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SHOCKING: 4 - What They Never Told You

“Playing with Vince Neil, opening for Van Halen, it got to be total rock ’n’ roll excess. I had to reassess why I was even playing guitar”: Steve Stevens on resisting shred, how Paco de Lucia made him go nylon, and Billy Idol’s eternal appeal

Billy Idol’s collaborator of 40-plus years transcends the punk-rock guitarist mold, taking in flamenco, jazz‑fusion, prog and classical styles – and he is as excited aboutguitar today as he was when he first picked one up

Guitar World

"I had to stick my head in the low bins - it got blown off when Bill Ward was hammering the kick drum." Alex Van Halen praises the impact of seeing Black Sabbath for the first time

Alex Van Halen opened up to Iron Maiden's Nicko McBrain about what it was like seeing Black Sabbath in the early 70s

Metal Hammer

"In the mid-80s, to get your record played, you had to take the guitar solo out." Radio stations tried to cut Eddie Van Halen's solo from one of his most iconic songs

Iron Maiden legend Nicko McBrain has hosted an epic interview with Alex Van Halen

Metal Hammer

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"I remember us saying, ‘Well, if the band doesn’t make it, we’ll join the Marines.’" The story of the song that gave thrash metal its name

Metallica, Exodus and Slayer might've been defining thrash on the West coast, but it was in New York the genre finally got its name

Metal Hammer

“We submitted plans for a racquetball court”: Eddie Van Halen's 5150 Studios was decades ahead of its time – but it required a white lie to build

LA homeowners were forbidden by the city's zoning laws to build a home studio on their property. But what's rock 'n' roll without breaking a rule here and there, and sticking it to the man?

Guitar World

“Everybody looks at him as Mr. Tap and Mr. Shred. That’s just a flavor of what he did”: Wolfgang Van Halen on one the most overlooked and underrated aspects of Eddie’s playing

Eddie Van Halen’s talents reshaped the guitar scene in the 1980s, but his son says there’s far more to his craft than tapping

Guitar World

"I live in my childhood home, so the studio's right there. It's what I need to watch and protect, for the rest of my life": Wolfgang Van Halen on 5150, battling demons and the good ship Mammoth

On his third Mammoth album, Wolfgang Van Halen raises his playing, singing and songwriting game - and channels experiences with A-listers and legends

Louder

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Iron Maiden, Metallica, Rush, Bon Jovi and more: 26 things we're looking forward to in 2026

Over the next twelve months, rock will keep rolling smoothly forward - here are 26 ways its wheels will remain lubricated

Louder

“Eddie told me, ‘Roth is driving me nuts. I can't take it. I gotta leave. I know you're looking for a lead guitar player. Do you want me in the band?’”: When Eddie Van Halen asked to join Kiss – and they turned him down!

MusicRadar

“I hope your reaction is, ‘I have never heard Van Halen like this’“: New compilation album of old Van Halen rehearsals with Eddie, Alex and Wolfgang has reportedly been released – and it doesn’t feature a singer

The recordings come from the 5150 Studios soundboard as the band rehearsed ahead of their 2007 tour

Guitar World

“I was saying, ‘It’s going to get hot. It’s going to explode. We’re going to have a fire.’ He was like, ‘Don’t worryabout it’”: From Eddie Van Halen’s “uncanny genius” to his brutal crash-testing, inside the making of the EVH 5150 III

Wolfgang Van Halen and EVH Gear's Matt Bruck on the difficult birth of a modern tube amp legend, and arguably the best metal amp you can buy right now

Guitar World

“Dad let me organically follow whatever I wanted. That was his main mantra: ‘Just play.’ It’s that simple”: Wolfgang Van Halen on Allan Holdsworth, unintentional Van Halen-isms, and his go-to guitar-test riffs

As the son of one of the world’s most influential rock guitar players, it’s understandably taken Wolfgang Van Halen some time to feel comfortable in his own skin. Mammoth’s third full-length, The End, is undoubtedly the sound of his confidence growing stronger and stronger

