Eddie Van Halen Fans

Edward Lodewijk “Eddie” Van Halen (born January 26, 1955), is a Dutch-American guitarist, keyboardist, songwriter and producer most famous for being the lead guitarist and co-founder of the rock band Van Halen.

Van Halen was a son of saxophonist Jan Van Halen, his mother Eugenia was from Java Indonesia. At an early age he moved with his family to the city of Nijmegen (Netherlands). In 1962 they moved to Pasadena, California. Eddie learned to play the piano as a child, and has won many different talent shows. His older brother Alex also played the piano.

However, playing the piano did not prove sufficiently engaging - he once said in an interview, “Who wants to sit in front of the piano? That’s boring.” Consequently, while Alex began playing the guitar, Eddie bought a drum kit and began practicing drumming. After Eddie heard Alex’s performance of the The Surfaris’ drum solo in the song “Wipe Out“, he grew annoyed that his brother had overtaken his ability and decided to switch and begin learning how to play the electric guitar.

He has stated that he would often walk around at home with his guitar strapped on and unplugged, practicing. It’s said that he would sit in his room for hours with the door locked, as a teen practicing the guitar. He once claimed that he had learned almost all of Eric Clapton’s solos in the band Cream “note for note” by age 14; in later interviews he stated he could never play the solos precisely, instead he would modify them slightly to suit his style.

From | Wikipedia