The world’s a stage, and I want the brightest spot.

—David Lee Roth

Back in 1978, when I first got started working for the band, Dave lived in this old, gigantic mansion in South Pasadena that was probably the biggest house I had ever seen in my life. We did many of the early photo sessions there because you could never run out of ideas with all the different locations and scenery it had to offer.

—Neil Zlozower

I remember Van Halen. Even before I did my radio show at KROQ, they were the house band at Gazzari’s. They played every night. I was there with a friend, Hernando Courtright, and we just knew they were gonna be the next big thing. We could tell just by the vibe of the club, always packed and filled with hot females. Girls are constantly setting the trend. Of course, David, with his sense of humor, always carried the band, especially before songs, with his stories.

Then I started my show on KROQ, and had the Ramones on as my first guests. There weren’t many local L.A. bands at the time, and I was playing mostly punk and new wave bands like the Runaways, The Quick, and The Pop. Van Halen didn’t have a record out at that time, but I knew how popular they were so I got them booked at the Starwood and told Gene and Paul from KISS to come down. KISS were the Heavy Metal Gods of Rock ‘n’ Roll. Gene loved the band and ended up flying them to New York City to cut some demos, including “Runnin’ with the Devil.” As soon as they came back to L.A., Dave came on my show as a guest and I played “Runnin’ with the Devil” for the first time. I still play that version till this day, along with the David Lee Roth interview on my anniversary show in August, and the phones still keep ringing off the hook!!!!

— Rodney Bingenheimer

My band, Spike, was scheduled to play on a bill that included Orange and The Boyz- (featuring George Lynch) at the Starwood in Hollywood. It was rumored that The Boyz had arranged to showcase for Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley from KISS.

At soundcheck, in come the Van Halen Marshall stacks. Eddie had three full stacks with the cover material removed, exposing the wood of the cabinets. They were very distinguishable.

To my surprise, Gene and Paul from KISS showed up — without makeup — and sat down at a table at the Hot 100 Club off-limits celebrity section upstairs. The Boyz did a KISS medley at the end of their set complete with a fog machine under the drum riser. Gene and Paul were not impressed. They decided instead to take Van Halen to New York to record and began what led up to them getting a record deal on Warner Bros.

I heard that the main reason they chose Van Halen over The Boyz was because they thought Roth was a stronger frontman than the singer Lynch had in his band. It was three nights of bombastic, knock ‘em dead, winner-take-all hard rock, and Van Halen won!

—Juan Croucier

From the first time I saw Van Halen playing to a small crowd at the Starwood in L.A., and then brought Gene there on my second night, I knew there wasn’t a stage they couldn’t and wouldn’t dominate. They were world-class then and have remained it throughout their career. They’ve been shamelessly copied, but never close to duplicated.

—Paul Stanley

Once upon a time, when it meant something to be a rock star and groupies prided themselves on whom they had spent the night with, I was invited to the Starwood Club in L.A. to see a band called The Boyz. I took Bebe Buell, she of Playboy/Liv Tyler/etc. fame, and sat next to Rodney Bingenheimer, king of the L.A. nightlife, and waited for the opening band to come on.

Life is what happens to you when you least expect it. I saw Van Halen. I was stunned. They killed.

Within two songs I was waiting for them backstage and immediately offered to sign them and take them into the studio. It seems there was a—I kid you not—yogurt manufacturer who was waiting to finance the band. I begged them not to do that. And, in a short time, I flew them to New York, signed them to my Man of 1,000 Faces production company and took them into Electric Ladyland Studios to do a thirteen-song demo. I also bought Dave some platform shoes and leather pants.

I took the demo and showed it to the rest of the KISSers and Bill Aucoin, our then-manager. No one got it. I was shocked. I gave the demo back to the band, told them I had a tour to go on and afterward I would try to get them a record deal, but until then, I tore up our contract and set them free. It didn’t take them long to get on Warner Bros.

Did I discover Van Halen? Nah … I was there. I saw. I knew. I am a fan.

—Gene Simmons

In the fall of 1976, it was opening night at the Whisky a Go -Go, which had been closed to live rock bands for several years due to the current disco trend. Prior to that fortuitous opening, Elmer Valentine, one of the partners of the club and one of my closest friends, called me and asked if I would help him launch the opening of the Whisky by booking bands into the club.

