Dio men tried to hire Van Halen

Dio rhythm section Vinny Appice and Jimmy Bain decided to aim high when they went to start a project after leaving Ronnie James Dio’s band – they called Eddie Van Halen.

And while the axe icon was honoured to be asked, he had a very good reason for saying no.

Drummer Appice and bassist Bain are back together in Last In Line, which also features Dio co-founders Viv Campbell and Claude Schnell, plus Andy Freeman in place of the late, great frontman.

Asked if there’s anyone he’d still like to work with, Appice tells My Global Mind: “There are lots of cool people. It would be fun to play with Eddie Van Halen – we both know Eddie. We almost played with him one time, a long time ago.

“Jimmy and I were putting something together. I called him and he called me back, and I didn’t know it was him. ‘Vinny, it’s Eddie.’ I went, ‘Eddie?’ Then I caught on.

“I said, ‘You’re probably busy, but we were thinking about you. We thought we’d start at the top for guitar players.’ He said, ‘Aw, man, that’s really cool, and I appreciate it, dude. But I’m joined with my brother.’”

Appice has worked with some big names in his time, but for him they don’t come bigger than his stint with John Lennon, which took place in 1975 while he was working with his first professional band, BOMF.

The nine-piece were managed by Jimmy Iovine, who was working with the ex-Beatle at the time, meaning they were often in New York’s Record Plant studios at the same time. Appice recalls: “One day they needed handclaps and they said, ‘Can you guys come down and do some handclaps for us?’ The band and I went down and we saw John in the control room. We were like, ‘Oh shit, it’s John Lennon.’

“We did handclaps – that’s me on Whatever Gets You Through The Night. A couple of days later he comes up and hangs out. We were like, ‘Oh fuck’ when we were playing. But he dug the band so we did a gig with him, at the New York Hilton for Lew Grade.

“We did three videos and we did eight songs in the studio with John producing. You’d hear him in the headphones telling you what to play. We’d play pool with him. It was just insane – that was a highlight.”

Last In Line played a brief debut tour in the UK in August, which was curtailed by guitarist Campbell’s cancer treatment. Appice has vowed there’s more to come from the band. Last night Campbell reported: “Did my second to last chemo today – only one more to go. Strangely, my hair’s already started to grow back a little.”

source: classicrockmagazine.com

Eddie Van Halen Has Emergency Surgery

Eddie Van Halen has undergone emergency surgery for "a severe bout of diverticulitis," Van Halen posted on its website, and will spend the next four to six months recovering. As a result, the rockers are rescheduling a tour of Japan that had been slated for November. "The band looks forward to seeing and playing for their fans in 2013," read a brief statement.

Diverticulitis is a digestive disease that occurs when pouches of the inner lining of the intestine, most often in the colon, become inflamed or infected. Symptoms include nausea, vomiting, fever and cramping.

Van Halen also canceled a series of dates earlier this summer. Although there was talk at the time that the musicians weren't getting along, singer David Lee Roth said in a video that the group had simply "bit off more than we could chew," a sentiment Eddie Van Halen echoed in an interview.

The band this year released A Different Kind of Truth, Van Halen's first album with David Lee Roth in 28 years.

source: rollingstone.com

Find Out The Gear Secrets of Eddie Van Halen

Super-fast two-handed tapping, monstrous dive-bombs, legato licks with machine-like precision - no other guitarist since Hendrix influenced the guitar community more than Dutch-born Edward Lodewijk Van Halen.

Almost single-handedly he brought technical innovation and harmonic diversity to the blues-based Hard Rock of the 60s and 70s. The breathtaking instrumental 'Eruption' on Van Halen's 1978 debut album alone made many established guitarists of the day want to throw their guitar on the dumpster. But not only Eddies' playing was breathtaking, his tone was equally astonishing. Achieved through a combination of highly customized guitars and amps he coined the phrase 'Brown Sound' which set a new reference tone for thousands of guitarists following his path

Eddie first guitar was a cheap Teisco Del Rey solid body guitar, which he swapped for his drum set with his brother Alex Van Halen. Later he acquired a Les Paul copy to learn all the songs and licks from his guitar idol, Eric Clapton.

