Eddie Van Halen: The Complete 1978 Interviews

[King Guitar]

Jas, thanks for being on the forum, great post and it shows Eddie on the verge of greatness. Really cool.

 

[halford]

pre-coffee

Nice playing !!

Enjoyed that !!

 

[dfrattaroli]

That really brings back some special memories. I still have those GP issues at home. The first GP I ever bought was the one with Ace Frehley on the cover. Still have that one too.

 

[mentoneman]

the whole reason I began reading and buying GP mag was your articles on EVH
it was like a treasure chest of secrets back then

as a kid I was so stoked to find out Kaimuki library on Oahu carried GP!

"Yah mom Im at the library doing homework...."
I think the first one I found there was Craig Chaquico on the cover

Schon with his Floyd Paul, Randy, Yngwie, EJ, Holdsworth...some of my faves!

Ha ha, I remember that Craig Chaquico article and being fascinated by his portable practice rig - MXR pedals strung together in a military ammo belt into some kind of headphone device - "sounds like you're playing in Winterland". This was all prior to the Rockman as I remember.

Anyone know WTF I'm talking about?

Yeah, I know what you're talking about. This was Craig in a GP cover story were did in the early 1980s, talking about his practice setup. He was using a Chiquita guitar with it, as I recall. And those Chiquitas, though tiny, had enormously powerful pickups. To stay in tune, you had to tune 'em up to where the high and low strings were G or A.

isn't that the same gtr eddie used in little guitars?

funny now Chaquico has gone off to wave music pastures, and Mark "rockstah" here on the forum is the current gtr player for starship, and in his pastime NAILS eddie's playing and tone with his amp mods.

and like any true VH freak, he most certainly read every work of Jas's interviews back in the day to try to capture the essence of eddie's playing and what made him tick. mark consequently put in the time to unravel the tone components, and learn the right complex note sequences, and harness the controlled chaos and energy of eddie's early playing.

if you play vh right, you should be pretty spent when it's over.

 

[Mark Day]

Thanks for posting this!!!

Mark

 

[Mr. Brady]

Great read. Thanks.

 

[kiff]

Awesome. Takes me back to being a kid and getting excited to see the new GP on the newstand. Those were the days!

yea, me too

Thanks Jas

 

[charveldan]

[Jas], What kind of equipment and effects do you use?


[EVH],.....

Ah, I’ll tell ya, man, the stuff I used onstage today isn’t really my setup. See, we toured Japan, and on the way back over, all my good shit got ripped off. Got lost in air freight – by [shouts into microphone] Pan Am, ya fuckers! No, really. Some of it got lost – didn’t get put on the same plane, whatever. I used to have four very old Marshalls – like ’65 – and I had a guy named Jose, who’s in the San Fernando Valley somewhere, beef ’em up. He put bigger transformers in ’em. There’s a thing called bias in an amp, and you crank it all the way up and it really makes the tubes hot. I use these other things, which are called voltage generators – like a Variac? It’s a big box with a knob on it that controls voltage. Plug your amp into it, and it goes all the way from zero volts to like 140. The amp’s only supposed to take 100 volts, but you crank the thing above that like to 130, 140 volts, and the tubes really glow. So ya gotta keep a fan on ’em. Those amps used to blow like every other gig, and you have to retube them every other day, but they crank! They sound like nothing else to me, because they’re so overdriven. They usually don’t work for more than ten hours of playing – maybe even less, because usually every other gig they blow out. They drop like flies, you know.

 

[gbsmusic]

Verry cool! Thank you!!

 

[Anonymous]

if you play vh right, you should be pretty spent when it's over.

Yeah, that version of "Romeo Delight" I did just about killed me by the time I was done... My right hand wouldn't stay loose anymore on the last chorus and I had to blow off some of the chugging... I don't know how he does it... I think a lot of guitar players don't realize how unusual and difficult some of the more obscure rhythm parts are to play...

