“I have a broken heart and I think I will never deal with his loss,” Wolfgang Van Halen wrote on Twitter. Eddie Van Halen suffered from tongue cancer and died at a hospital in Santa Monica, according to the TMZ website.
Even during Van Halen’s treatment, he performed at concerts and composed music with his son, who had been a member of the band Van Halen in recent years. “Every moment I could spend with him on stage was a gift,” the musician’s son also wrote.
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A native of Amsterdam (January 26, 1955), who moved with his family to Pasadena, California, USA, in 1962, he founded a rock band as a teenager with his brother-drummer Alex. Even before Van Halen was formed, the Broken Off Combs, The Space Brothers and Mammoth Chammoth. According to him, Eric Clapton and guitarist Brian May from the band Queen had the greatest influence on Eddie.
Van Halen was formed in 1972 in Pasadena at the time under the name Mammoth, the current name has been since 1974. Their first album called Van Halen from 1978 became a hit: it sold ten million copies in the USA alone. Van Halen’s guitar solo in “Eruption” is considered one of the most important in the history of rock.
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Another success was the album called 1984 with the hit Jump. In the following years, in addition to recording and performing at Van Halen, Eddie also collaborated with Michael Jackson and Quincy Jones.
In 2001, Eddie Van Halen reported that he had tongue cancer and suffered from severe arthritis that prevented him from playing. He also fought alcoholism and drugs. In 2007, the band Van Halen, in almost their original line-up and with singer David Lee Roth, went on a joint North American tour after more than 20 years. Five years later, the band released their new album A Different Kind Of Truth and toured again. Another tour took place in 2015.
Eddie Van Halen played a guitar called Frankenstein for many decades. He designed the guitar painted with red, white and black stripes himself to suit his style of playing. Her replica is part of the collection of musical instruments of the National Museum of American History in Washington.
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