Guitar World

“I remember thinking, ‘This is like Eddie Van Halen’s death.’ He influenced so many, and he was one of a kind. His legacy is monumental”: Bruce Kulick remembers Ace Frehley, and the Frehley-era Kiss song that caused him the most trouble

The underrated guitar great recalls his 12 years trying to emulate the Spaceman while bringing something fresh to the band, all the time wondering how Frehley’s playing connected with so many guitarists around the world

Guitar World

“I had to reassess why I was even playing. I stopped playing electric guitar for a year”: Steve Stevens says going on tour with Van Halen made him rethink his relationship with the guitar – and it gave way to one of his most experimental albums

After weeks of rock 'n' roll overstimulation, Stevens pivoted and spent a year traveling with a nylon-string

Guitar World

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Guitar World

“Do you see Taylor Swift shredding scales? I don’t think so”: Wolfgang Van Halen on how fans unfairly critique his guitar playing because of his father – and why shredding like Eddie isn’t important

The Mammoth multi-instrumentalist has pursued his own musical path – though some commenters can’t help but constantly compare him to Eddie Van Halen

Metal Hammer

"There was a period during my teenage years where I felt emotionally abandoned, so to speak." Wolfgang Van Halen has a thing or two to say about living up to expectations

From recording with Van Halen to touring with Metallica, Wolfgang Van Halen has worked hard at standing on his own two feet

Guitar World

“Virtually indistinguishable from the all-tube original”: EVH signals the start of a brave new era with its first digital combo – which promises authentic Eddie Van Halen tube amp tones

The three channel amp is a lightweight reinvention of Eddie Van Halen's iconic 5150III in a digital combo form

Guitar World

“I think Jimmy's pointing at Ed, but he motions for me to come over. He said, ‘You have something that these other guys here don't’”: Steve Lukather was hanging out with Eddie Van Halen, when Jimmy Page paid him the highest compliment

Getting endorsed by the Led Zeppelin legend is something most guitarist could only dream of – but Lukather recalls the moment the icon gave him his flowers

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Metal Hammer

“There’s already too much music – shrinking ideas is the hardest thing”: Does Between The Buried And Me’s new album prove they don’t need to replace the member they fired?

The Blue Nowhere is their first after Dustie Waring’s acrimonious departure, and the remaining quartet say the process was business as usual

Guitar World

“They can show you what a guitar is about right away”: Wolfgang Van Halen names the 2 classic rock tracks he plays to test any electric guitar

Forget the forbidden riffs and the flashy taps. Wolfgang finds it's better to keep things simple...

Louder

“It was about the second coming of Jesus, except he’s in a spaceship”: Sammy Hagar on aliens, Jesus and the 70s sci-fi prog album he started then abandoned

The unlikely story of Sammy Wilde And Dustcloud

Metal Hammer

Charlie Sheen remembers his “private concert” from Eddie Van Halen on the set of Two And A Half Men: “They did five takes of it, and I was like, ‘Are you sure we don’t need a sixth?’”

The guitar legend made a cameo appearance in one episode of Sheen’s sitcom in 2009

Guitar World

“It’s got one bit where I’m tapping on the frets. I got that idea from Eddie Van Halen”: The Last Dinner Party’s Emily Roberts reveals how she took a page from Van Halen’s book to craft the band's most popular track

Queen, Brian May and the theatricality of ‘70s rock is writ large in Roberts’ style, but she says she takes inspiration from all corners of the guitar world in search of a sound that’s uniquely hers

Guitar World

“He plays that amazing lead, and I'm like two feet from him. Can you get a better private concert with Van Halen, anywhere, ever?”: Charlie Sheen reveals the real story behind Eddie Van Halen’s legendary Two and a Half Men cameo

The long-running sitcom featured a rotating roster of A-list cameos, including Elvis Costello, Steven Tyler, ZZ Top, but EVH ...

Guitar World

“You have all these modern players like Tim Henson playing crazy stuff that sounds incredible, though they very rarely choose to bend anything”: Wolfgang Van Halen on what sets his favorite contemporary metal guitar hero apart from his peers

Wolfgang has praised this player's ability to bridge the generational and genre divide

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