Eddie Van Halen at 5150 circa 1991. Photo by Larry DiMarzio
When rock legend Eddie Van Halen died of cancer on October 6, 2020, the entire world seemed to stop and grieve. Since his band Van Halen burst onto the scene with their self-titled debut album in 1978, Eddie had been hailed as an icon not only to fans of rock music and heavy metal, but to performers across all genres and around the world. Van Halen’s debut sounded unlike anything that listeners had heard before and remains a quintessential rock album of the era. And they would end up as one of only five rock bands with two studio albums that have sold more than 10 million copies in the US.
ERUPTION: Conversations with Eddie Van Halen is based on more than 50+ hours of unreleased interviews Brad Tolinski and Chris Gill recorded with Eddie Van Halen over the years, most of them conducted at the legendary 5150 studios at his home in Los Angeles.
I had the opportunity to discuss the new book with both authors where we discussed Eddie’s passion as an inventor, his sobriety, and his top three songs.
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FOG!: You both have been editor-in-chief for a major guitar magazine. Do you remember the first time you heard Eddie’s guitar playing and what set him apart from other musicians?
Brad Tolinski: When I first heard Edward Van Halen, I wasn’t an editor—I was a working musician/guitarist. My first response was excitement…then terror! I realized very quickly he had set a new bar for tone and technique, and if I was going the compete I’d better figure what he was doing and how he was doing it…quick!
Chris Gill: I heard “You Really Got Me” in early January 1977 on KMET Los Angeles at 2am in the morning. That knocked me out, but what really got me was when KGB San Diego played Van Halen’s entire debut album the day it came out about a month later. “Eruption” changed my life. I had already been playing guitar for five years and studied all the greats (Hendrix, Page, Beck, Clapton and many others), but I never ever heard anyone who sounded as intense, inventive, original, violent and visceral before. It blew my 15 year old mind.
You became friends with Eddie and this book is the result of thirty years worth of interviews and hanging out with him. Was this always intended to be a book? Was there anything that you would have liked to have asked him that you never did?
Chris Gill: Any opportunity to talk with Ed was like climbing a mountain to seek wisdom from a wise man, and I jumped at every opportunity I ever had to interview him, which fortunately was often. We wanted to do this book while Ed was still around (ideally as an autobiography), but unfortunately he left us too soon. Although Ed never sat down with us to do a formal autobiography, Brad and I knew that Ed had already done that through our collective interviews with him.
Brad Tolinski: My regular joke has been that this book was 30 years in the making, but Chris and I only began discussing it a few years ago.
Because of our long relationship with Ed—and our background as musicians—we felt we were among a small handful of people uniquely qualified to tell his story properly. Our goal was to balance the man and the musician, and give both their proper due. He was the most influential guitarist since Jimi Hendrix, and therefore one of the greatest musicians of the 20th Century. That part of the story had to told along with his very complicated emotional trajectory.
Chris Gill: I would have loved to have done in depth interviews with Ed on the “in between” early Roth era albums. We did a deep interview on the 1984 album and the debut, but I would have loved to dig deeper on the others, particularly Fair Warning.
The book features interviews with Michael Anthony, Gary Cherone, and Wolfgang Van Halen, but David Lee Roth, Sammy Hagar and Eddie’s brother, Alex were non-participants. Did you speak to any of them at all and why do you think Alex declined to be a part of the interviews?
Chris Gill: Dave and Sammy both have published their own books and have had an opportunity to say what they wanted to say. This book was focused on Ed and giving him his say, in his own words, along with input from others close to him who could fill in a few holes. We wanted to keep the focus on Ed as much as possible, but most singers have a tendency to steal the spotlight. Alex is a very private man, and we respected his desire to mourn in privacy.
Brad Tolinski: Alex was simply not ready to talk about his brother in any depth in months following his death. It was a difficult time for him. In many ways he and Ed were like conjoined twins. While Alex tends to be stoic, his grief was probably unimaginable.
