When we look back at guitar greats, people have different preferences, but one name which always creeps up is that of the inevitable Eddie Van Halen.
It’s one thing to learn the guitar, to pick up a six-string and play it as well as your heroes. It’s another thing entirely to look at the way people are playing the guitar and intend on doing it differently, but that’s exactly what Eddie Van Halen did.
A pick and strings? Boring! Eddie was ready to take it a step further, implementing a new tapping technique that meant he could play a lot quicker and tap into solos and riffs that people previously would have thought were impossible to play. His style is everywhere these days, but it had to start somewhere, and it started with Eddie.
While his new way of playing is incredibly exciting, it’s also so powerful that it means people often gloss over some of the other great traits that made him such an exceptional musician. One of these traits was the way he would set up his amp. Eddie had a way with tone that meant he could adjust the settings on whatever amp he was using to get an incredibly overpowering sound from it. He didn’t bother with distortion pedals, he never needed them, because he knew how to get the perfect sound out of an amp on its own.
“I’ve never used or owned any distortion pedal. Nothing,” he explained, “I always use the guitar, cable, straight to the amp. A lot of people, until they actually play, play my guitar through one of my amps, then they go ‘Holy shit’.”
When other guitarists would try and play through Eddie’s amp, regardless of how experienced they were, they struggled to keep a lid on the power of the sound. Smashing Pumpkins’ Billy Corgan tried it out once and couldn’t work it out. “It was just uncontrollable for him,” recalled Eddie, “And he goes, ‘Where’s your distortion pedal?’ I go, ‘There isn’t one’.”
This style of guitar playing wasn’t just a lot for other guitarists, but there were producers and engineers who struggled to work with Eddie Van Halen because of his unrelenting guitar style. When Eddie was brought in to help out with Michael Jackson’s classic ‘Beat It’, Jackson’s engineer, Bruce Sweiden, had to leave the room because he thought the guitar was too loud.
“The highlight for me was the guitar solo. That guitar solo is incredible – when Eddie [Van Halen] came in to play, he was in Studio B at Westlake and I was in Studio A with Michael and Quincy, but I went in there when he was tuning and warming up and I left immediately,” he said, “It was so loud, I would never subject my hearing to that kind of volume level! I didn’t record that solo, I hired his engineer – I figured his hearing would probably be a little suspect right now anyway. I then did the mix after it was recorded.”
Thank God there was another engineer on hand to help finish the track, as Eddie’s solo really lifts the pop classic into another realm. Turns out the musical stylings of Van Halen isn’t for everyone.
