When Nicolette Larson was growing up in Kansas City, Missouri, she’d ask her friends to drive over bumpy roads so she could show off her Neil Young impression. As the truck moved up and down, she’d break out into a shaky vibrato.
Just a few years later, the singer found herself in a pickup again, this time with the very man she once emulated. Young — who first worked with Larson on his 1977 LP American Stars ‘n Bars, and briefly dated her afterward — was driving her around his Northern...
Just a few years later, the singer found herself in a pickup again, this time with the very man she once emulated. Young — who first worked with Larson on his 1977 LP American Stars ‘n Bars, and briefly dated her afterward — was driving her around his Northern...
- 6/21/2022
- by Angie Martoccio
- Rollingstone.com
In 1983, when Eddie Van Halen first built his beloved 5150 home studio in the hills near Hollywood, he decorated its kitchen with a photograph of a squat old apartment building in a city more than 5,000 miles away. Every time he’d head to the fridge for a beer during his all-night recording sessions, which was often, he’d see the home where he spent most of his first seven years, at 59 Rozemarijnstraat in the city of Nijmegen, in the Gelderland province of the Netherlands, near the German border.
Eddie, the grinning,...
Eddie, the grinning,...
- 10/28/2020
- by Brian Hiatt
- Rollingstone.com
The new episode of Rolling Stone Music Now pays tribute to the late Eddie Van Halen, with never-before-heard audio from a 2008 interview with the guitarist that traces his early years as a musician and beyond. Why did the electric guitar last so long as rock’s defining instrument? “You can’t bend the strings of a piano,” Van Halen says.
The episode also includes a discussion between host Brian Hiatt and Van Halen scholar Greg Renoff (author of the revelatory book Van Halen Rising, on the group’s origins, as...
The episode also includes a discussion between host Brian Hiatt and Van Halen scholar Greg Renoff (author of the revelatory book Van Halen Rising, on the group’s origins, as...
- 10/12/2020
- by Brian Hiatt
- Rollingstone.com
The first time that producer Ted Templeman saw Van Halen playing at the Starwood in West Hollywood one night in 1977, he burst out of the club’s doors to find the nearest payphone. He called Donn Landee, a recording engineer he worked closely with, and left several messages. “You’ve got to see this guy,” was all he could say, referring to the band’s flashy guitar player, Eddie Van Halen. At the time, Templeman was working at Warner Bros. and he had only one thought in his mind: “I had to make this deal.
- 10/9/2020
- by Kory Grow
- Rollingstone.com
Steve Vai and Eddie Van Halen were not the most likely of friends. After David Lee Roth acrimoniously left Van Halen in 1985, Roth recruited Vai — an Eddie Van Halen–inspired, finger-tapping virtuoso — for his solo band. Vai played on Roth’s albums Eat ‘Em and Smile and Skyscraper – and tackled Eddie Van Halen’s guitar parts on tour. That created a bit of awkwardness between Vai and his guitar hero, Van Halen. But the day Vai left Roth’s band in 1989, Eddie called him up. It was the beginning of a deep friendship.
- 10/7/2020
- by Patrick Doyle
- Rollingstone.com
Foreigner and Van Halen released their debut albums within a year of each other and both bands dominated the singles charts for years to come. So when Van Halen enlisted Foreigner guitarist and kindred spirit Mick Jones to produce 5150, their first record with Sammy Hagar singing, they knew they could trust him. He helped them refashion their sound into something a little more mature, and the album became a Number One hit, thanks to singles like “Dreams,” “Best of Both Worlds,” and “Why Can’t This Be Love.” Here, Jones...
- 10/7/2020
- by Kory Grow
- Rollingstone.com
The year before Van Halen put out their self-titled debut, the biggest things in rock were long, ponderous solos and the back-to-basics riffing of the Sex Pistols and Ramones. Then came “Eruption.” In just 102 seconds, Eddie Van Halen redefined the vocabulary of rock guitar — like Jimi Hendrix and his personal hero, Eric Clapton, had done a decade earlier — with an array of fluttering melodies, laser-beam licks, and sea-sickening dive bombs. More than 40 years later, it’s still exhilarating. Even if you didn’t play guitar, you’d have to ask yourself,...
- 10/6/2020
- by Kory Grow
- Rollingstone.com
Eddie Van Halen, the legendary guitar innovator and virtuoso who led Van Halen through five decades and three lead singers, establishing himself as one of the all-time great players in rock history, died Tuesday after a long battle with cancer. He was 65.
“I can’t believe I’m having to write this, but my father, Edward Lodewijk Van Halen, lost his long and arduous battle with cancer this morning,” his son Wolfgang Van Halen wrote. “He was the best father I could ever ask for. Every moment I’ve shared...
“I can’t believe I’m having to write this, but my father, Edward Lodewijk Van Halen, lost his long and arduous battle with cancer this morning,” his son Wolfgang Van Halen wrote. “He was the best father I could ever ask for. Every moment I’ve shared...
- 10/6/2020
- by Andy Greene
- Rollingstone.com
With the Doobie’s Hall of Fame induction, there’s never been a better time to get familiar with the captains of Yacht Rock. Their heyday was basically the entire decade of the Seventies, though a major shift occurred when frontman Tom Johnston, who wrote the majority of their hits, stepped aside in 1975 to deal with a bleeding ulcer and other medical issues.
Related: The Oral History of ‘Yacht Rock’
They recruited a largely-unknown Michael McDonald, who was fresh out of Steely Dan, and kept jamming out the hits, albeit...
Related: The Oral History of ‘Yacht Rock’
They recruited a largely-unknown Michael McDonald, who was fresh out of Steely Dan, and kept jamming out the hits, albeit...
- 1/15/2020
- by Angie Martoccio, David Browne and Andy Greene
- Rollingstone.com
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