Sammy already had his say in his book and Dave, who is notoriously evasive, wasn’t talking. To some degree, we were okay with that. We felt some of the other voices would be less guarded, and, for the most part, they were incredibly open and frank.
Image via Twitter.com/DavidLeeRoth
However, it’s important to note that the sub-title of the book is Conversations with Eddie Van Halen. It’s Ed’s voice that provides the crucial emotional counterpoint to our narrative.
Eddie was more than a guitarist, he was also a bit of an inventor. Was that as important to him as his music was?
Chris Gill: Absolutely. He told me that his greatest achievement was having the instruments he created curated by the Smithsonian Museum of American History and being invited to participate in the “What It Means To Be American” talk in 2015. He family immigrated to America with “only $50 and a piano” when he was a child, but he ended up becoming an incredible American success story. That meant more to him than any Platinum albums or Grammy Awards. His EVH company was as much an expression of his creative genius as his records were.
Brad Tolinski: He wasn’t just “a bit of an inventor,” he totally revolutionized and reinvented the electric guitar, the most culturally important instrument of the last half century. His contributions to the construction of the instrument were so important that the Smithsonian Museum in Washington DC made his handmade Frankenstein guitar part of their permanent collection. I would say his guitar and amp design went hand-in-hand with his music—he couldn’t have made his sound without his inventions. He devoted his last 20 years to building his EVH guitar company, so yes, it was important, indeed.
Eddie Van Halen performing at San Jose Arena (Balance Tour) / Photo by Chris Gill
Sobriety found itself into Eddie’s life in 2008 and he was diagnosed with tongue cancer and was declared cancer free in 2002. The cancer returned with throat cancer in 2014 and battled that through his death in 2020. This was during the 30 years that you both visited him. How did he change as a person during both his sobriety and illness?
Brad Tolinski: Yes, he changed considerably. It might even be the most remarkable part of his story. Towards the end, he was perhaps happier than I had ever seen him. Wrestling with his mortality made him truly appreciated his life and those around him. He was thrilled to be making music with his son, he genuinely embraced his reconciliation with David Lee Roth, and was looking forward to a future tour that included every Van Halen member from the past, including Sammy, Dave Gary and Michael.
Chris Gill: Ed completely turned his life around during the last 10 years of his life. It was a true personal redemption, and he had pulled himself of the very dark depths he descended into during the early 2000s with considerable help and support from his son, Wolfgang, and second wife, Janie. He was always a good, well-meaning person (“I want to be remembered as a nice guy,” he told me in 2009, and he was), but he became even more kind, generous and particularly forgiving in his latter years. I was particularly touched when he told me that he fully accepted his age when he turned 60. He aged gracefully, but that famous youthful smile of his never faded.
What three songs would you each choose as examples of the best of Eddie’s work?
Brad Tolinski: Of course, the instrumental “Eruption,” which is the name of the book. I also like “Beautiful Girls” for its uplift and positively gonzo guitar sounds and fills. And finally I’ll pick the solo in Michael Jackson’s “Beat It,” one of the wildest and bizarre guitar breaks ever heard in a gigantic pop song. The collaboration was also significant for helping break down color barriers on MTV.
Chris Gill: “Eruption” This is ground zero for my generation of guitar players. It was our “Beatles on Ed Sullivan” moment. Eddie completely changed the direction of rock guitar from that moment forward. Next would be “Once.” Van Halen III was not commercially successful, but it was the closest thing to Ed’s solo album we’ll ever get. This song shows his depth as a guitarist and also as a pianist. His solos are reflections of the man he was – soulful and touching one moment, and deep and intense the next. Finally, “Hot For Teacher” Ed was a true virtuoso, but he also made music fun. This song shows the swing jazz background he picked up from his father Jan, and the interplay with his brother Alex on drums shows why the two were inseparable. The ending is the best aural representation of an orgasm I’ve ever heard.
ERUPTION: Conversations with Eddie Van Halen is available now.
