10 Eddie Van Halen Facts You Need To Know

3: … And was a highly proficient pianist, too

It’s been well documented that Eddie’s desire to feature more keyboards in Van Halen’s sound in the mid-80s met with a certain amount of scepticism from his bandmates. However, it was hardly a sudden flight of fancy, for Eddie had been learning how to play the piano from the age of six, and he later commuted from Pasadena to San Pedro, California, to take lessons from a former concert pianist, Stasys Kalvaitis. Eddie showed great promise, too, winning first place in the annual piano competition at Long Beach City College between 1964 and 1967, and his parents hoped he might become a classical pianist – at least until rock’n’roll intervened. Famously, he combined keyboards and rock music on Van Halen’s 1984 album, putting the sound to world-conquering effect on the mega-hit Jump.

4: Eddie Van Halen never learned to read music

Remarkably, despite his natural talent for both the piano and the guitar, Eddie couldn’t actually read music. Instead, he learned visually, copying his piano tutor’s finger movements and reproducing what he heard. He became so proficient at this technique that the fact he couldn’t read a note of music went unnoticed. “I went to Pasadena City College, junior college, just for music,” he told Esquire in 2012. “But I never learned how to read [music]. For scoring and arranging, a Henry Mancini book was the bible. And I never read it, of course.”

5: His first guitar was made in Japan

Once he’d put the drums aside, Eddie sourced his first proper guitar, a Teisco Del Rey, which, as he later told Guitar Player, “had four pickups in a row and cost 70, 80 bucks”. Eddie bought the guitar from a local branch of US chain Sears Roebuck, and it’s not surprising it was a Teisco, as these budget-priced guitars – manufactured in Tokyo, Japan – were very popular with hopeful guitarists during the early 60s. Teisco products were first imported into the US around the turn of the decade, and, by 1964, they were being promoted as “Teisco Del Rey”.

Notable for their unusual body shapes, such as the May Queen design (which resembled an artist’s palette), and for their four pickups, Teisco guitars continued to find favour in the decades that followed. Jim Reid, from The Jesus And Mary Chain, owned one, while The Smashing Pumpkins’ James Iha can be seen playing one in the video for his band’s single Rocket. In fact, Teiscos again became very popular in the 90s, when they were renowned for being a cheaper alternative to the similar Fender Jaguar or Jazzmaster guitars.

6: Eddie Van Halen’s favourite guitarist was Eric Clapton

Though he sang the praises of other trailblazing musicians, Eddie was always especially quick to acknowledge Eric Clapton as the biggest influence on his own musical journey. In a 1978 interview with Guitar Player, he discussed the respective merits of other pioneering guitarists such as Jimi Hendrix and Ritchie Blackmore, but pledged his allegiance to the former Cream guitarist turned solo star. “Hendrix I like, but I was never into him like I was Clapton,” Eddie said. “And Clapton, man, I know every fuckin’ solo he ever played, note-for-note, still to this day.”

7: Eddie Van Halen was also an inventor…

Eddie is widely regarded as one of rock’s most iconic – and influential – guitarists, but he was also the inventor of several accessories which opened up the possibilities for guitar players of all persuasions. There are still several patents to his name, including US Patent No.4,656,917, which is effectively a stabilising support for a musical instrument. This device was significant in helping Eddie perfect his famous two-handed tapping technique, thanks to what is described in the patent as “a plate which rests upon the guitarist’s leg leaving both hands free to explore the instrument as never before”. Reflecting on this desire to invent such a thing, Van Halen told Popular Mechanics that he’d “always been a tinkerer”.

8: … And he personally customised his famous “Frankenstrat” guitar

Eddie’s love of tinkering also compelled him to customise a number of his own guitars, of which his best known was probably the “Frankenstrat”, named partly in tribute to Mary Shelley’s fictional doctor, who famously created a monster from a combination of body parts pilfered from the dead.

Rather less macabre, Eddie’s “Frankenstrat” came from a desire to combine the sound of a classic Gibson guitar with the physical attributes and tremolo bar functions of a Fender Stratocaster. It reputedly took him several goes to perfect the instrument, but he got there eventually and made the finished guitar stand out even more by giving it an eye-catching black-and-white paint job before later adding a coating of red paint.

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In April 2019, New York’s Metropolitan Museum Of Art displayed the “Frankenstrat” as part of its Play It Loud: Instruments Of Rock And Roll exhibit. A copy of the guitar is housed in the National Museum Of American History, part of the Smithsonian Institution’s facilities in Washington, DC, and Eddie can be seen playing the famed axe in Van Halen’s Hot For Teacher promo video.

9: He named his studio after a legal code

Prior to the recording of Van Halen’s multi-platinum sixth album, 1984, Eddie began building his own studio. Tiring of interference from outsiders, the guitarist wanted a place to work on new music on his own terms, and he constructed the facility with the help of engineer and future Van Halen producer Don Landee.

Eddie’s bandmates initially thought he was mad to embark on such a project, so the guitarist decided to name the studio 5150, after the California law code for the temporary placing into custody of someone who “as a result of a mental health disorder, is a danger to others, or to themselves”. Ultimately, though, 5150 proved to be a sound investment, for the newly created space proved central to the creation of future Van Halen classics, and also lent its name to the group’s chart-topping 1986 album.

10: Red Hot Chili peppers wrote a song in tribute to Eddie Van Halen

The wider music world was saddened to learn of Eddie’s death in 2020, with Red Hot Chili Peppers’ bassist, Flea, offering an especially heartfelt response on social media: “I love you Eddie Van Halen, an LA boy, a true rocker.” However, while plenty offered words of warmth in tribute, the Chili Peppers went one better, composing the song Eddie for their smash 2022 album Return Of The Dream Canteen. The first of the album’s songs to be performed live by the group, at that year’s Austin City Limits Music Festival, Eddie showcased the Californian icons at their moodiest and most plaintive, with guitarist John Frusciante tipping his hat to one of his biggest heroes via a dynamite solo entirely fitting for the man he felt made “the instrument explode through hand and whammy bar techniques”.

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