Rock journalist Steve Rosen started interviewing Eddie Van Halen in 1977 and continued to speak with the guitar legend through 2003. Those conversations, and his observations and insights, are shar…
in 1977 and continued to speak with the guitar legend through 2003. Those conversations, and his observations and insights, are shared in the bookRosen had previously authored biographies on Jeff Beck, Free/Bad Company, Black Sabbath and Randy Rhoads. In this excerpt describing a 1978 hang, his budding friendship with Van Halen is on full display.I sensed early on that Edward didn’t want somebody falling all over him or telling him how great he was.
After playing that snippet from “Dance the Night Away,” he told me how the band recorded, working with Ted Templeman and Donn Landee , and not trying to copy what he’d done on the first album. I asked him, “Why don’t you give me like a rundown of the songs? Titles? What was involved? Things like that? Can you remember?” and that’s when all the real magic was unleashed. I had uttered the secret password to enter Castle Van Halen.
He proceeded to talk about the songs on the tape, giving me titles and such and would then play the main riffs from the songs on the Strat and that was so impossibly unbelievable to watch as he picked out licks from “Outta Love Again,” “Somebody Get Me a Doctor,” “Women in Love…;” “You’re No Good,” “Bottoms Up!,” “Light Up the Sky,” “Beautiful Girls,” and “D.O.A.”
We yammered on about a ton of stuff: how he must have been blown away by his playing on the album, solos, the live feel of the tracks, the sound of his guitar, and finally, a question about whether he did any singing on the album. That led to a response about singing lead on Black Sabbath, Grand Funk Railroad and Cream songs in the band’s early days, which in turn led me to ask him whether the band ever did any Deep Purple songs because I had heard a lot of Purple on that first Van Halen album.
But Edward had it down. Who knows how many times he had listened to the song; placing the needle of his record player down on the first track on side one of Machine Head around the 3:46 mark to hear the beginning of the solo? I’m guessing he listened to the song a million times, but it could have been more.
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