#me

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

#album #artist #best #brings #good

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

#connected #emotionally #extension #guitar #i

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

#brings #building #could #done #effects

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

#any #before #being #big #could

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

#back #cancer #center #cockroach #comes

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

#covered #dancing #david #doing #else

'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

#carnal #four #hand #immediate #knowledge

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

#beach #city #college #contests #crazy

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

#beach #city #college #contests #crazy

I don't really know what inspires me to write the music I do, but usually, the music will set the tone for the lyrics. ↗

— Eddie Van Halen

#i do #inspires #know #lyrics #me