1- Rock stars come and go. Musicians play until they die.
2- There are really three parts to the creative process. First there is inspiration, then there is the execution, and finally there is the release.
3- Obviously you have to have rhythm. If you have rhythm, then you can play anything you need. If you have rhythm and you love music, then play and play and play until you get to where you want to get. If you can pay the rent, great. If you can’t, then you’d better be having fun.
4- 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.
5- I grew up on a lot of early Beatles, DC5, Cream, Clapton, Page, Beck and Hendrix.
6- Rock & Roll is feeling, and after you know most of the basics … chords, rhythm, scales and bends … getting that feeling is just about the most important aspect of playing guitar
7- It makes me feel kind of weird, but obviously the Man Upstairs gave me something and it touches people, and I’m just so blessed.
8- 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.
9-I’m writing, and just doing the same thing I always do.
10- 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.
11- The piano is a universal instrument. If you start there, learn your theory and how to read, you can go on to any other instrument.
12- 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.
13- If I can help a kid discover a liking, or even a passion for music in their life, then that’s a wonderful thing.
14- I started doing all kinds of weird stuff on the guitar, which became part of my playing. I started doing harmonics and tapping on the guitar and pulling off strings and doing all this weird stuff that no one had ever done before.
15-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.
16- Eventually you’ll take the phrases and rhythm patterns you’ve copped and begin to put your own mark on them
17- 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?
18-I never took guitar lessons. I took classical piano lessons from the age of six when we lived in Holland.
19- I’m not a rock star. Sure I am, to a certain extent because of the situation, but when kids ask me how it feels to be a rock star, I say leave me alone, I’m not a rock star. I’m not in it for the fame, I’m in it because I like to play.
20- I’ll always leave the same set of strings on my guitars when I’m recording. If I break one I’ll just replace it instead of putting on a whole new set of strings.
21- It’s always about the music, never about anything else.
22- The name Van Halen, the family legacy, is going to go on long after I’m gone.
23- 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.
24-I never dreamt of being a musician for my livelihood. I certainly never would have wanted to be in the business that I’m in, meaning the fame and the glory, the glitter, the rock star, the famous part.
25- 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.
26- You know, most people, they want to go to Hollywood. They want to be a star. They want to be a rock star. That thought never entered any of our minds, the Van Halen family.
27- 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.
28- When Van Halen started out, there was no path to fame. We just played what we liked. Even today it always comes down to the simplicity of rock and roll.
29- To hell with the rules. If it sounds right, then it is.
30- The one thing I do have is good ears. I don’t mean perfect pitch, but ears for picking things up. I developed my ear through piano theory, but I never had a guitar lesson in my life, except from Eric Clapton off of records.
31- 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.
32- 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.
33- Nirvana was huge, but it didn’t appeal to everyone.
34- 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.
35 – The piano is a universal instrument. If you start there, learn your theory and how to read, you can go on to any other instrument.
36- 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.
37- I played ‘Eruption’ two times for the record, and we kept the one that seemed to flow … there’s a mistake at the top end of it whenever I hear it, I always think, Man I could’ve played it better … but I like the way it sounds. I’d never heard a guitar sound like that before.
38- 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
39- 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!
40 – If I can help a kid discover a liking, or even a passion for music in their life, then that’s a wonderful thing.
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