Steve

 

[Anonymous]

this morning before work i had all my gtr stuff in the living room and inspired by jas and this thread, kicked on the looper to set up the rhythm track, and this is what came out

not bad for 7:30am, pre-coffee, and no whammy bar (sacrilege i know!)

Jas Obrecht punches FACE!

Rockin' man!

Steve

 

[Anonymous]

Plug your amp into it, and it goes all the way from zero volts to like 140. The amp’s only supposed to take 100 volts, but you crank the thing above that like to 130, 140 volts, and the tubes really glow. So ya gotta keep a fan on ’em. Those amps used to blow like every other gig, and you have to retube them every other day, but they crank! They sound like nothing else to me, because they’re so overdriven. They usually don’t work for more than ten hours of playing – maybe even less, because usually every other gig they blow out. They drop like flies, you know.

To anyone who doesn't know - do not hook a variac to your amp and crank it up to 140. Ed didn't do that (he actually set it between 90-100) and if you do, you are likely to damage your amp...

Steve

 

[tweed]

this morning before work i had all my gtr stuff in the living room and inspired by jas and this thread, kicked on the looper to set up the rhythm track, and this is what came out

not bad for 7:30am, pre-coffee, and no whammy bar (sacrilege i know!)

Jas Obrecht punches FACE!

Whoa, mentoneman kills it precaffeination

 

[mentoneman]

thanks gents

here's what i find wild-

i learned that solo when it came out...84?
i haven't tried playing it for many years but of course hear it on the radio occasionally and on youtube, and that refreshes some of my memory of it.

but that clip took longer to time the loop right than to remember the solo. maybe 10 minutes from the time i turned on my rig until i hit record on my iphone. that is how much eddie's playing and solos are ingrained in my mind and how into his music i was. my tapping wasn't perfect but the attitude and phrasing was in the ballpark.

i'd love for the new VH with roth album to crush, with ed going bananas on every tune and solo like the old days, and vote for Jas to do the first interview with eddie after the release (if the album rocks of course!)

 

[mikehickey]

vote for Jas to do the first interview with eddie after the release (if the album rocks of course!)

That would be a cool thing, I miss the guitar journalism Jas and Tom Wheeler and the gang used to give us every month.

 

[steve_k]

Thanks for posting that. Funny about Pat Travers. I wouldn't walk around the block to see him, let alone waste good cassette tape.

 

[JasO]

this morning before work i had all my gtr stuff in the living room and inspired by jas and this thread, kicked on the looper to set up the rhythm track, and this is what came out

not bad for 7:30am, pre-coffee, and no whammy bar (sacrilege i know!)

Jas Obrecht punches FACE!

This is awesome! Thanks -- you made my day!

 

[AndyK]

Very cool, like a trip back in time!

Those tight jeans Ed was wearing looked painful! Did he play basketball in those, with disco boots on??

 

[MisterBulbous]

vote for Jas to do the first interview with eddie after the release (if the album rocks of course!)

That would be a cool thing, I miss the guitar journalism Jas and Tom Wheeler and the gang used to give us every month.

Same here. I was about 14 years old and walking through a Wal Mart in Arkansas and I saw the magazine in my avatar. I had just started playing guitar and couldn't believe they actually had magazines that were specific to guitar players and guitar equipment. Back in the day, those magazines were so serious about their content and you could learn quite a bit by reading the interviews. Now, most interviews seem to be written by the guitarists sponsors, or written in a "rolling stone" style where they don't focus on the aspects of playing guitar.

 

[DADA]

Edward got me into guitar after I bought their first album. His different approuch in style, technigue and approuch was like a bee sting. Got me in a trance inspirated to build my own guitars. Even made my own pick-ups. Man that is a long time ago. But still play and enjoying playing guitar in different bands.

I just remember I still have a tape of a Dutch interview from a radio show called "Beton Uur". Can you imagine Edwards talking Dutch with a huge american accent explaning his guitars and stuff. 25 minutes back in time.

For me still the best guitar player ever. With all respect for JP, SV and all the other technical wizzards.