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Eddie Comes Clean LOL

Admin » Blog » News » Eddie Comes Clean LOL

2012-04-20
By: Admin
Posted in: News

<img src="http://www.esquire.com/cm/esquire/images/LZ/esq-eddie-van-halen-fist-0512-lg-11299692.jpg" alt="" width="460" height="586" /> Read the full interview <a href="http://www.esquire.com/the-side/music/eddie-van-halen-interview-2012-8147775#ixzz1sOujZnqT">here</a>:The world of rock has blown up recently over a rare interview Eddie Van Halen did with Esquire magazine recently, which appears in the popular mens magazine’s May issue. Esquire has posted some outtakes from the interviews that didn’t end up making the final cut. There’s quite a bit of personal history from Eddie in the leftovers, which is definitely interesting, but the real meat and potatoes lies in his admission of a little white lie he told Guitar Player magazine that set many Marshalls aflame. Here’s his admission of guilt:ESQ: Tell me about your amps, though. How much would you tinker with your amps back in the day?EVH: Always. We were tinkering until we left on tour.ESQ: I’m talkin’ back in the old days, with your Marshall. What did you do to that thing?EVH: That was a stock amp.ESQ: Come on man, rumor was that you rebuilt the damn thing.EVH: I lied in. Okay, this is a long story, actually. I think this is also my paranoia of interview, because, is because the very first — Dave and I did a promo, a radio promo, an interview promo thing before the first record came out. And here we were on live radio, and the guy’s going, “We have Van Halen, a brand-new band from L.A. here in the studio. So Dave, tell me” … And here’s Dave, “Bop, bop, yabba, dabba, doo,” you know? Then he turns to me and says, “I understand you and your brother, Alex, are from Amsterdam, Holland.” And I went, “Yeah.” Dead air. Dead air. And then the guy starts going like this, and I go, “I’m over here.” And I’m looking at him, and I start gesticulating, too, and then I say, out loud, “What the **** does this mean?” It was a fuckin’ disaster. So afterwards, Dave goes, “Here’s what you’re gonna do. You’re gonna lie. You’re gonna make up some shit so they don’t remember it.” And, you know, I had to say something. I couldn’t just say, “Yeah.” But he asked me a stupid question. “Yeah” sufficed. You know, I wasn’t about to say “Van Gogh’s from there, you should see it during the winter,” you know? I’m not good at elaborating in that respect. So anyway, I do my first full-blown interview withGuitar Player, and that whole thing is in my head. You gotta make up shit. You gotta keep it interesting. All that Dave told me. So — oh, Joe Walsh calling me?ESQ: Really? Joe Walsh?EVH: Yeah. Grab it. Tell him I’m in the middle of an interview. But, so — okay, what I did was the amp was completely stock, but I used a light dimmer.ESQ: You used a light dimmer on what?EVH: I bought an English version, I had my 100-volt Marshall. I bought one through the recycling or the newspaper that was from England, and it was set on 220 volts. I didn’t know. So I plugged the thing in, but I’m going, “Fucking thing doesn’t work. I got ripped off.” I just let it sit there. After about an hour, there’s sound coming out, but it’s really quiet, cause it’s running on half voltage. So I go, “Hey, wait a minute. It sounds exactly like it’s supposed to all the way up, but it’s really quiet.” So we had a light dimmer in the house, and I hooked up the two leaves from the amp to the light, so I did it backwards, blew out the fuse box. Then I went down to DOW Radio and asked, “Do you guys have any kind of super duper light dimmer?” They go, “Yeah, it’s all Variac, variable transformer, you know.” And on the dial you could crank it up to 140 volts or down to zero. So I figured, if it’s on 220 and it’s that quiet, if I take the voltage and lower it, I wonder how low I can go and it still work. Well, it enabled me to turn my amp all the way up, save the tubes, save the wear and tear on the tubes, and play at clubs at half the volume. So, my Variac, my variable transformer was my volume knob. Too loud, [makes knob turning sound] I’d lower it down to 50.ESQ: That’s amazing. But still, that was it? That was the only modification you did?EVH: Just out of necessity. I need an amp I could play in clubs. We wouldn’t get hired, I would play so loud, you know, I’m going, what can I do? What can I do? Okay, I turned the voltage, the wall voltage into my volume knob.ESQ: Did you lie to Guitar Player?EVH: Wait, wait, wait, what I was gettin’ at was when I did my first interview, I told people the complete opposite. I told them I raised it up 140 volts. I felt so bad. I felt so fucking horrible, man. They said, “Please don’t attempt what Eddie Van Halen said in the last interview, because everyone was blowing their amps.” Everyone fried their amps ’cause of me. I felt so bad. I never lied again after that.So, that’s that. Eddie Van Halen comes clean. Although, by this point, everyone knows that raising the input voltage on an amp is going to wreak havoc, but at least Eddie is man enough to admit when he lies. Thanks, Ed. Check out the rest of the outtakes over at <a href="http://www.esquire.com/the-side/music/eddie-van-halen-interview-2012-8147775#ixzz1sOujZnqT">Esquire</a>.

04/22/12 12:33:36PM @:
I think he's MIXed up, maybe his new group should post here, I heard one of the new songs and thought it was worse then what I do, especially the lyrics just terrible, -but
the guitar playing was okay...

04/21/12 10:25:53AM @josephrodz:
Great interview,we need more interviews like this here for the guitarist and musicians here,thanks so much.

04/21/12 10:37:05PM @les-beasley:
Day-um I blew my amp up....Damn You Eddie !! Ha ! just kidding.

I had to look that one up Farrell.

Garrulous : excessively talkative in a rambling, roundabout manner, especially about trivial matters.

04/22/12 12:10:22AM @huge-artist:
Lol bullit!!

04/21/12 12:14:39PM @farrell-jackson:
Eddie doesn't seem to be the most garrulous fellow. I guess that's why he lets his fingers do the talking...and talk they do!

Farrell

04/20/12 11:36:34PM @les-beasley:
Ha !! I have a variac and a marshall and a mesa head... I might give it a try just for curiosities sake.

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Eddie Comes Clean LOL

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