On This Day: Remembering Eddie Van Halen
Six years after Eddie Van Halen’s death, his own words offer a way to remember the player behind the experiments.
Original editorial illustration of Eddie Van Halen, informed by late-1970s photographs.
Eddie Van Halen died on October 6, 2020, aged 65. Six years later, a useful way to remember him is to return to a practical question: what should a guitar let you do? EVH’s announcement
Building around the player
In his 2015 Smithsonian interview, Eddie explained that he wanted the humbucker sound he associated with Gibson alongside the vibrato bar he liked on a Fender. He recalled cutting into a body to fit a humbucker and making his own pickguard. The starting point was a player with a sound and a physical response in mind. Eddie’s Smithsonian interview
That is a useful lesson for anyone tempted to reduce his work to a parts list. A modification had a job to do. The instrument had to answer the way he wanted to play.
Keeping some risk in the music
In the same interview, he welcomed the uncertainty of live performance: the possibility that things might go wrong helped create excitement. His appetite for experimenting with equipment sat alongside a willingness to leave room for the unexpected while playing.
Van Halen’s 2007 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction gives that career a formal landmark. The more personal tribute is available whenever somebody picks up a guitar and starts asking what else it might do.
Which Eddie performance sends you back to your guitar, and what still surprises you about it?
Continue reading about Eddie’s equipment and career: Explore our Eddie Van Halen profile.