The new wave/punk music scene was starting to gain ground out of London and Los Angeles. I called Kim Fowley, a man who was very much in touch with the local music scene, and asked him if he would produce some shows for us. Kim was very smart and started bringing in some of L.A.’s top bands. The Whisky was off and running again.

A few months later, during the early part of 1977, Kim called me and told me about a band out of Pasadena called Van Halen. I asked him for a contact number so that I could book the band into the Whisky. Kim told me to call Dave Roth, the singer/spokesman of the band. When I got Dave on the phone and introduced myself to him, he was excited that I wanted his band to play the club and invited me to see them play that Friday night at the Pasadena Civic Center.

Arriving at the auditorium I was thinking to myself, “What in the world was a local band doing playing in a three-thousand-seat venue?” As I got to the entrance, there were so many kids waiting to get in that I could not understand what was going on. The place was so packed that the ushers closed the front doors and wouldn’t let me in. I went around back to the stage entrance and identified myself to security, and they let me in. I went out front into the audience, where the place was so packed I couldn’t move.

All of a sudden the lights went out, the audience started screaming as the band was introduced, and the place went nuts! I could not believe my eyes and ears. There have been many times in my music career that I saw something for the first time that blew my mind, but I was not prepared for what was unfolding right in front of me. The hair on the back of my neck stood out and for the next forty-five minutes I saw the guitar-shredding playing of Edward Van Halen backed by the best rhythm section I’ve ever heard. Dave Roth was the most amazing frontman/singer I had ever seen. His showmanship coupled with the baddest-ass trio of musicians was a formula that had success written all over it. After the show I went backstage and introduced myself to Dave and the brothers. As I gave Dave a contract for the band to play the Whisky I said, “You guys should have a record deal.” My statement probably seemed like bullshit to them, but I told them that I would help them get one and they said, “Sure, go ahead.”

Unknown to me, just prior to that evening, Gene Simmons had recorded a demo with the band using his own money and was trying to shop the demo for a record deal. For some reason, no one in the record business was interested. I had a past relationship with some executives at Warner Bros., and after working with the band for a couple of months I called my friend Ted Templeman, one of the greatest record producers in the business, and a genius with vocal harmonies. Ted was working with the Doobie Brothers and I thought he would be the perfect producer for Van Halen.

I had set up a show at the Starwood nightclub in Hollywood on a Monday evening and invited Ted to come and see the band. Ted showed up with Mo Ostin, the chairman of Warner Bros. It was pouring rain that night, and there couldn’t have been more than ten people in the audience. I told the band I was bringing some record executives to see them and they kicked royal ass again! When the show was over, Ted and Mo asked me to take them back to the dressing room, which I did, introducing them to the band. Ted and Mo were so blown away they offered the band a record deal right on the spot. For the next eighteen months I worked with Van Halen as their personal manager, and the first album we recorded for Warner Bros. turned out to be the band’s biggest-selling album, with over 15,000,000 copies sold.

— Marshall Berle

August, 1977. I was spending my mornings as a Warner Bros. Senior VP, afternoons recording the Doobie Brothers, and evenings playing in Randy Newman’s band at the Universal Amphitheater. Then I’d rush over to mix Nicolette Larson’s record. Marshall Berle told me about his band and I took a break from mixing, grabbed Mo Ostin, and headed to the Starwood. Five steps in the door and I was hit with the lightning bolt. The guitar player. I knew this was it. The third of the greats. Parker, Tatum, and this guy. Cut the deal that night.

After demoing a lot of songs, we cut the record in two weeks. Dave sang live in a booth, Ed played every solo live in the studio, and we got every one by the third, or usually first, take. I sang backgrounds a lot with Ed and Mike. That was pretty much the drill for the next few recordings. The guys were always sweet, and we had a hell of a time.

—Ted Templeman

I still remember the night in 1978 when my friend rushed over to my house and insisted I listen to this album by this new, unheard-of band. He promised it was going to blow my mind. Well, he wasn’t wrong. The power emanating from the speakers was undeniable and immense. I’d never heard anything like it, and as a guitarist I was completely floored and inspired by Eddie’s technique and ideas.

—Vivian Campbell

The first time I saw Van Halen it changed the way I looked at music and performing forever. It was 1978 and I had just formed my own group, Dokken. We were opening up for them for two nights at the Starwood in Hollywood. I was standing in my dressing room when they went on. Their first record wasn’t out yet, but they hit the stage like they had already made it. I could hear this blistering solo playing that sounded like a guy playing a violin through a Marshall, so I ran out of my dressing room to see what was up and spent the rest of the night watching the show with my mouth hanging open.

