Eddie Van Halen Quotes

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

Music, Work, Cool

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

Music, Famous, Rock

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

Music, Simple, Nothing

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

Hate, Different, Same

On 'Van Halen,' I was a young punk, and everything revolved around the fastest kid in town, gunslinger attitude. But I'd say that at the time of 'Fair Warning,' I started concentrating more on songwriting. But I guess in most people's minds I'm just a gunslinger.
Eddie Van Halen

Time, Attitude, Everything

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

Time, Person, Guitar

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

Trying, Guitar, Learned

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

Music, Forget, Guitar

I have selective hearing.
Eddie Van Halen

Hearing, Selective

I'm blessed with a good pair of ears. That's how I fooled my piano teacher. I'd watch his fingers and I'd listen to it, and I just kind of basically learned it by myself.
Eddie Van Halen

Good, Teacher, Blessed

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

Music, Away, Off

There's a plaque on our wall that says we've sold over 65 million albums, and I don't feel I've accomplished anything. I feel like I'm just getting started.
Eddie Van Halen

Getting, Started, Says

A good producer brings out the best in the artist he's working with. You shouldn't be able to listen to something and say, 'So-and-so produced this album.'
Eddie Van Halen

Good, Best, Working

Actually, if I could deliberately sit down and write a pop hit, all my songs would be pop hits! Let's put it this way. I play what I like to hear. And sometimes I like to hear something poppy, and sometimes I don't.
Eddie Van Halen

Down, Play, Put

And if I would have taken lessons I probably wouldn't have done it, and what forced me to do all this weird stuff on the guitar was I couldn't afford effects pedals, I didn't have all this stuff when I was a kid so I just tried to squeeze all the weird noises I could out of the guitar, which brings me to building guitars.
Eddie Van Halen

Done, Guitar, Weird

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

Before, Big, Able

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

System, Cancer, Stronger

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

Music, Home, Stupid

Every song is like a kid. How can you have that many kids and have a favorite? Which one do I like to hang most with?
Eddie Van Halen

Kids, Song, Kid

Every song is like a kid. How can you have that many kids and have a favorite? Which one do I like to hang most with? Probably the one that I haven't hung most with recently.
Eddie Van Halen

Kids, Song, Kid

Everything I did is because I wanted to do it. If I weren't playing this arena, if I were playing a club, I'd still be doing it because that's what I want to do. I love playing the guitar.
Eddie Van Halen

Love, Everything, Guitar

'For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge' took a year to record; that's why the playing on it might sound somewhat labored. 'Balance,' on the other hand, was written and recorded in only four months, so the whole process was quicker and more immediate.
Eddie Van Halen

Knowledge, Why, Whole

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!
Eddie Van Halen

Music, Crazy, Long

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

Music, Crazy, Long

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

Music, Heart, Different

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Biography

Nationality: Dutch

Born: January 26, 1955

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