Best Van Halen Quotes & Sayings

What draws people to the instrument is the love for guitar players that play a certain way. I mean, even though it wasn't intentional, it was hard to avoid copying Eddie Van Halen. He was basically the *bleep* back then. — Tom Morello

When I was 13, I was just figuring out how to play 'Eruption,' poorly, by Eddie Van Halen. — Dierks Bentley

The piano is a universal instrument. If you start there, learn your theory and how to read, you can go on to any other instrument. — Eddie Van Halen

Fame is not so impossible for people with charisma, passion and talent. Being famous just means you have fans, and even one or two is enough to make you someone special. Ask a music fan who the best guitarist of all time is, and while one group insists that it was Jimmi Hendrix, another group swears that it was Eddie Van Halen instead. There will never be a time when everyone on this planet agrees on something like that, but luckily that's not important. All that matters is that both sides remain loyal, which they will assuming you continue to be who you are and do your thing. This is all that you need to be immortalized. — Ashly Lorenzana

If aliens came down and challenged us to a Battle of the Bands to decide the fate of Planet Earth, I would feel very confident putting early Van Halen forward as our champion. — Tom Morello

I liked a lot of the things other people liked - Jimi Hendrix, The Beatles, Van Halen, AC/DC - but if I compared it to my dad's music, there just seemed to be elements missing. — Dweezil Zappa

I can't read music. Instead, I'd do stuff inside the piano, do harmonics and all kinds of crazy things. They used to put me in these annual piano contests down at Long Beach City College, and two years in a row, I won first prize - out of like 5,000 kids! — Eddie Van Halen

I love players like Thurston Moore. I mean, you can put notes down on a sheet of paper, and if you practice and get your chops up, you can play like an Eddie Van Halen or a Steve Vai. But nobody can do what Thurston Moore does; he's his own guy. He talks through his instrument in a language that's all his own. — Frank Iero

Sometimes I'll listen to a little old Van Halen, or some Beatles, Zeppelin stuff, classical music ... I like a lot of different things. — Eric Carr

When Van Halen started out, there was no path to fame. We just played what we liked. Even today it always comes down to the simplicity of rock and roll. — Eddie Van Halen

I played 'Eruption' two times for the record, and we kept the one that seemed to flow ... there's a mistake at the top end of it whenever I hear it, I always think, Man I could've played it better ... but I like the way it sounds. I'd never heard a guitar sound like that before ... — Eddie Van Halen

These are things like Michael Jackson's Thriller, an album that was (1) produced by Quincy Jones, (2) features guitar playing by Eddie Van Halen, (3) includes at least three singles that ooze awesomeness, and (4) has the single best bass line from the entire 1980s (i.e., the opening of "Billie Jean"). It is a "guilty pleasure," presumably, because 45 million people liked it, and because Jackson is quite possibly a pedophile, a d because two dancers had a really unfair knife fight in the video for "Beat It." This is akin to considering Thomas Jefferson a "guilty pleasure" among presidents because he briefly owned a pet bear. I mean, he still wrote the fucking Declaration of Independence, you know? — Chuck Klosterman

My son, Wolfgang, plays drums, guitars and bass. — Eddie Van Halen

The first Van Halen album makes Johnny Rotten out to be what he really was and still is: a hairdresser. — Henry Rollins

You know, most people, they want to go to Hollywood. They want to be a star. They want to be a rock star. That thought never entered any of our minds, the Van Halen family. — Eddie Van Halen

I never dreamt of being a musician for my livelihood. I certainly never would have wanted to be in the business that I'm in, meaning the fame and the glory, the glitter, the rock star, the famous part. — Eddie Van Halen

Major third complications can be overcome by lots of alcohol. — Eddie Van Halen

I have selective hearing. — Eddie Van Halen

It's always about the music, never about anything else. — Eddie Van Halen

Best believe that needle hurt you Best to see these true colors Than follow one of your false virtues A little secret to make you think: Why is the crazy stuff we never say, poetry in ink? — Eddie Van Halen