Eddie was playing with both hands on the neck. This was the first time I had seen anybody do this. I think he was playing this homemade guitar and an Explorer that night. After that I knew I should give up my guitar playing and just concentrate on my singing because there was no way I could ever attempt to do what he was playing. It was the biggest, punchiest guitar sound I had ever heard. Then, to top it off, there was David Lee Roth, doing his antics and performing like he owned the world. He was so in control of the audience you woulda thought they were on their third world tour. It was scary for me and the rest of the musicians there that night. Van Halen showed everyone they were going to change the face of rock music and take themselves all the way to the top. It was pure attitude.

—Don Dokken

Summer 1978. Hearing them for the first time was one of those events I remember well. I was listening to the radio, waiting to turn left at the intersection of Camino de la Costa and Palomar Ave. on our way to check out the waves at the beach. As if from outer space, like an asteroid was approaching us, the intro to “Runnin’ with the Devil” faded up, and launched a phenomenon – Van Halen. The album was sold out, but my surfing friend’s older brother had a copy. So, pre-empting The Twilight Zone, I listened to the whole album through headphones on his dad’s stereo, which looked like the panel from a WW II bomber. It sounded awesome. Ratt guitarist Robbin Crosby had seen them at the Whisky and Starwood clubs and had met Eddie, whose guitar sound at that time was produced in part by running Marshall amplifiers as close to the breaking point as possible. He was going through them like dragster engines and needed spares for a San Diego Arena show. Seeing Robbin’s Marshalls up on the stage sparked the thought that we were somehow going to be woven into this rock ‘n’ roll tapestry someday.

—Warren DeMartini

Van Halen first opened for me in 1978 and it was rock ‘n’ roll luv at first sight/sound. Coming from the belly of the R&B and R&R beast, I was instantly smitten with the raw energy, attitude, spirit and astonishing virtuosity of all four members. As a direct descendant of the mighty Motown Funk Brothers, I deeply appreciated how Michael and Alex created a Gods of Thunder rhythm section shoulder to shoulder with Eddie’s astonishing guitar work and David’s James Brown meets Mick Jagger meets Black Oak Arkansas’ Jim Dandy meets Wayne Cochran frontman supremacy. All this with a piss-and-vinegar spirit off the damn Richter scale. The Motor City Mad Man was genuinely moved. Even though my amazing band was untouchable, we nonetheless paid close attention to these young smartass dynamos and consciously kicked our performance up a notch or ten right then and there. Van Halen is indeed one of the greatest American rock bands of all time. Godspeed, boys.

—Ted Nugent

I saw Van Halen on their first album tour when they opened for Ted Nugent. Van Halen eclipsed Nugent, something I never thought I would see. David Lee Roth acted like the entire audience was there to see them, which by their next tour would be the case. I remember how collectively stunned the several-thousand-strong audience was after Eddie played “Eruption.” Arena rock was never the same after Van Halen came to town. They changed the entire landscape. Neil was there.

—Henry Rollins

I remember hearing about Van Halen from a friend in L.A. in 1977. Then I saw them at the Starwood around that time and got a chance to meet David Lee Roth. I asked him if he’d like to smoke a joint, and yes he did. After that, I was always going up to L.A. to see them. They were insane, to say the least. I was more of a guitar player/singer at the time. I collected rare, hard-to-find amps. I wanted to know what Eddie was using, where, how, and what. I finally got to meet him before a Whisky gig and we got to talking about gear. I had a Vox 30 amp and he used one too but needed another to complete his double-swivel Vox setup. So he bought mine. We became good friends trading, buying, lending gear all the time. I learned a lot from Van Halen, and to this day still think they are one of the best bands to ever hit the world music scene.

—Stephen Pearcy

Eddie was the original guitar ninja. At a time when I was just getting my feet wet, he was destroying everything we thought we knew about playing. The first three records are obviously my favorite because I come from a very heavy background. They had those leads and riffs – those heavy fucking riffs – that made us mere mortals wanna give the fuck up. They wrote great heavy rock tunes and were all too happy to force-feed them down our throats.

I saw them six times on the first three records. I remember just sitting in the loge with my binoculars taking in as much as I could from Eddie Van Halen, the motherfucking guitar ninja, and trying to learn about musicianship and showmanship. In their prime, they were untouchable as a live act and, to this day, those shows mean a lot to how I matured as a musician … if you want to call it that!

