Free Edward Van Halen: A Definitive Biography by Kevin Dodds Page B

and, giving his name as David Lee Roth, secured a key to Dave’s room. While Alex and David hid away waiting for their time bomb to go off, Ed quietly and quickly moved all of the missing furniture from Dave’s room to his. The police arrived to find Ed’s screen gone but all of the furniture missing from Dave’s room. All in all, Edward said, “We were wild, man. Oh, God. We had fire extinguisher fights. There was like a foot of water in the hallway and it seeped through the floor to the other rooms down below us, so the people had to check out.”
    The Unofficial First Interview
    During the tour, shortly after the New Orleans show April 16, Ed gave his very first interview ever as a professional to Guitar World . Much to his chagrin, however, the article was not published until 2010. He tells the story about his dad being a musician, moving over from Holland, taking piano lessons, him and Al switching instruments, the Teisco, building his own guitar, his effects, his modified amplifiers, the condensed version of the Gene Simmons story—the works. About learning the guitar he said, “I enjoy playing. That’s the main thing. It’s not like I was forcing myself. I wanted to be a rock and roll star.” This would be possibly the only time ever that Edward admitted to wanting to be a rock star—from there on out, he would insist that he was “just a musician” and not a “rock star,” usually in a very dismissive fashion.
    When asked about album sales, Ed had all the figures at hand, and went on to bash Journey:
     
We’ve sold about 350,000. We’re like 29 with a bullet next week in Billboard . So we’re kickin’ some ass. When we started out with Montrose and Journey, we were brand new; I think our album was only out a week at the start of the tour. And now we’re almost passing up Journey on the charts and stuff. So they’re freakin’ out. I think they might be happy to get rid of us. We’re very energetic and we get up there and blaze on the people for 30 minutes—that’s all we’re allowed to play with them. They won’t let us use any effects. For my solo, “Eruption,” I do that every night live and I have this old World War II bomb which is six or seven feet tall and I put some echo boxes in it. Usually the thing blows up at the end of my solo with all the smoke bombs, but they won’t let me use it. We don’t get soundchecks; we don’t get shit. But we’re still blazin’ on the people, man—we’re getting a strong encore every night.
 
    Amazingly, he mentions exploring keyboards as early as April 1978: “Who knows what lurks in the future? Me and my brother both play keyboards, too—I’ve been thinking about getting a synthesizer. But who knows? I might not.” In the interview, he also refers to having just bought a new Les Paul in New Orleans. During one funny exchange, the interviewer asked if Ed played acoustic, to which he responded: “I have never in my life owned an acoustic guitar… . I guess one of these days I’ll buy one. I don’t know anything about acoustics. I know what I like in electric guitars, but acoustic I’m lost. I don’t know what’s good.”
    Edward’s answer to one particularly innocent question would eventually lead to much more serious questions later in his life. When asked what picks he used, he replied, “Fender mediums. What I used to do was use a metal pick. A friend of mine worked in a machine shop and he always used to make me metal picks. And they were really cool—but hard to hold onto when you’re sweating. They’d fly out of my hand and I’d be bummed out.” In early 1978, Edward stated that he simply used Fender mediums, that he had tried metal picks but no longer used them.
    Touring with Black Sabbath
    At the beginning of May, Eddie and Alex returned to the Netherlands as professional musicians, exactly like their father. Considering the difference in the weather, it’s funny to note that they added “Summertime Blues” to