Dave was great in Van Halen. No question about it. He was one of the best at being Mr. Rock Star. But it's sickening to see a guy still trying to be that with a wig on 20 years later. — Sammy Hagar

I look at Van Halen as social workers. What we're really doing is creating jobs for rock critics. — Alex Van Halen

A good producer brings out the best in the artist he's working with. You shouldn't be able to listen to something and say, 'So-and-so produced this album.' — Eddie Van Halen

There's a plaque on our wall that says we've sold over 65 million albums, and I don't feel I've accomplished anything. I feel like I'm just getting started. — Eddie Van Halen

People say that life is a cesspool of darkness and dispair. Well we of Van Halen are sailing through it in a yacht! — David Lee Roth

Jimmy Page is an excellent producer. Led Zeppelin I and II are classics. As a player he's very good in the studio, but I've never seen him play well live. He's sloppy. He plays like he's got a broken hand and he's two years old. If you put out a good album and play like a two year old, what's the purpose? — Eddie Van Halen

More and more, I enjoy hearing people who are good at their instruments and who've found a distinctive voice. In death metal, a lot of guys are Eddie Van Halen disciples, but they take his style to really expressionistic places. It's a real pleasure for me to hear people pushing their craft. — John Darnielle

When I was in Van Halen I was hitting notes that were out of my range. I never went for those registers before until Eddie pulled it out of me. — Gary Cherone

I'm blessed with a good pair of ears. That's how I fooled my piano teacher. I'd watch his fingers and I'd listen to it, and I just kind of basically learned it by myself. — Eddie Van Halen

I was more influenced by players like Randy Rhoads and Eddie Van Halen than by the guys in southern rock bands. — Dimebag Darrell

Then, as if getting blown up is not enough to worry about, after I take a seat on the steps, I get a look at the choir. Thirty singers and from where I'm sitting, it looks like only two of them are black. It's not like I'm saying suburban white people shouldn't sing. Because I love Van Halen's Hot for Teacher. — Sarah Vowell

If I had had a chance to tour with Van Halen before the record, I think it would have been a different record. — Gary Cherone

These days I don't look to other people with the objective of trying to steal their licks, although I've got no objections to stealing them if that seems like a good idea. I'm sure that I'm still influenced by Mark Knopfler and Eddie Van Halen as well ... I can't play like Eddie Van Halen. I wish I could. I sat down to try some of those ideas and can't do it. I don't know if I could ever get any of that stuff together. Sometimes I think I should work at the guitar more. — David Gilmour

I mean it's funny, playing music, how of course you want it to do well, you want them to like it, but it's not competitive like an election, it's the Olympics, it's not a Formula 1 race. The Billboard charts are just to show you what people like. — Eddie Van Halen

In Van Halen there were moments, like in some of the ballads, I put my heart and soul into those records. Those lyrics when I sang 'em, I gave myself goosebumps. — Sammy Hagar

For a long time, when I was very young, I went to go see arena rock bands. I was 16, and it was all I could get in to see, legally. And I saw Led Zeppelin and Ted Nugent and Van Halen and all that. — Henry Rollins

Every song is like a kid. How can you have that many kids and have a favorite? Which one do I like to hang most with? Probably the one that I haven't hung most with recently. — Eddie Van Halen

It's part of our nature. As much as I love (brother and guitarist Eddie), if you put us in a room with no one else for 15 minutes, we'd be at each other's throats. — Alex Van Halen

I just consider myself slightly left-of-center. I'm not your average bear. I - what's the word? I'm not - normal. — Eddie Van Halen

My heroes were Eddie Van Halen - especially after Van Halen I, II, III, and IV - Randy Rhoads, Ace Frehley and dudes like that. My brother played drums and we jammed in the garage and started writing our own stuff. — Dimebag Darrell