The Death of Eddie Van Halen
Eddie Van Halen was a musician of the highest degree. He had started his career with a band in 1972 that would quickly rebrand to become Van Halen with him, his brother and drummer Alex Van Halen, bassist Mark Stone, and Singer David Lee Roth. The band would start off as a cover band in the Los Angeles area until 1977 when Warner Records offered a contract to the band. Soon Van Halen’s first album would appear in 1978, called Van Halen which was received as one of the best debuting rock albums for a band. The band’s success would only continue as record after record gaining the 1# spot for Billboard’s pop board with Jump. Along with 13 other 1# hits on the Mainstream Rock chart. The band would sell 56 million copies of records nationally and internationally over 80 million sales. On the individual level, Eddie Van Halen was a renowned guitarist who furthered an entire style of playing known as tapping along with a veritable repertoire of powerful, soul-changing solos.
Beyond Eddie’s band life was a smaller solo career life where he soloed for other artists, played music for TV shows, and cameoed on TV shows. Eddie also had an entirely different bit of solo work, he actually created and patented three new guitar-related inventions a folding prop to support a flat guitar, a tension adjusting tailpiece, and a new headstock design.
In his personal life music was always a focal point. Having moved to the United States in 1963 his Dutch parents expected him to be a classical pianist yet rock spoke to him much greater than classical and so with a quick trade between his drums and his brother’s guitar Eddie began rocking. Over time during his extensive career, Eddie would grow an addiction to alcohol and drugs which most likely originated from his extreme live shows and rocker lifestyle. Specifically, Eddie used very high amounts of cocaine which kept him alive and awake for his shows and allowed him to write more memorable songs. Overall alcoholism was the worse problem for Eddie stating he gotten sober by 2008. Eddie also had two marriages during his lifetime marrying Valerie Bertinelli in 1981, he had a single son with her. The two would divorce in 2007, after four years of separation. The second marriage was with Janie Liszewski in 2009 and it would last until Eddie Van Halen died. Despite his soberness, Eddie’s rock’n’roll lifestyle would leave multiple impressions upon him, such as needing a hip replacement, removing part of his tongue for oral cancer (he believed holding metallic picks in his mouth caused it), and needing emergency surgery for diverticulitis. Sadly it would be the throat cancer that would claim his life as he was admitted to Hospice in 2019 for it, October 6th, 2020 would be the day that Eddie Van Halen died. People all over sent well wishes and admitted their sadness due to the event rightfully calling him a rock legend.
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