When I’m home on a break, I lock myself in my room and play guitar. After two or three hours, I start getting into this total meditation. It’s a feeling few people experience, and that’s...

A good producer brings out the best in the artist he’s working with. You shouldn’t be able to listen to something and say, ‘So-and-so produced this album.’

‘For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge’ took a year to record; that’s why the playing on it might sound somewhat labored. ‘Balance,’ on the other hand, was written and recorded in only four months, so the whole...

It’s always a Catch-22 situation. They hate you if you’re the same, and they hate you if you’re different.

You know, most people, they want to go to Hollywood. They want to be a star. They want to be a rock star. That thought never entered any of our minds, the Van Halen family.

The stainless-steel frets were a major breakthrough, because of the amount of playing and bending that I do. I have to get my guitars refretted every couple of months.

I mean it’s funny, playing music, how of course you want it to do well, you want them to like it, but it’s not competitive like an election, it’s the Olympics, it’s not a Formula...

The hell with the rules. If it sounds right, then it is.

I’m blessed with a good pair of ears. That’s how I fooled my piano teacher. I’d watch his fingers and I’d listen to it, and I just kind of basically learned it by myself.

I have selective hearing.

If I can help a kid discover a liking, or even a passion for music in their life, then that’s a wonderful thing.

I’m the one in the band that said I’m not going on tour unless we do a record.

I was trying to take the band in a direction that I thought was appropriate, and Roth was trying to take the band in more of a Las Vegas direction. And there he is.

If you want to be a rock star or just be famous, then run down the street naked, you’ll make the news or something. But if you want music to be your livelihood, then play,...

On ‘Honeybabysweetiedoll’ I used a Whammy, a Boss OC-3 octave box, a Sustainer and a Line 6 DL4 Delay Modeler. That’s only on the intro, where all those weird noises are happening.

I’ve had a hip replacement, I’ve beaten cancer, I had my hand operation, and I stopped drinking. Something inside of me just went, ‘I’m done.’

On ‘Van Halen,’ I was a young punk, and everything revolved around the fastest kid in town, gunslinger attitude. But I’d say that at the time of ‘Fair Warning,’ I started concentrating more on songwriting....

I’m writing, and just doing the same thing I always do.

The one thing I do have is good ears. I don’t mean perfect pitch, but ears for picking things up. I developed my ear through piano theory, but I never had a guitar lesson in...

There are really three parts to the creative process. First there is inspiration, then there is the execution, and finally there is the release.

When I was growing up and listening to bands like the Dave Clark Five, the groove was what initially got me going. I really like that funky, heavy groove.

I just consider myself slightly left-of-center. I’m not your average bear. I – what’s the word? I’m not – normal.

The name Van Halen, the family legacy, is going to go on long after I’m gone.

It’s all about sound. It’s that simple.

It comes back to the same old question people are always asking me: ‘When are you going to do a solo record?’ Well, if I did, it would probably be similar to ‘Baluchitherium,’ meaning it...

The piano is a universal instrument. If you start there, learn your theory and how to read, you can go on to any other instrument.

Cancer is like a cockroach. It just comes back stronger. I’m tearing apart the immune system of the cockroach and seeing how it ticks. I’ve opened up my own pathology center.

I’m not a drunk anymore, but since they cut out my tongue, I sound drunk.

We make music for a living. Like I’ve always said, if you like what you’re doing, you’re halfway there; if someone else likes it, that’s even better. If they don’t like it, at least you...

It’s always about the music, never about anything else.

It’s all about sound. It’s that simple. Wireless is wireless, and it’s digital. Hopefully somewhere along the line somebody will add more ones to the zeros. When digital first started, I swear I could hear...

It’s funny, when bands or younger musicians ask me: ‘So, what does it take to make it?’ Well, first explain to me what you mean by ‘making it’: Do you want to be a rock...

Every song is like a kid. How can you have that many kids and have a favorite? Which one do I like to hang most with? Probably the one that I haven’t hung most with...

Music kept me off the streets and out of trouble and gave me something that was mine that no one could take away from me.

I’ll be making music ’til the day I die. I’ve done all kinds of stuff, and more is coming.

Nirvana was huge, but it didn’t appeal to everyone.

I don’t really know what inspires me to write the music I do, but usually, the music will set the tone for the lyrics.

A guitar is a very personal extension of the person playing it. You have to be emotionally and spiritually connected to your instrument. I’m very brutal on my instruments, but not all the time.

Everything I did is because I wanted to do it. If I weren’t playing this arena, if I were playing a club, I’d still be doing it because that’s what I want to do. I...

Obviously you have to have rhythm. If you have rhythm, then you can play anything you need. If you have rhythm and you love music, then play and play and play until you get to...

It makes me feel kind of weird, but obviously the Man Upstairs gave me something and it touches people, and I’m just so blessed.

I destroyed a lot of guitars trying to get them to do what I wanted, but I learned something from every guitar I tore apart, and discovered even more things. Things like if the string...

I grew up on a lot of early Beatles, DC5, Cream, Clapton, Page, Beck and Hendrix.

We’re musicians. We make music for a living. It’s that simple. Nothing else matters.

I never dreamt of being a musician for my livelihood. I certainly never would have wanted to be in the business that I’m in, meaning the fame and the glory, the glitter, the rock star,...

I can’t read music. Instead, I’d do stuff inside the piano, do harmonics and all kinds of crazy things. They used to put me in these annual piano contests down at Long Beach City College,...

If you have a great-sounding guitar that’s a quality instrument and a good amp, and you know how to make the guitar talk, that’s the key. It starts with the guitar and knowing what it...

I have pictures of me sitting in the racquetball court in my pajamas with an acoustic guitar, and Wolfgang is probably just two-and-a-half-feet tall. I’ll never forget the day I saw his foot tapping along...

My son, Wolfgang, plays drums, guitars and bass.

I’m not a rock star. Sure I am, to a certain extent because of the situation, but when kids ask me how it feels to be a rock star, I say leave me alone, I’m...