20 Stories About “Guitar God” Eddie Van Halen That You Simply Won’t Believe
When guitar wizard Eddie Van Halen passed away on October 6, 2020, the world lost a true musical pioneer. Tributes poured in for the beloved rock star — his band Van Halen was one of the biggest-selling acts of all time, after all. What’s more, fans and industry peers alike took to social media to share their favorite stories from the legendary axeman’s life and career. Here are 20 of the most awesomely crazy tales.
When speaking to CNN in 2012, Eddie revealed the inside scoop on how he wound up recording the legendary guitar solo on Michael Jackson’s “Beat It.” He was asked to work on the song by legendary producer Quincy Jones and was given free rein to do whatever he wanted. Given that Eddie was something of a maverick, this led to him telling the engineer to change the structure of the song’s midsection.
Eddie then simply flowed with the music, playing two guitar solos on the spot while half-expecting Jackson to be unhappy with him altering the song. Instead, the King of Pop was overjoyed, telling Eddie, “Wow, thank you so much for having the passion to not just come in and blaze a solo, but to actually care about the song, and make it better.” Eddie didn’t receive a cent for his work, although Jones claimed he paid him in beer. Sweet deal.
Noel Monk, Van Halen’s manager in the ‘70s and early ‘80s, wrote a memoir entitled Runnin’ With The Devil and it featured an amusing Eddie story. According to Monk, Eddie threw guacamole at singer David Lee Roth during a backstage food fight, but it missed its target, hitting Journey frontman Steve Perry instead. Monk claimed he helped Perry clean the guacamole out of his hair.
In late 2020, though, the tale did the rounds of social media and it was alleged that Perry actually cried because of the incident. Perry himself corrected this in Rolling Stone, saying that the guac hit a mirror behind him and splashed over his prized satin jacket, not his hair. He said that he was angry but wasn’t reduced to tears. He laughed, “I wouldn’t cry over guacamole. It becomes folklore at some point. It becomes silly.”
