While performing onstage with his namesake band, Eddie Van Halen was famous for flying through the air, legs splayed, slashing out stinging riffs on his customized Stratocaster.<\/p>\n
If fans wondered where the energy came from, they only needed to look on top of his amplifier cabinet, where, according to a story in the\u00a0Daily Mail, he routinely laid out lines of cocaine. Snorts of powder kept him supercharged for the group\u2019s high-energy performances. Just to make sure he had what he needed, Eddie reportedly aligned himself with a globetrotting drug dealer who\u2019d fly anywhere in the world with a supply of top-notch Peruvian blow.<\/p>\n
The beloved rock legend\u00a0died Oct. 6 at 65\u00a0after a long battle with cancer.<\/p>\n
To those who loved the band, Eddie\u2019s\u00a0onstage playing was legendary. But to those who worked with him and knew him best, it\u2019s what happened offstage that remains\u00a0truly<\/em>\u00a0unforgettable. Just ask Fred Durst. In 2001, as chronicled in the book \u201cEruption in the Canyon: 212 Days and Nights with the Genius of Eddie Van Halen,\u201d Eddie engaged in an aborted jam session with the Limp Bizkit frontman. For some reason, Eddie happened to leave his equipment behind. When Durst was slow to return the gear, Eddie took matters into his own hands.<\/p>\n According to the book, Eddie hopped into an assault vehicle he somehow owned and drove to Durst\u2019s home. Shirtless, gun in hand, hair up in a samurai bun, he knocked on the door. According to author Andrew Bennett, Eddie told him, \u201cThat a\u2009-\u2009-\u2009hole answered the door. I put my gun to that stupid f\u2009-\u2009-\u2009king red hat of his, and I said, \u2018Where\u2019s my s\u2009-\u2009-\u2009t, motherf\u2009-\u2009-\u2009ker?\u2019 That f\u2009-\u2009-\u2009king guy just turned to one of his employees and starts yelling at him to grab my s\u2009-\u2009-\u2009t.\u201d<\/p>\n The book maintained that Eddie kept a pistol pressed to Durst\u2019s head as the musical equipment was loaded into Eddie\u2019s military-surplus vehicle.<\/p>\n But Eddie \u2014\u00a0whose usually trashed home studio was named 5150, referring to the section of\u00a0California\u2019s Welfare and Institutions Code\u00a0which allows a police officer to involuntarily confine a person deemed to have a mental disorder that makes them a danger \u00a0\u2014 was unpredictable.<\/p>\n\n There was the concert appearance when he was about to get onstage with Sharpie scribblings inexplicably all over his face and chest. Fortunately, an aide helped him wash off the ink before he hit the footlights and embarrassed himself. And there was the night he showed up at bandmate Sammy Hagar\u2019s oceanfront home at 2:30 in the morning, blitzed out of his mind, bottle of Jack Daniels in hand, demanding that they write a song together. Hagar \u2014 who replaced David Lee Roth as Van Halen\u2019s vocalist in 1985, after Eddie tracked him down through an auto mechanic they both used \u2014 recounted that tale, as well as his betrothed\u2019s chagrin over the unexpected visit, in his memoir \u201cRed: My Uncensored Life in Rock.\u201d He added that Eddie\u2019s then-wife\u00a0Valerie Bertinelli\u00a0\u2014 the two married in 1981, soon after she first spotted him on the back of a Van Halen album cover \u2014 had tossed Eddie from their home for the night.<\/p>\n But\u00a0plenty of weird things\u00a0happened with Eddie. Like the time a woman filed a paternity suit against him. Eddie shrugged it off, insisting that their sexual relations all took place in his car on the Pacific Coast Highway and were strictly oral. \u201cYou know how I like a pretty face in my crotch,\u201d he allegedly told Van Halen road manager Noel Monk, author of \u201cRunnin\u2019 With the Devil: A Backstage Pass to the Wild Times, Loud Rock, and the Down and Dirty Truth Behind the Making of Van Halen.\u201d Even Eddie could not impregnate a woman via her mouth. The suit was tossed.<\/p>\n Hopefully, however, Eddie was driving somewhere close to the speed limit when the deeds went down. He and Hagar were both car fanatics and enjoyed racing their pricy Italian autos. Recalling what transpired after recording sessions, Hagar wrote about the bandmates blazing down LA roadways at speeds of 150 miles per hour.<\/p>\n Better, perhaps, with cars than with people, Eddie was not the easiest person in relationships.\u00a0 His bouts with former Van Halen frontman David Lee Roth were legendary. A vexed Eddie once whipped a glass bowl of guacamole at Roth\u2019s head. And he didn\u2019t exactly give Bertinelli the kid-glove treatment either. When she joined him on one of the band\u2019s tours, Eddie reportedly had her sleep in an adjoining bedroom, so that he could stay up all night with his booze, cocaine and guitar.<\/p>\n According to Monk\u2019s book, after the solo music-making, he\u2019d settle in with the road manager, lay his head upon Monk\u2019s shoulder, tell him how much he loved him and doze off like a baby with a bottle of vodka pressed against his lips.<\/p>\n If Eddie was selfish with his time, the same could not be said for his drugs \u2014 \u201cEd likes me skinny,\u201d Bertinelli reportedly told Monk\u2019s fianc\u00e9e to account for her dips into Eddie\u2019s cocaine supply \u2014 and his body. In his book, Monk wrote that Eddie had been banging a smorgasbord of groupies every night prior to Bertinelli\u2019s arrival on the tour.<\/p>\n But, of course, girls were easy to come by and often got treated disrespectfully. In his book, Monk recounted the night that Eddie and his bandmates had a willing fan lay naked in bed so that they could cover her in condiments \u2014 and they did.<\/p>\n But the wild lifestyle took its toll on the great guitarist. He wound up needing a hip replacement in 1999 and became alarmingly skinny following his\u00a0diagnosis of throat cancer\u00a0in 2000.<\/p>\n Adv<\/em>.<\/strong><\/p>\r\n\r\n Hagar wrote about the six-string maestro being addicted to cigarettes and alcohol while battling the disease that landed in his throat and killed him. According to Hagar, in the early 2000s, many of Eddie\u2019s teeth were missing and the ones that remained had turned black. Hagar attributes that to Eddie\u2019s habit of drinking rotgut wine directly from the bottle.<\/p>\n When Hagar suggested that Van Halen use a glass, the guitarist hoisted his bottle and cheekily replied, \u201cIt\u2019s in a glass.\u201d<\/p>\n Portions of his tongue had been cut off, leaving Eddie speaking with a lisp. As Hagar wrote in his book, \u201cHe told me he cured himself [of cancer] by having pieces of his tongue liquefied and injected into his body. He also told me that when he had his hip replacement, he stayed awake through the operation and helped the doctor drill the hole. What a fruitcake.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s tough to dispute the weirdness, wildness and extremeness of Eddie Van Halen \u2014 qualities that came through in his guitar virtuosity and in his lifestyle \u2014 but, today, it\u2019s better to remember him by the memorial that\u00a0Hagar posted to Twitter. Above a photo of the two, happily buddied up together on a jet, the vocalist wrote, \u201cHeartbroken and speechless. My love to the family.\u201d<\/p>\n\n While performing onstage with his namesake band, Eddie Van Halen was famous for flying through the air, legs splayed, slashing out stinging riffs on his customized Stratocaster. If fans wondered where the energy came from, they only needed to look on top of his amplifier cabinet, where, according to a story in the\u00a0Daily Mail, he …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":66949,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[611],"tags":[4334],"yoast_head":"\n\r\n \t