📍Pasadena, CA, USA
1962 – 1978“I was born Edward Lodewijk Van Halen in Amsterdam in January 1955, and grew up in Nijmegen, in the east of the Netherlands. My father, Jan, was a Dutch jazz clarinettist and saxophonist, and my mother, Eugenia, was Indo, born in Java in the Dutch East Indies. As a mixed-race family we faced prejudice in the Netherlands, and in 1962, when I was seven, we emigrated to the United States, arriving with very little money and a piano, and settled in Pasadena, California. We spoke no English, and I was one of the few kids at school who didn't, and I was bullied for being different. My father worked as a janitor and played in bands at night, and my mother worked as a maid. My brother Alex and I both took classical piano lessons, and I won piano competitions as a boy, though I never learned to read music properly; I played by ear. Then Alex started on the guitar and I bought a drum kit with money from my paper round, but while I was out delivering papers, Alex played my drums and got better than me, so I picked up his guitar, and I practised for hours every day, sitting on the edge of my bed. I loved Eric Clapton and Cream. In 1972 Alex and I formed a band, which became Van Halen when David Lee Roth and Michael Anthony joined. We played backyard parties and clubs across Pasadena and Los Angeles, and our debut album in 1978, with my two-handed tapping on Eruption, changed rock guitar forever. Pasadena honours me and Alex with a memorial plaque where we grew up.”
🗺️ Approximate location today
📍 Street view today