But he doesn't like the heavy weight and the fact that he can't get a usable tone from the neck pick-up.

The first album was recorded with a self-made Strat-style guitar that consisted of several Charvel guitar parts as well as a '58 Fender Stratocaster. Both guitars have maple necks, which Eddie prefers. The Charvel 'Frankenstein' guitar has a mahogany body which Eddie likes, as it doesn't produce the Fender Twang. He rips the humbucker out of an old Gibson ES-335 and screws it in the bridge position of the guitar and uses sticky tape to give it the famous 'stripe' look.

As soon as the first 'modern' Vibrato-system becomes available Eddie installs it on his Franken-Strat and from then on the Floyd Rose vibrato is a staple on all of his guitars. In the early '80s Eddie had an endorsement-deal with Kramer guitars, who build his signature guitars - equipped with a single humbucker, a single volume control, Floyd Rose vibrato and the trademark white-and-red stripes.

After his deal with Kramer ended he developed his signature guitar with Music Man in the early '90s. This guitar has an attractive curly maple cap and specially designed custom neck and bridge pick-ups by DiMarzio, a great playing neck with compound radius and is extremely successful. It has a very unique tone and is one of the most interesting rock-guitars of the 90s.

1996 sees the end of the collaboration with Ernie Ball / Music Man. Eddie moves to Peavey to release a very similar guitar, called 'Wolfgang' after his son. Music Man renames the EVH-model into Axis and changes a few details and keeps the guitar successfully in their program.

But the Peavey Intermezzo is only short-lived.

Just recently Eddie has launched his own brand, EVH. In collaboration with Fender he now has a range of EVH signature Wolfgang guitars, the EVH 5150 III amps and EVH shoes(!)

The other part to his 'brown sound' is of course his amplifier. In the beginning he uses several cheap amps until he acquires a late '60s Marshall. This Plexi-Marshall is usually played with the 'english setting' - all controls on 10! He later uses a Variac Transformer to alter the voltage in the amp and to make the sound 'spongier'. Effects wise Ed keeps it simple - a Univox EC-80 Tape-Echo or an old Tube Echoplex, an MXR Phase 90 and MXR Flanger are all he needs. Occasionally you can find a MXR Distortion Plus on his pedal board. Later on he will turn to Roland SDE-3000 Delay, Lexicon PCM 70 Reverb and Eventide H-3000 harmonizer to create a full and wide live-tone. Also in his live-rig are a Boss OC-2 Octaver and SD-1 Super Overdrive.

Once Eddie gets accustomed to all the trickery that's available in the studio he makes full use of them, double tracking his guitars, using a Firefox Mini-Strat or a Danelectro 6-string bass.

In the early '90s Eddie starts playing around with the Hi-End amps made by Mike Soldano. He loves the lead sound but the rhythm tone doesn't do it for him. After a meeting with Hartley Peavey they develop a signature amplifier, the Peavey 5150. This amp is extremely popular and fellow guitarist like Ted Nugent, Brad Whitford of Aerosmith or Joe Satriani integrate it in their set-up.

As the partnership with Peavey comes to an end, Ed returns to his trusted Marshall for a while only to team up with Fender to release the EVH 5150 III.

Chris Basener is a guitarist, composer, producer and instructor who plays instrumental groove rock with vibrant melodies that speaks to the cosmopolitan music fan as much as the guitar community.

The graduate of the Munich Guitar Institute (MGI) in Germany did many clinics and demos at tradeshows and fairs across Europe (Germany, Austria, France and Belgium) performing for tens of thousands of people. He has more free articles on his website http://chrisbasener.com

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