Get your striped guitars out and get tuned up!
Today we have a list of simple (and some not-so-simple) trivia questions about one of the biggest rock bands in the world – Van Halen!
Are you up for the challenge?
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1. What is the full birth name of each member of Van Halen (past and present)?
2. Eddie’s father Jan had a guest spot on one song in the Van Halen catalog. What was the name of the song and what album was it from?
3. What was the first Van Halen album to include exclusively original material?
4. Where did Eddie get the parts to build the original “Frankenstrat”?
5. What was Eddie and Alex’s original birthplace?
6. When Van Halen was booked to play the US Festival in 1983 they set a record for the amount paid to a band for a single gig. What was the amount?
7. David Lee Roth came from a fairly well-to-do family. What was his father’s name, and what was his occupation?
8. For two of the tracks on “5150” Eddie used a new Steinberger guitar with the technically advanced TransTrem, which was a tremolo unit that brings all of the strings up and down in pitch; it almost sounds and acts like a slide. What were the two tracks?
9. Eddie has had endorsement deals with several major manufactures to produce both guitars and amps bearing his name. What was the name of those manufacturers, and what products did they produce?
10. What was the name of the band before they became Van Halen?
11. What is the story behind the classic guitar solo “Eruption” (featured on the album Van Halen)?
12. Eddie has long been recognized as an innovator on the guitar with many albums featuring a new “trick”. List three.
13. What is story behind the fabled “no brown M&M;’s” clause on the early Van Halen contract rider?
14. What band did Sammy Hagar start his career with in the early 1970’s?
15. What band did Gary Cherone start his career with in the 1980’s?
16. Which track features a Wurlitzer electric piano fed through a distorted Marshall stack (mistaken by many to be a guitar)?
17. Van Halen’s sales record for albums places them in a very elite group along with bands such as The Beatles, The Eagles, and Led Zeppelin. What is this accomplishment?
18. What was the name of the car mechanic that gave Sammy’s phone number to Eddie, thus setting “Van Hagar” on course?
19. Eddie recorded a side project with Brian May as a sort of tribute to Eric Clapton (one of Eddie’s long-standing guitar heroes). What was the name of the project?
20. How much was Eddie paid for the iconic solo on Michael Jackson’s “Beat It”?
Answers:
1. Edward Lodewijk Van Halen, Alexander Arthur Van Halen, Michael Anthony Sobolewski, David Lee Roth, Samuel Roy Hagar, Gary Francis Caine Cherone, and Wolfgang William Van Halen
2. “Big Bad Bill Is Sweet William Now” from the album “Diver Down” features Jan’s only spot on a Van Halen track (playing clarinet).
3. “Women And Children First”
4. He got both the neck and the body from Wayne Charvel, a legendary guitar luthier in his own right.
5. Nijmegen, the Netherlands
6. The 1983 US Festival was an event organized by Steve Wozniak, a co-founder of Apple (the computer company, not The Beatles’ organization). He offered Van Halen $1,000,000 for one day.
7. Nathan Roth. He was an ophthalmologist.
8. “Get Up” and “Summer Nights”. The riff in “Get Up” sounds like a slide guitar, and the beginning and middle instrumental sections of “Summer Nights” are played with the TransTrem locked into a higher key; it is brought down when both the main riff stars and when the end chorus starts.
9. Music Man produced the first Edward Van Halen guitars. Citing production problems Eddie ended that relationship and signed with Peavey. Peavey also produced the guitars (now dubbed EVH Wolfgangs) in addition to the “5150” line of guitar amplifiers. The collaboration with Peavey ended around 2004. The Custom Shop at Fender produced a limited-edition replica of Eddie’s “Frankenstrat” complete with cigarette burns, a quarter under the tremolo tailpiece, and Eddie’s trademark black/white/red striped motif.
10. Mammoth. They also toyed with the idea of calling the band Rat Salad.
11. Ted Templeman came into the studio one day while the band was in the process of recording their debut album. Eddie was warming up for a gig they had that night, and he was playing the guitar solo he used in his featured spot. Ted went crazy and demanded that it be recorded for inclusion on the album. A few takes later and the rest was history; guitar playing was to never be the same again.
12. Van Halen – Eddie’s introduction to the world on “Eruption”; Van Halen II – chimed tapped harmonics on “Women In Love” and a “continuation” of “Eruption” using a nylon string guitar on “Spanish Fly”; “Women And Children First” – backwards tracked harmonics struck above the nut and tremolo dives on “Tora Tora Tora”; “Diver Down” – delayed guitar with volume knob swells to produce the keyboard-sounding “Cathedral”; also tremolo picking open strings while hammering-on a melody line on the intro to “Little Guitars”; “For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge” – running a power drill where the sound was picked-up by the guitar pickups on “Poundcake”.
Note: This is by no means a complete list. In the eyes of many Eddie Van Halen reinvented rock guitar much in the same way Jimi Hendrix did.
13. This Van Halen urban legend does actually hold some truth. While the legend states that if there were any brown M&M;’s found in the dressing room then the band just went wild, the truth was that it was placed in the rider as a safeguard. The line of thought was that if a promoter didn’t pay attention to the M&M;’s stipulation then there were probably other items of a much greater safety importance (such as equipment specs and weight restrictions) that may have been passed over as well.
14. Montrose, featuring guitarist Ronnie Montrose
15. Extreme, featuring guitarist Nuno Bettencourt
16. “And The Cradle Will Rock”. Yes…that’s right. The main riff is NOT a guitar! Michael Anthony used to play the keyboard part while on tour.
17. They are among the only bands to have more than one album with over 10 million in sales.
18. Claudio Zampolli
19. Star Fleet. Eddie broke a string during recording one track called “Blues Breaker”, but he kept on playing. Brian sent the tracks to Clapton who labeled them “very un-blueslike”. Eddie was mortified that his hero heard the tracks!
20. Absolutely nothing!
So how did you do? Are you a groupie or a member of the Van Halen Road Crew?
(Note: Sources include “Everybody Wants Some: The Van Halen Saga” by Ian Christe, and the Van Halen entries on Wikipedia)
