Eddie Van Halen was born on January 26th, 1957, in Nijmegen, Netherlands. Eddie was trained as a classical pianist, but rock'n roll was his ultimate inspiration.

Eddie and his drummer brother Alex played in various cover bands after high school. After forming a band with bassist Michael Anthony, they persuaded David Lee Roth into leaving Real Ball Jets and becoming a member.

Changed their original name into Mammoth, they started touring in clubs near Los Angeles. Been discovered by Gene Simmons, who produced the following demo, they found out there already had a band named Mammoth. So they decided to use Eddie's and Alex's last name, Van Halen.

With help of Gene Simmons and his buddy, producer Ted Templeman, they signed a contract with Warner Brothers and began recording a debut album. That album, Van Halen, was published in 1978. It introduced Eddie's extraordinary guitar playing and set the standard for hard-rocking bands for years to come. Eddie was named the best guitarist of the year by Guitarplayer magazine.

The second album Van Halen II was also a great success, sounding pretty much like same as the predecessor.

Next three albums, Women And Children First, Fair Warning and Diver Down were commercially equal successes, despite of that the Diver Down was their weakest album so far.

But Van Halen got back to shape with 1984, which was released on new years day in 1983. It's biggest hit, "Jump", went number one in Billboard and number 7 in UK.

In 1985, David Lee Roth left the band and Sammy Hagar came to replace him. Nonetheless Van Halen released a new album in 1986, 5150, which was their first US number one and their best selling album to date.

Also the following albums, OU812 and For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge(acronym of F.U.C.K), kept on feeding audience's hungry needs. And after a live album, they released Balance and the greatest hits compilation. But the tension over the greatest hits release forced Sammy Hagar to leave, and Van Halen reunited with David Lee Roth.

Recorded only a few songs, Roth was replaced with a former Extreme singer Gary Cherone. The band's first album with Gary, Van Halen III, got little success and left a feeling that Eddie's bag of tricks had run dry. Hopefully there are better times ahead!

Realaudio examples of Eddie Van Halen's guitarplaying

Great main riff in
Drop Dead Legs

Enjoyable solo in
Hot For Teacher

VAN HALEN

1978

VAN HALEN II

1979

Women And Children First

1980

Diver Down

1982

1984

1983

5150

1986

OU812

1988

For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge

1991

Live! Right, Here Right, Now

1993

Balance

1995

Best Of Volume1

1996

VAN HALEN III

1998