Quotes by Eddie Van Halen

If you want to be a rock star or just be famous, then run down the street naked, you'll make the news or something. But if you want music to be your livelihood, then play, play, play and play! And eventually you'll get to where you want to be.

— Eddie Van Halen

Wisdom

There are really three parts to the creative process. First there is inspiration, then there is the execution, and finally there is the release.

— Eddie Van Halen

Wisdom

The piano is a universal instrument. If you start there, learn your theory and how to read, you can go on to any other instrument.

— Eddie Van Halen

Education

I'm not a rock star. Sure I am, to a certain extent because of the situation, but when kids ask me how it feels to be a rock star, I say leave me alone, I'm not a rock star. I'm not in it for the fame, I'm in it because I like to play.

— Eddie Van Halen

Wisdom

Music is for people. The word 'pop' is simply short for popular. It means that people like it. I'm just a normal jerk who happens to make music. As long as my brain and fingers work, I'm cool.

— Eddie Van Halen

Success

Obviously you have to have rhythm. If you have rhythm, then you can play anything you need. If you have rhythm and you love music, then play and play and play until you get to where you want to get. If you can pay the rent, great. If you can't, then you'd better be having fun.

— Eddie Van Halen

Love

It's funny, when bands or younger musicians ask me: 'So, what does it take to make it?' Well, first explain to me what you mean by 'making it': Do you want to be a rock star or do you want music to be your livelihood?

— Eddie Van Halen

Wisdom

I can't read music. Instead, I'd do stuff inside the piano, do harmonics and all kinds of crazy things. They used to put me in these annual piano contests down at Long Beach City College, and two years in a row, I won first prize - out of like 5,000 kids! The judges were like, 'Very interesting interpretation!' I thought I was playing it right.

— Eddie Van Halen

Wisdom

We're musicians. We make music for a living. It's that simple. Nothing else matters.

— Eddie Van Halen

Life

Music kept me off the streets and out of trouble and gave me something that was mine that no one could take away from me.

— Eddie Van Halen

Wisdom

When I'm home on a break, I lock myself in my room and play guitar. After two or three hours, I start getting into this total meditation. It's a feeling few people experience, and that's usually when I come up with weird stuff. It just flows. I can't force myself. I don't sit down and say I've got to practice.

— Eddie Van Halen

Wisdom

Before the operation on my left hand I wasn't able to stretch my fingers open all the way. I've never had very big hands, but I could do the splits with them. Eventually I couldn't any more. I had a twisted tendon in my little finger that prevented me from being able to stretch.

— Eddie Van Halen

Wisdom

Cancer is like a cockroach. It just comes back stronger. I'm tearing apart the immune system of the cockroach and seeing how it ticks. I've opened up my own pathology center.

— Eddie Van Halen

Wisdom

A guitar is a very personal extension of the person playing it. You have to be emotionally and spiritually connected to your instrument. I'm very brutal on my instruments, but not all the time.

— Eddie Van Halen

Wisdom

It's always a Catch-22 situation. They hate you if you're the same, and they hate you if you're different.

— Eddie Van Halen

Wisdom

I have selective hearing.

— Eddie Van Halen

Wisdom

I've had a hip replacement, I've beaten cancer, I had my hand operation, and I stopped drinking. Something inside of me just went, 'I'm done.'

— Eddie Van Halen

Wisdom

I just consider myself slightly left-of-center. I'm not your average bear. I - what's the word? I'm not - normal.

— Eddie Van Halen

Wisdom

I don't feel a day older when it comes to my approach to music or what gets me off than when I was a teenager. I've always been into different kinds of stuff and when I play I like to play loud. I like my arm hairs to move and I like my body to vibrate 'cause I like the feel of it; I'm still a teenager at heart.

— Eddie Van Halen

Love

I never took guitar lessons. I took classical piano lessons from the age of six when we lived in Holland.

— Eddie Van Halen

Wisdom

I'm the one in the band that said I'm not going on tour unless we do a record.

— Eddie Van Halen

Wisdom

I destroyed a lot of guitars trying to get them to do what I wanted, but I learned something from every guitar I tore apart, and discovered even more things. Things like if the string is not straight from the bridge saddle to the nut, you're going to have friction.

— Eddie Van Halen

Education

David Lee Roth had the idea that if you covered a successful song, you were half way home. C'mon - Van Halen doing 'Dancing in the Streets'? It was stupid. I started feeling like I would rather bomb playing my own songs than be successful playing someone else's music.

— Eddie Van Halen

Success

I have pictures of me sitting in the racquetball court in my pajamas with an acoustic guitar, and Wolfgang is probably just two-and-a-half-feet tall. I'll never forget the day I saw his foot tapping along in beat! I knew then, I couldn't wait for the day I'd be able to make music with my son. I don't know what more I could ask for.

— Eddie Van Halen

Wisdom