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Eddie Van Halen ‘Guitar God’ Title Slipping?

When Eddie Van Halen gave an interview in Billboard magazine recently he dogged Michael Anthony and David Lee Roth, despite the fact that one of those guys is still actually in his band. But Eddie Van...
Eddie Van Halen ‘Guitar God’ Title Slipping?
Written by Mike Tuttle
  • When Eddie Van Halen gave an interview in Billboard magazine recently he dogged Michael Anthony and David Lee Roth, despite the fact that one of those guys is still actually in his band.

    But Eddie Van Halen also that he doesn’t listen to music. “I don’t listen to anything,” the guitar god said. He noted that, even when he drives, he doesn’t listen to music. “I prefer the sound of the motor,” he claims.

    “It’s an odd thing, but I’ve been this way my whole life,” Van Halen said. “I couldn’t make a contemporary record if I wanted to, because I don’t know what contemporary music sounds like.”

    The real stunner came when Eddie Van Halen claimed he doesn’t remember writing his own hits.

    “I have no memory of coming up with any of those riffs,” Eddie said. “Even the stuff I wrote for the last record, I don’t remember. It just comes to me. I never sit down and decide to write a song. I’ve never done that.”

    Eddie does claim to remember that Michael Anthony can’t play bass without a primer from Eddie.

    “Every note Mike ever played, I had to show him how to play,” Van Halen said. “Before we’d go on tour, he’d come over with a video camera and I’d have to show him how to play all the parts.”

    Sammy Hagar was having none of that.

    “For Eddie to say he had to show [Michael] what to play and had to teach him all those songs, that is the biggest line of bullshit I’ve ever heard in my life. I was in that band for eleven years, and there was never a video camera involved of Eddie showing him what to play.”

    Defending Michael Anthony is one thing. But Sammy went further, claiming that it is Eddie’s playing that was slipping.

    “Eddie would tell him what to play once in a while, and say, ‘No, Mike, don’t play with that many notes. Just stay on one note — boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom — so that I can fuck up and nobody will know it.’ It was that kind of shit. And I am telling you straight up, especially on the ’04 reunion tour, if Mike would have played any more than one note, it would have been showing that Eddie wasn’t playing the right chords again and again and again; I couldn’t sing to ’em, you couldn’t play bass to ’em.”

    If Eddie says he can’t remember writing his own songs, and doesn’t like listening to music — plus Sammy claims Eddie screws up so bad live that you can’t sing or play anything but rudimentary bass with him — is Eddie Van Halen’s “Guitar God” title at risk?

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