What We Can Learn from Eddie Van Halen’s Greatness

BB King, Hendrix, Clapton, Van Halen.

Few musicians go on to have their name forever etched into our collective memory. Those that do earn the privilege through being orders of magnitude better than anyone else in their time, and for forging a new sound that would inspire entire genres and generations of musicians.

Edward Lodewijk Van Halen, better known to fans simply as Eddie Van Halen, made the grade of musicians who did just that. He was a true musical innovator, and one whose efforts and achievements, we can all learn something from.

His namesake band, Van Halen, would go on to sell over 80 million albums worldwide, and become one of the top 20 highest grossing artists of all time, even though the band’s glory days and the bulk of its touring came decades before the exorbitant concert ticket prices we’ve come to normalise today.

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An Inspiration to All

As a teenager looking for a rite of passage into adulthood, I found mine with rock ‘n roll, or more precisely, heavy metal, and Eddie Van Halen, was a huge inspiration on my picking up a guitar when I was just 13. One of the first songs I ever learned to play was Ain’t Talking ‘Bout Love, off the band’s iconic 1978 Van Halen I album. Twenty years later, I’d pay…