Until Roth’s exit at the peak of the original band’s popularity in 1985, the duo epitomized the eternal struggle between guitar hero and lead singer, each fueled on hyperkinetic energy, if not always in sync. If older brother Alex was the guitarist’s closest musical partner throughout Eddie Van Halen’s life, in Roth he found a key collaborator and sometime nemesis, who brought a showbiz flourish to the guitarist’s virtuosic, mad-scientist metal. “While they’re going to 11,” Van Halen joked during a 2015 appearance at the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C., “I was already going to 15.”Īs a band, Van Halen made other contributions to the era’s resplendent rock star lore: demanding that no brown M&Ms appear anywhere backstage, drummer Alex Van Halen crescendoing at concerts with a flaming gong and singer David Lee Roth high-kicking in leather chaps with a bare backside. The idea was to stretch out and get loud, he once said, as he referenced the fictional metal act Spinal Tap, whose members bragged on camera that their amplifiers went all the way up to 11. With a red surface crisscrossed frantically with black and white stripes (and traffic reflectors stuck to the back), it remains one of the most recognizable guitars in rock ’n’ roll. His iconic, road-battered guitar, named Frankenstein, was pieced together to his personal specifications in 1975 from the components of other instruments - a $50 body, a $75 neck, a single Humbucker pickup and crucial tremolo bar.
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