The band Alex said was his and Eddie Van Halen’s favorite

Alex and Eddie Van Halen grew up in a musical family, with their father, Jan Van Halen, being a clarinetist, jazz pianist and saxophonist. They learned to play several instruments at a very young age and used to perform with their father, even aboard the boat they took when emigrating from the Netherlands to the United States in the early 1960s. When growing up they had many different influences but as time passed there was one band that remained their favorite according to Alex.

The band Alex said was his and Eddie Van Halen’s favorite

Alex Van Halen said in his book “Brothers” (2024), his and Eddie’s favorite band was Led Zeppelin, he mentioned that when recalling the “wings” detail on Van Halen’s logotype. “A designer named Dave Bhang drew up the Van Halen logo that became famous: the winged VH that was smack in the middle of the first record, unforgettable. I liked that the wings were an implicit nod to the Led Zeppelin Icarus image, because they were our favorite band, but also because they suggested the idea of a human being striving to fly, getting too close to the sun but giving it everything he has to reach the heights. All of that appealed to me and felt right for the band,” Alex Van Halen said.

He and Eddie saw the band play live when they were still aspiring musicians in the 70s. On one occasion, they saw them at the Forum in Los Angeles. Eddie noticed an aspect of Jimmy Page‘s technique that he later adopted and perfected: tapping. It went on to become one of his most famous techniques.

The late guitarist recalled that once, saying:

“I saw Led Zeppelin back in, I think it was ’70, ’71, something like that. Jimmy Page had his arm up in the air. He was doing pull-offs on the G string, or the B string. I said, wait a minute, and I took my right hand, and I put it where the nut is. I just moved it up, and kept going up the neck.”

“So I used my right index finger as the nut, like a capo. Then I reversed it, and I used my index finger of my left hand as the nut. The finger on my right hand is now just an extension of another finger on my left hand. That’s where it came from. It’s funny, cause I watch other people do it, and I guess it’s just been part of my playing for so long, and as you hold the neck.”

He continued:

“It’s not like my right hand is tapping. I’m actually pulling off just like I would with my left hand. You know what I’m saying? I don’t know why they call them hammer-ons, cause I’m not hammering it. It’s just like if you’re doing a trill with your left hand. I’m just adding my right hand to it,” Eddie Van Halen told Fuzz magazine in 1998.

Eddie Van Halen thought Jimmy Page was a bit sloppy when playing live

As the late guitarist said a few times, he and his brother used to go to every Rock concert they could attend at the Forum. So they had the chance to see many incredible bands playing. Having seen Jimmy Page perform live during the early years of his success, Eddie spoke about the guitarist in 1981, saying that he thought Page was sloppy on stage. “Jimmy Page is an excellent producer. ‘Led Zeppelin’ and ‘Led Zeppelin II’ are classics. As a player, he’s very good in the studio. But I never saw him play well live. He’s very sloppy. He plays like he’s got a broken hand and he’s two years old. But if you put out a good album and play like a two-year-old live. What’s the purpose?” Eddie Van Halen told Guitar World.

Eddie always was a big fan of him and was invited to Jimmy’s induction into the Rock Walk of Fame. During his speech, in 1993, Van Halen praised him. “I don’t think there is anybody here who has not been affected or touched by Jimmy Page’s music, his guitar playing. So the guy is a f*cking legend, you know. He influenced me and everybody that I know. What more can I say? Thank you for being here, I’m honored for being here, thank you.” Eddie Van Halen said (Transcribed by Rock and Roll Garage). One thing he didn’t agree with many people about Led Zeppelin was that they were a Heavy Metal band. Eddie thought that they weren’t as heavy as Black Sabbath, one of his favorite groups.

He said:

“There was nothing like it before them, Black Sabbath was like (makes astonished expression). They started the whole riff thing, you know. They came up with licks instead of just strumming the guitar, it wasn’t your typical songs with a chorus. (…) I thought it was funny that they called Led Zeppelin Heavy Metal, (a lot of their) stuff was acoustic. Rock and Roll today wouldn’t exist without them (Black Sabbath),” he told Biography channel in 2010 (Transcribed by Rock and Roll Garage).

When they were still playing in clubs and didn’t have much original material, Van Halen used to cover many bands, including Zeppelin. Some of the tracks they performed were “Hots On For Nowhere”, “The Rover” and “Trampled Underfoot”. After fame Eddie had the chance to play “Whole Lotta Love” and “Rock and Roll” on charity shows with Sammy Hagar.

Alex said that Led Zeppelin was the model the band followed

In an interview with Gastão Moreira in 2026, Alex talked about Led Zeppelin saying that they were the model Van Halen followed when they started. “Led Zeppelin was the model that we followed in terms of putting a unit together. A musical unit that had room to improvise, expand and try different things under a semicontrolled condition. The (Zeppelin) records sounded incredible. Jimmy Page, he was a phenomenal producer.”

“Ed and I were very much drawn to natural kind of music. Not the prefab stuff, not the pop music, not the three minute songs, which is ironic because by the time that we got signed that’s what all they wanted (laughs). Ed and I really had a hard time in the studio. This is nobody’s fault other than that this was ‘soup du jour’ (soup of the day). You know, ‘we want a three minute song with a chorus and blah, blah, blah’. ‘Well, that’s really not what we do but we will do our best’,” Alex Van Halen said (Transcribed by Rock and Roll Garage). In another interview, during Live Talks in 2025, Alex said Led Zeppelin were great at recording their albums.

He said:

“Led Zeppelin were at the top of the game, they understood the technology of how to record stuff in the studio. They understood the balance between having a coordinated song written but leaving enough room to improvise. You don’t wanna have something that is the same everytime. Combining all these elements into something that is professionally and artistically that you can be proud of is something that we shoot for. You don’t always get it but if you don’t make the effort I can guarantee you ain’t gonna make it,” he said (Transcribed by Rock and Roll Garage).

Long before joining the Yardbirds and going on to form Led Zeppelin, Jimmy Page was one of the most respected session guitarists in London and learned a great deal about the recording process. John Paul Jones was also one of the city’s most highly regarded bassists and arrangers, with extensive studio experience.