Eddie Van Halen

After experiencing mistreatment for their mixed-race relationship in the 1950s, the parents moved the family to the U.S. in 1962.

They settled near other family members in Pasadena, California, where Eddie and his brother Alex attended a segregated elementary school.

Since the boys did not speak English as a first language, they were considered "minority" students and experienced bullying by white students.

They began learning the piano at age six, commuting from Pasadena to San Pedro, Los Angeles, to study with an elderly piano teacher, Stasys Kalvaitis.

Van Halen was never taught to read music; instead, he watched recitals of Bach or Mozart repertoire and improvised.

Edward Lodewijk Van Halen (, ; January 26, 1955 – October 6, 2020) was an American musician.

Edward Lodewijk Van Halen was born in Amsterdam on January 26, 1955, the son of Jan van Halen and Eugenia (née van Beers).

His father was a Dutch jazz pianist, clarinettist, and saxophonist, while his mother was an Indo (Eurasian) woman from Rangkasbitung on the island of Java in the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia).

The family eventually settled in Nijmegen, Netherlands.

His parents wanted the boys to be classical pianists, but Van Halen gravitated towards rock music, and was greatly influenced by 1960s British Invasion bands like the Beatles and the Dave Clark Five.

Consequently, when Alex began playing the guitar, Eddie bought a drum kit; however, after he heard Alex's performance of The Surfaris' drum solo on the song "Wipe Out", he gave Alex the drums and began learning the electric guitar.

According to him, as a teen he often practiced while walking around at home with his guitar strapped on, or sitting in his room for hours with the door locked.

Eddie and Alex formed their first band with three other boys, called themselves The Broken Combs, and performed at lunchtime at Hamilton Elementary School in Pasadena when he was in the fourth grade.

He later cited this performance as key to his desire to become a professional musician.

He described supergroup Cream's "I'm So Glad" on the album Goodbye as "mind-blowing".

He once claimed that he had learned almost all of Eric Clapton's solos in the band Cream note for note.

"I've always said Eric Clapton was my main influence," he said, "but Jimmy Page was actually more the way I am, in a reckless-abandon kind of way."

Between 1964 and 1967, he won first place in the annual piano competition at Long Beach City College.

He was the guitarist and primary songwriter of the rock band Van Halen, which he founded with his brother Alex in 1972.

Van Halen also provided backing vocals for both David Lee Roth and Sammy Hagar, and occasionally played the keyboard.

Van Halen is widely regarded as one of the greatest guitarists in rock history and was well-known for popularizing the tapping guitar technique, allowing rapid arpeggios to be played with two hands on the fretboard.

Rolling Stone named Van Halen the 4th greatest guitarist of all time in its “The 250 Greatest Guitarists of All Time” list in 2023.

Eddie and his brother Alex formed the band Mammoth in 1972.

Two years later, David Lee Roth joined Mammoth as lead singer and Mammoth officially changed its name to Van Halen and became a staple of the Los Angeles music scene, playing at well-known clubs such as the Whisky a Go Go.

At a 1976 concert at The Starwood in California, the band opened for UFO.

Kiss bassist Gene Simmons saw the performance, and said, "I was waiting backstage by the third song."

He asked the band about their plans, and they said, "There is a yogurt manufacturer that is going to invest in us."

Gene begged them not to go that route and invited them to record some demos at Electric Lady Studios in Greenwich Village in New York City.

Gene then signed them to his company and the band recorded early demos of their songs, including "Runnin' with the Devil".

Excited about the band, Gene approached Kiss manager Bill Aucoin and Kiss frontman Paul Stanley about them, but they dismissed his desire to sign them to Aucoin's management fold.

Stanley later said he "rejected Van Halen to protect Kiss", and that they made an effort to make Gene drop the band to "keep Gene in check".

The discouraging words caused Gene to rip up the contract, and he "let them go" after feeling he may have held the band back.

The next year, Warner Records offered Van Halen a recording contract.

Eddie remained on good terms with Gene.

It was rumored that Eddie nearly replaced guitarist Ace Frehley after his departure from Kiss in 1982, but that Gene talked him out of leaving Van Halen.

However, neither Paul Stanley nor Eddie Van Halen remember this happening.

Stanley does remember Eddie coming down to the studio, being "blown away" by their song "Creatures of the Night", and telling Stanley he wanted to get into playing keyboards.

Van Halen dealt with numerous health issues since the 1990s.

Speaking at an event at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History in 2015, Van Halen discussed his life and the American Dream, saying "We came here with approximately $50 and a piano, and we didn't speak the language. Now look where we are. If that's not the American dream, what is?"

He died in October 2020 due to complications from throat cancer.