Edward Lodewijk Van Halen, (born January 26, 1955 in Nijmegen, Netherlands) is a virtuoso guitarist, classically-trained pianist, and founding member of the hard rock band Van Halen.
Edward Van Halen's family moved to Pasadena, California in 1962 and he immediately started classical piano training, and won talent competitions as a child (although during a radio interview he said that he cannot read music). Indeed, Eddie claims that one of the first things his parents did upon arriving in America was to seek out a piano teacher for him and his brother, drummer Alex Van Halen.
Initially, Alex began playing the guitar, while Eddie played the drums. According to Van Halen lore, while Eddie was delivering newspapers to pay for his drum kit, Alex would practice playing on them. It was when Eddie heard Alex's mastery of the Surfaris drum solo in the song Wipe Out that Eddie decided to switch and begin learning how to play the electric guitar.
Eddie was around age twelve when he started playing guitar. He was so committed to playing the guitar, that he played it all day, everyday. Sometimes, he would even skip school to stay at home and practice. By 14, he had learned almost every Cream solo of Eric Clapton "note for note", though in other interviews he claims that in fact he could never learn to play the solos precisely, and would therefore modify them to suit his style. In an April 1996, interview with Guitar World, when asked about how he went from playing his first open G chord, to playing "Eruption", he simply replied "Practice. I used to sit on the edge of my bed with a six-pack of Schlitz Malt talls. My brother would go out at 7 P.M. to party and get laid, and when he'd come back at 3 A.M., I would still be sitting in the same place, playing guitar. I did that for years--I still do that." His main influence was Eric Clapton (of Cream), and more recently has also acknowledged the influence of fusion guitarist Allan Holdsworth, of whom he has said: "He's the best in my book."