Eddie Van Halen Interview 1982

[stealaway]

Well, well... I´ve always liked Van Halen, but what Eddie says here is bit, arrogant...too bad, since he was sort of humble (or at least tried to be!!!) early on at least

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gov_s01q9HI

It starts on about 40:23. See what I mean and see what you think!!! Maybe nothing new really, but interesting interview otherwise too!!!

[Paul Wolfe]

Yeah, Ed's always been arrogant. Great player but not very humble.

[Shockwave]

eh....I don’t even need to watch it as I have read and heard a few interviews from EVH from 82 - 85 time frame about Randy, he is a douchebag every single time. I was never a big VH or EVH fan but it is surprising to hear that he was humble in the early days, if true, that’s great. If this is the case I imagine the reason for Ed becoming the way he is that he became jealous of everyone seemingly coming up to his level, in the early days when he was humble there was really no competition for him.

[mike_campos]

I hear more mick ronson influence in randy's music then ed's style,randy musical vocabulary is vast superior ,revelation into steal away ,should tell you that.

[Rhoads-Fan]

After listening to Randy's solos, Ed's seem a bit incoherent. I can tell Randy spent some time on the construction of the parts where Ed's sound like he just threw something together for the sake of getting the session over.

I might be way off base on this. That is what I hear. I like Ed's riffs a lot. "Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love" being a favorite and a decent solo.

[sytharnia]

After listening to Randy's solos, Ed's seem a bit incoherent. I can tell Randy spent some time on the construction of the parts where Ed's sound like he just threw something together for the sake of getting the session over.

I might be way off base on this. That is what I hear. I like Ed's riffs a lot. "Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love" being a favorite and a decent solo.

you are right but haven't worded it right IMO ..... Ed is a total off the cuff feel player, and while that doesn't mean he does 1 or 2 takes and says "that'll do" it does mean he doesn't look at the solo from a theory point of view...he basically jams along to the rhythm and then pieces together all the little ideas that come from those jams

From all the things I have heard and read about Ed he seems to be one of those people who are very shut off and it takes a while for him to let people in so he comes across as arrogant a lot of the time yet those close to him say he is a great guy to be around

[Rhoads-Fan]

After listening to Randy's solos, Ed's seem a bit incoherent. I can tell Randy spent some time on the construction of the parts where Ed's sound like he just threw something together for the sake of getting the session over.

I might be way off base on this. That is what I hear. I like Ed's riffs a lot. "Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love" being a favorite and a decent solo.

you are right but haven't worded it right IMO ..... Ed is a total off the cuff feel player, and while that doesn't mean he does 1 or 2 takes and says "that'll do" it does mean he doesn't look at the solo from a theory point of view...he basically jams along to the rhythm and then pieces together all the little ideas that come from those jams

From all the things I have heard and read about Ed he seems to be one of those people who are very shut off and it takes a while for him to let people in so he comes across as arrogant a lot of the time yet those close to him say he is a great guy to be around

According his ex, Valerie, every time Ed got an award for his playing David Lee Roth would hound him about it and was relentless. I'm sure Ed is a peach when he isn't drinking or doing coke.

[stealaway]

I think in Iron Maiden, for example,- Murray and Smith had very different approach for their solos. Dave would mostly wing his parts and Adrian took time to write his out. That worked out perfectly for them; my favourite guitar-duo, definitely!!! Wolf Hoffman and Jörg Fischer of Accept being favourites too, even if it was mostly Wolf, who played solos. But anyway, bit different approaches there again.

[Shockwave]

No doubt Ed is a great soloist and changed guitar. It does sound repetitive though after awhile as he does the same licks over and over. He sounds more fluid and loose than Randy does as there is really n structure at all to Ed's playing. I am pretty sure I read somewhere that Ed knows nothing of music theory, scales or any of that stuff, possibly not even knowing all the notes on the fretboard early on in his Van Halen days. Playing in key just came 100% natural to him.

I think in an interview a few years ago Paul Gibert described Randy's playing perfectly. He said something along the lines where it always sounded like Randy was struggling to play what he was playing which made it sound that much powerful and gave it's magic to it. Like he was always playing at his peak technical ability no matter if it was slow or fast. Overall Randy playing is very structured so its the complete opposite of Ed's. There is no doubt Randy could play fast and I think he tops out around 180bpm 16th notes, I remember checking this a few years ago with a metronome on a few of his shows at the end of the Suicide Solution, I think that is where he always tried to play his fastest. In general I think Randy had the capability of having a very light pick attack but it most cases played with a very heavy attack on purpose which gave him that sound.

[Paul Wolfe]

This explains Ed's soloing changes over the years and, to me, why the first 2 records have his best stuff on them:

https://youtu.be/bjL1EARzYaY


David Lee Roth:

“Listen to the solo in Ain’t Talkin’ Bout Love, these are thematic solos. When it goes [simulated weird solo], like this, you would record six different versions of the solos and would just start moving the channel. Turn this one on, turn this one off, turn this one on, turn this one off. After that, he would have to go learn the solo.

So you’ll see his hand move from down here to up here to back down again. It became a gymnastic effort, more elbow and shoulder to get his hand from the far end of the fret board to all the way to the pick up and back to duplicate that approach to making solos. So it was a very unique way of creating a solo.”


Randy on the other hand would compose something or, in the case of Mr. Crowley attempt to compose something and end op winging it on the actual recording - and then have to learn it so he could duplicate it.