Eddie Van Halen

Quotes by Eddie Van Halen

• The hell with the rules. If it sounds right, then it is.

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• The hell with the rules. If it sounds right, then it is.

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• 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.

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• I never took guitar lessons. I took classical piano lessons from the age of six when we lived in Holland.

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• I never took guitar lessons. I took classical piano lessons from the age of six when we lived in Holland. And when we moved to America, it was just the typical thing except I was really good at it so was my brother.

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• 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.

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• 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.

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• 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.

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• I've had a hip replacement, I've beaten cancer, I had my hand operation, and I stopped drinking. Something inside of me just went, 'I'm done.'

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• 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.

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• 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.

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• 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.

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• 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.

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• 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.

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• 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.

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• I'm the one in the band that said I'm not going on tour unless we do a record.

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• 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.

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• I never took guitar lessons. I took classical piano lessons from the age of six when we lived in Holland. And when we moved to America, it was just the typical thing except I was really good at it; so was my brother.

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• '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.

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• The name Van Halen, the family legacy, is going to go on long after I'm gone.

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