—Kerry King

Eddie’s finger tapping and vibrato work were innovative. It’s something he developed that made him different than all other guitar players. Extremely different. He mastered it very well. Eddie proves a fellow can create his own thing, something that’s recognizable. It’s very intriguing, and it’s a great road to go down. It’s good to see someone out there that plays HIS way. That is what makes the man stand out from the boy.

Eddie Van Halen came up with his own thing. OK. As far as I know, he may have copied it from some hillbilly, I don’t know. But it seems like he had his own thing going. And that alone, by itself, makes it very interesting. And the fact that he does it very well means he’s expressing a lot of things he had inside him that others don’t have. They just don’t play that way.

—Les Paul

I heard “Runnin’ with the Devil” and nearly shat myself!

—Joe Elliott

The first time I saw them was when they changed their name from Mammoth to Van Halen and added David Lee Roth. They had a tremendous impact on me. Edward is one of the greatest guitarists on the planet. Van Halen changed the sound and direction of rock ‘n’ roll!

—Mick Mars

After playing with Derringer in the late ‘70s — where I remember Van Halen coming to see us at the Whisky and Starwood — I moved to L.A. and had a band called Axis. People kept telling me about Van Halen before their first record was released. They said, “This band is your competition.” I finally went to see them at the Whisky one night and I was totally blown away with how good they were, especially Eddie. Those guys just fuckin’ tore it up! I will never forget it.

—Vinny Appice

I vividly recall the first time I heard Eddie Van Halen perform. Judas Priest had the pleasure to share the same stage with Van Halen in the late ‘70s in Santa Monica, California, a short time after the release of their first record. I had the great opportunity to watch Eddie’s incredible live performance. Right away, I felt this guitar player was going to change the face of rock ‘n’ roll. His technique and style were a revolution that has influenced and inspired guitarists around the world. Van Halen’s legacy remains solid and valuable, and the music will always be around to kick our ass!

—Rob Halford

The mighty Van Halen. I first saw them open for Black Sabbath at the Hammersmith Odeon, 1978. They had a PR gal with them who was a complete bitch. She treated us photographers with contempt. She wanted photographers to sign a contract (this was unheard of at the time). Fuck her. None of us shot the show, but I went out to watch them. They played for forty-five minutes and acted like the Mongol hordes conquering Europe. The funniest part was David Lee Roth telling the crowd of smelly Sabbath fans that Hammersmith is “THE ROCK ‘N’ ROLL CAPITAL OF THE FUCKING WORLD!” I shot them when they came back headlining the Rainbow Theatre. It was one of the best shows I’ve ever seen and, yes, Dave did tell us “THE RAINBOW IS THE ROCK ‘N’ ROLL CAPITAL OF THE FUCKING WORLD!” And for the seventy-five minutes they played, he was right.

—Ross Halfin

I first saw Van Halen at the Rainbow (no, not the L.A. one, the old London one, a big theater) back in 1970-something and I thought they could have been louder. Well, I always think it can be louder! Apart from that, they were excellent: an ultimately impressive frontman (athletic in spandex extremis), the mighty Ed burning the strings off his guitar, and the rock of a rhythm section. Killer show and excellent songs, too. People said, “Aaargh, they got big hair!” I said, “If they sound that good, I don’t care if they got five buttocks! Each!” I believe that if Dave gets back on stage with Van Halen, they will sound just as good! Maybe even better!

—Lemmy

It was 1978 and the Van Halen boys were to play at an outdoor gig up in Oakland, California, at Bill Graham’s Day on the Green Festival. They were opening for some bigger bands and were to play early in the day. This was to be my first offstage session with the band and I was pretty STOKED, so I set my alarm clock for Sunday morning (at least I thought so), but next thing you know I’m waking up … one hour later than I planned! SHIT, the alarm didn’t go off! So I grab my equipment (no shower) and jammed in my ‘Stang down La Brea to the airport at about 80 miles an hour. I get there about ten minutes before the flight is supposed to leave and find out that the plane is about one hour delayed! LUCKY ME! I make the flight, get off at Oakland, get to the gig about fifteen minutes before the band goes on, and I say, “OK GUYS, LET’S SHOOT!” We shot about thirty six frames and the band took the stage and DEVASTATED every other band that played on the bill that day.

THEY WERE BRUTAL!

—Neil Zlozower