Eddie was one of those quintessential guitar players. You might not like Van Halen or heavy metal but the fact remains that he was one of the pivotal guitar gods of the 1980's. He played on Michael Jackson's Thriller. Through his influence, there was a guitar boom during that time and everybody wanted to shred the guitar, leading to great players like Randy Rhoads. Eddie is the best guitar hero of the 80s, without a doubt. His influences, ironically, also my influences, the 1960s-1970s classic/blues rock, is evident in his playing, and helped develop his classic hard rock, "brown sound," if you will.
What is the brown sound? Well, it's that most perfect hard rocking loud distorted guitar tone that every rock guitarist goes for without necessarily trying to because it's so good so why change things up? Eddie perfected it with his own hands, guitar modifications, and guitar effects like the phase 90 and tube screamer stomp boxes, guitar pedals, and electronics.
A guitarist named Ronn from a classic rock band from the 70s, called Lightning [find them on YouTube, he's a killer guitar player], also told me about Eddie, "He plays licks from outer space, from Mars." Well, that certainly makes sense considering how blazing fast, bluesy, and melodic Eddie was. There was something otherworldly there. His guitar playing had everything; heavy rocking riffs, decent vocals, blistering melodic solos, and a good band to keep everything going. Not to mention the intensity of a Van Halen stage show performance. Might as well jump! He had it all and did it all.
His passing is especially sad during the middle of COVID, where some 200,000 Americans have died due to the novel virus. Although he died from cancer, we will never really know if perhaps his death was 'covid related,' as many deaths are these days. His death is personal for me because when I was a teenager I was obsessed with all things guitar. And when I discovered Van Halen, it changed my life for a while.
I could see that although heavy metal wasn't the kind of music my kind of people listen to, the music resonated with me because of the power of Eddie's crushing guitar sound and melodic fast solos. It wasn't so much the anthems [Jump, Panama, Runnin' with the Devil, Jamie's Cryin', Hot for Teacher] rather it was just the fact of the matter; the heavy guitar riffing saved my teenage soul. After hearing Eruption I went on to learn parts of it. And even later I learned all the scales and modes so I could shred the fret-board like Eddie. It was a good time. It's good to be young.
I also had a Van Halen disc golf that I cherished because I loved the band so much. I became a great Frisbee golfer back around 2011 and took great care to never lose my Van Halen disc golf, no matter how many trees were in the park, day or night.
Now that I'm older I see that people like Eddie Van Halen are rare. They won't come again. There will never be another Eddie Van Halen. There will be others similar to him but they will never be able to capture that intrinsic something, that epic guitar god status that is sorely lacking in today's musical environment because rap and pop have taken over and rock guitar has taken a back seat since then.
But his legacy isn't over. Even someone like me, a guitarist in his 30s, has been influenced by Eddie, and his playing lives on through guitar players like me, who learned from him, honored, and respected him, loving the music and learning from it.
Yeah, it's just heavy metal but it was MY heavy metal.
"I know, it's only rock and roll but I like it."
*Rest In Peace*
No comments:
Post a Comment