“We took shoe polish and wrote our logo all over the walls,” Eddie later recalled. They celebrated by getting “thoroughly s–t-faced on Glenmorangie whiskey.” In May, while opening for Black Sabbath in Aberdeen, Scotland, the band received word that their debut album had gone gold, signifying sales of over 500,000 copies.
“They hosted fire-extinguisher battles in the corridors, taped frozen fish to the ceilings and reduced the in-room furnishings to match wood,” ‘No one wore condoms, and it was just a big bone-fest, day after day‘Īfter playing their first out-of-state headline show at a club in Madison, Wis., the band celebrated by “laying waste to their accommodations on the seventh floor of the Madison Sheraton hotel,” Brannigan writes. Van Halen’s big break came in 1976 when they opened for UFO and wowed the crowd - but Eddie’s (second from left) heart briefly stopped after he snorted PCP. Van Halen’s self-titled debut album, released in 1978 and recorded on a steady diet of morning beer and cocaine, introduced the rock world to its next legendary band, and the members tried every day to live up to the party attitude their music promised. If it was thirty seconds later, we couldn’t have brought you back.’” “When I woke up the doctor said, ‘Your heart stopped. “I actually died on the table,” Eddie later said. He went into spasms and was rushed to a hospital, where he was strapped to an operating table as an oxygen tube was forced down his throat. Ten minutes later, Alex saw his brother collapse, and ran to him. They wowed the crowd and, after the show, a local drug dealer offered Eddie some “dynamite blow,” which he accepted. At Eddie Van Halen’s wedding reception, David Lee Roth (left) held up the guitarist so they wouldn’t fall over from all the cocaine they consumed. One of Van Halen’s first big opportunities came in early 1976, when they opened for British rockers UFO at the Golden West Ballroom in Norwalk, Calif. The brothers grew up to form their own band, with bassist Michael Anthony and singer David Lee Roth. Have a shot of vodka.’ Boom - I wasn’t nervous anymore.” “My dad got me into drinking and smoking when I was 12,” Eddie recalled. At these shows, Jan ushered Eddie into an unfortunate habit that would define much of his life. “Valerie was holding her husband’s head over a toilet bowl, pulling his hair back to make sure it didn’t become encrusted with puke.”Įddie Van Halen, who died of cancer in October 2020, at age 65, was a groundbreaking guitarist who redefined the instrument like no one since Jimi Hendrix.Ī Dutch immigrant who came to the US with his family in 1962 at age seven, Eddie played gigs with his father, Jan, and older brother, Alex, from childhood. “There I found Valerie in her beautiful white lace wedding gown, looking every inch the angel - except for the tears streaming down her cheeks,” Monk recalls in the book. This scene would soon be repeated with Bertinelli, as tour manager Noel Monk discovered when he located the newly-married couple in the bathroom.Įddie Van Halen married Valerie Bertinelli in 1981 and divorced in 2007. The wedding became a party extraordinaire, as Eddie and Van Halen singer David Lee Roth did “fat bumps of in a restroom, ‘taking turns holding each other around the waist so plunge head first into the toilet from dry heaving.’” The new book “Unchained: The Eddie Van Halen Story” looks at how the legendary guitarist - along with his wife Valerie Bertinelli and Van Halen band mates - sometimes enjoyed the rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle too much. 28, shows how Eddie’s wild lifestyle of sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll led to trouble from the outset. Guitar god Eddie Van Halen married “One Day at a Time” actress Valerie Bertinelli on April 11, 1981, with a $35,000 reception held at the mansion featured in Barbra Streisand’s version of “A Star is Born.”īut while the early days of their marriage saw them portrayed as a dream couple, a new book “Unchained: The Eddie Van Halen Story” (Permuted Press) by Paul Brannigan, out Dec. Paul Newman’s ‘revealing’ memoir just discovered, will be published Porn star Maitland Ward reveals cover for ‘steamy’ memoir, ‘Rated X’
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