CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) — Eddie Van Halen, founder of the rock band Van Halen and its lead guitarist and songwriter, is dead of cancer at age 65. Among those remembering him as a rock god is WXRT’s Lin Brehmer.
When the first Van Halen album came out in 1978, Brehmer was a part-time DJ and worked at an independent record store.
“And I would drop the needle on the first song, first side, and that was ‘Running With the Devil,’ and it has that amazing beginning in to the guitar part with Eddie Van Halen,” he recalled Tuesday.
“And it would take me about 45 seconds to sell a record,” he adds. “Within 45 seconds, a teenage boy would walk over to the counter and go, ‘Who is this?’
“And I would go, ‘Man, it’s debut album, Van Halen. You gotta have it.’
Brehmer also notes that a part of Cubs lore is tied to the band.
“If you say to somebody, ‘What song do you think of when you think of the 1984 Chicago Cubs?’ It’s not Steve Goodman. It’s Van Halen ‘Jump.’ It was the unofficial summer anthem of the 1984 Chicago Cubs.”
Brehmer says David Lee Roth, Van Halen’s original singer, was the focus of the band, as a showman.
“But Eddie Van Halen was really the heart and soul of the sound of Van Halen,” he said.
Brehmer says Eddie Van Halen “could play fast but he could also play beautiful.”
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