“Ed was very much a purist”: Why Eddie Van Halen didn’t re-do technical mistakes on Eruption
In the age of AI and overproduction, leaving a few mistakes in your music is becoming a sign of rebellion that declares a real human was behind its creation. Eddie Van Halen was doing it long ago, even when others around him suggested he should fix any blips.
Van Halen drummer (and Eddie’s brother) Alex has been looking back on how the guitar prodigy would ask for his errors to be left as they were, even when the band were working on their mega-hit Eruption. At the time, engineer Donn Landee wanted Eddie to re-do some of his guitar parts — a suggestion he refused.
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In an interview with Modern Drummer Official, Alex explains [via Ultimate Guitar], “There are times when we cringe. We go, ‘Man, we could have fixed that.’ And we should have fixed it. But Ed was very much a purist, if you will.
“Like on Eruption, he made a couple technical mistakes, and Donn wanted to fix it. And Ed goes ‘No, no, leave it,’ which I thought was brilliant, because you never relived that moment. And there were other moments on those records.”
And it seems Eddie wasn’t the only one who was happy to leave a few mishaps in their music: “I’m gonna quote something from Dave [David Lee Roth], which is he called it a ‘wabi sabi’ or something,” Alex continues. “It means the imperfections are what make it what it is. And so we left all the imperfections on the records.”
Eddie might be best known for his soloing, having paved the way for tap and shred culture, but his son Wolfgang Van Halen thinks there are other aspects to his father’s musicianship that were often overlooked.
During an appearance on The Cody Tucker Show, Wolfgang said: “I think everybody looks at him as Mr. Tap and he’s Mr. Shred, but I think that’s just like a flavour to what he did.
“I think it’s the fact that he was such a good songwriter and rhythm guitar player which allowed him to be the shredder guy on top of it. ‘Cause there are plenty of people who are just great shredders and they’re just running through scales and stuff, and that’s not as interesting.”
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Source: www.guitar-bass.net
