this one" [points to
right hand]. But you just kind of move it around, and it's
like, "You got one big hand there, buddy. That's a hell of a
spread!"
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It became the most imitated sound in hard rock.
Well, don't blame me. It's not my fault. The tapping had been part of my playing since about '72. Early on, my brother told me to turn around onstage so no one could see what I was doing until we had a record out.
Did people think that you were a guitar player from Mars
or something?
I remember a long time ago we were playing and someone told us
"A&M Records is here to see you guys." And it was Herb Alpert.
I met him years ago later and he came up to me. He goes, "One of
the biggest mistakes I ever made was passing on you guys." I'm
going, "I remember exactly what you said, too. You said the
guitarist is too psychedelic and too much uncontrolled energy." I
asked him why? He goes, "I didn't understand what the hell you were
doing 'cause it was so unorthodox." It didn't make any sense to
him.
Was "Eruption" a piece that developed in concert over
the years?
No, no, no. We recorded our first record on Sunset Sound in
Hollywood, and we were warming up for a weekend gig at the Whisky.
And I was just rehearsing, and [engineer] Donn Landee happened to
record it. It was never planned to be on the record. So the take on
the record was a total freak thing. It was just an accident. He
happened to be rolling tape.
Your rhythm-guitar playing is underrated.
Real musicians actually respect me more for my rhythm-guitar
playing than my soloing. 'Cause soloing is almost like pissin' up a
rope, showing off — unless you're truly improvising off the
melody of a song. But I'm actually a very rhythmic player, 'cause
I'm the only guitarist in the band, so I've gotta cover both.
I've always been a true believer that music should hold up without singing on it. You know, listen to Beethoven, you know. There's no singing on it.
Has anyone taken the electric guitar further than you
did with Van Halen?
That's hard to say. Especially nowadays with all the effects and
Pro Tools and all this and that. You don't know what's what
anymore.
You've been writing new music for a
while?
Yeah, I haven't written much lately because we've been on tour. I
got thousands of tapes laying around, but one of these years I've
got to go through 'em, see what lurks. I think a lot of them will
surprise you, everything from mellow stuff to kind of weird shit.
I'm always experimenting with sounds.
Are you going to record?
Yeah. We'll cross that bridge when this tour is over.
How would you imagine the next few years for Van
Halen?
I don't really make plans. I don't know. This tour takes us to June
2nd. We'll probably take a little break and then sit down and
discuss what we want to do. But it's always based around music.
How have you managed to sustain the tour this
time?
It's a way of life, you know? It's just kind of inherently built
in. It's the only thing I know how to do. [Laughs] I guess
the songs we write stand the test of time, so to speak.
And you're getting along on a personal
basis?
Oh, yeah. We always really have. To me it seems like the press made
more of a stink out of shit than we actually did. 'Cause everybody
kind of parts ways and tries to find their own niche, you know, or
whatever, but no hurt feelings about anything.
[From Issue 1054 — June 12, 2008]
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• Photos: Van Halen Kicks Off Reunion Tour on September 28, 2007