That song ["Don't Tell Me"] didn't take us anywhere, and I know why now. It wasn't what Van Halen fans wanted. It showed the darkness of Van Halen, and basically the end of the band.
I had a solo career before Van Halen. My fan base filtered through Van Halen with me and came right on out the other side with me.
Classic Van Halen made people want to dance and f**k. Modern Van Halen makes you want to drink milk and drive foreign cars.
Van Halen was a huge influence on me, and 'Eruption' was the song that really leaped off that first Van Halen album.
I do remember being a kid and hearing Van Halen. My dad was always playing Van Halen in the car.
To me, the secret of Eddie Van Halen was Alex Van Halen, because the way Alex played was so loose and the way the two of them locked together... Those two are connected so thoroughly they might as well be one person.
At some point I decided I didn't want to learn any more guitar technique. I was at that level where the next mountain there was to climb was Van Halen and I didn't really like Van Halen.
My heroes were Eddie Van Halen - especially after Van Halen I, II, III, and IV - Randy Rhoads, Ace Frehley and dudes like that. My brother played drums and we jammed in the garage and started writing our own stuff.
These days I don't look to other people with the objective of trying to steal their licks, although I've got no objections to stealing them if that seems like a good idea. I'm sure that I'm still influenced by Mark Knopfler and Eddie Van Halen as well......I can't play like Eddie Van Halen. I wish I could. I sat down to try some of those ideas and can't do it. I don't know if I could ever get any of that stuff together. Sometimes I think I should work at the guitar more.
Greg Ginn was certainly a huge influence on my guitar playing. I put him up there with people like Eddie Van Halen. Eddie Van Halen changed everything; I don't necessarily like everything he did, but he definitely changed everything.
I believe that the art market is in a place similar to the music industry in 2005. Big changes are coming and the art market will most likely be very different in ten years. However, if you are the art equivalent of Van Halen, you don't really have to change anything. But if you are not Van Halen, then it is time to figure how to adapt to all the changes.
Well, everybody used to joke that I saved the first dollar that I ever made in Van Halen. I probably did somewhere.
I was in a party band in the early '80s, and we played Sabbath and Ozzy songs as well as Rush and Van Halen... all that kinds of stuff.
I'm a qualified yacht skipper, so I do a lot of sailing.
It comes back to the same old question people are always asking me: 'When are you going to do a solo record?' Well, if I did, it would probably be similar to 'Baluchitherium,' meaning it would be Van Halen music - which I write anyway - but without singing.
It's hard to say this about a guy like Eddie Van Halen, one of the greatest guitar players who ever lived, but he's really limited to a style and they're locked into it.