Biography for
Edward Van Halen More at IMDbPro »

Date of Birth

26 January 1955, Nijmegen, Gelderland, Netherlands

Height

5' 8" (1.73 m)

Spouse

Janie Liszewski	(27 June 2009 - present)
Valerie Bertinelli	(11 April 1981 - 20 December 2007) (divorced) 1 child

Trade Mark

Use of the whammy bar

Use of synthesizers

Two-tapping (a guitar technique that he popularized)

"Eruption" guitar solo

Frankenstrat guitar

Likes to jump up in the air and do the splits during his "Eruption" guitar solo.

Trivia

Younger brother of Alex Van Halen.

Guitarist for rock group Van Halen.

Father, with Valerie Bertinelli, of son Wolfgang Van Halen.

Parents moved the family to Pasadena, California, USA from the Netherlands when he and brother Alex were young. His father was Dutch, his mother Indonesian.

Has been working on new material in his home studio since being declared cancer-free (he was treated for throat cancer in 2000/2001), but has no idea what he's going to do with it for now. Van Halen split with its label, Warner Brothers, in 2001, and is currently without a recording contract. [June 2002]

Son, Wolfgang Van Halen, born March 16, 1991.

His father, Jan van Halen, was an accomplished sax and clarinet musician in his own right. He appeared on clarinet on "Big Bad Bill (Is Sweet William Now)" on the "Diver Down" album (released on April 14th, 1982).

Met David Lee Roth while they both attended Pasadena Community College in the 1970s.

In 1999 he had hip replacement surgery.

When Van Halen became successful, one of the first things Eddie and his brother Alex did with their earnings was to tell their father he could retire and take things easy for the rest of his life.

Is a recovering alcoholic; Eddie's father died of complications from alcoholism, and, reportedly, his paternal grandfather was an alcoholic also.

Didn't speak any English when he and his family first immigrated to America.

Has a reputation for being modest about his guitar talents, sometimes stating that Van Halen songs have been successfully made from guitar riffs of his that he didn't think were very good.

While he is often credited as inventing the "tapping" technique, this is actually incorrect. The technique had been around for many years; he merely popularized it within the rock and roll genre.

One of the tracks from Van Halen's self-titled debut album in 1978 includes Eddie's "Eruption" guitar solo. Eruption originally was intended to be a guitar warm-up exercise. However, one day while in the studio as Eddie was playing Eruption, the recording engineer happened to be recording. The rest is history (although, ironically, Eddie reportedly didn't like the way it sounded).

August 4, 2008 - Engaged to Janie Liszewski.

Has debuted the EVH Wolfgang guitar, which he describes as a culmination of his years of knowledge and experience with guitars. Eddie quietly road tested this new guitar during the band's recent reunion tour.

Likes to say that David Lee Roth and Sammy Hagar's problems with the band were due to "LSD" -- Lead Singer Disease.

Brother-in-law of Stine Schyberg.

Eddie's very first guitar was a Teisco Del Ray electric with 4 pickups bought for $70.

Ex-son-in-law of Andrew Bertinelli and Nancy Bertinelli.

Personal Quotes

"I really don't feel like I've done s**t yet." When asked by Rolling Stone magazine to describe his greatest accomplishment as a guitarist (sometime around 2003).

I'm a musician, Dave's a rock star.

You'd have to be numb or dead not to get excited about 20,000 people screaming.