Van Halen released their debut album in 1978, when a revolution was happening in the music business due to Punk Rock, that took Rock and Roll back to its roots, keeping the tracks short and simple besides adding a lot of intensity to it. At the time Hard Rock and Heavy Metal were already established as two of the most successful sub-genres of Rock and suffered a lot when they had to fight for space in the market with the Punk groups.
However, Van Halen was one of the bands that managed to stand out at the time. Especially because of Eddie Van Halen’s incredible guitar playing. Curiously, the virtuoso guitarist even wrote one song to make fun of Punk Rock, but eventually the track became a hit.
The Van Halen song that Eddie wrote to make fun of punk rock
Formed in Pasadena, California in 1973, Van Halen released 12 studio albums and sold an estimated amount of more than 80 million records worldwide. It all started in 1978 when the band’s self-titled debut album was released. As Eddie revealed in an interview with Forbes in 2009, he helped to write one of the biggest hits of that record to make fun of Punk Rock music.
“You know what I was doing? I was cartooning off punk. Cause ‘Ain’t Talkin’ ‘Bout Love,’ we were jumping around in Dave’s father’s basement joking around, that song was a joke. But now actually when I listen to it, it sticks in your head and it’s very basic and simple.”
“But I was actually making fun of punk. Cause sometimes I have a tendency to get overly complicated. It goes right over people’s heads. So I gotta catch myself sometimes and keep stuff almost simpler than I do,” Eddie Van Halen said.
The guitarist once praised The Ramones for their ability to play so fast for a long time.
Curiously, back in 1978 Van Halen was Black Sabbath’s opening act alongside The Ramones. It was the only time the two American groups played the same bill. Van Halen played faster than many Hard Rock bands that emerged at that era. However, they weren’t as fast as The Ramones.
In an interview with Goldmine Magazine in 2023, the drummer Marky Ramone, the only classic member of the band who is still alive, said that Eddie once praised them. He said: “‘Try playing The Ramones for an hour, and your hand will fall off’. We had the opportunity to play a show together. The hard part is the 8th note down stroke. A lot of punk bands tried to play it, and they went up and down.”
“That is not what we did. The Ramones were continuous down strokes, and it created this wall of sound. We were grateful that other bands attempted what we were doing. But no one came close to what we did,” Marky Ramone said.
Van Halen came to an end after the death of Eddie back in 2020 at the age of 65, after years battling cancer. Their final album was “A Different Kind of Truth” (2012) released during the band’s final reunion that started in 2007.
From that year until 2020 the group was formed by David Lee Roth (Vocals), Eddie Van Halen (Guitar), Alex Van Halen (Drums) and Wolfgang Van Halen (Bass – Eddie’ son). Their final live concert happened at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles back in 2015.