“I was saying, ‘It’s going to explode.’ I was terrified the place was going to burn down”: When Eddie Van Halen crash-tested one of EVH’s most iconic guitar amps – and risked 5150 Studios in the process

Musician Eddie Van Halen performs during the Van Halen concert at the Izod Center May 13, 2008 in East Rutherford, New Jersey.

In 2007, Eddie Van Halen launched a tube amp under his EVH gear banner, the EVH 5150 III, that continued the legacy of one of guitar music’s most beloved high-gain amps.

As such, it should come as no surprise that Van Halen took the development of the amp very, very seriously. So seriously, in fact, that he developed a mad-scientist torture test to ensure the amp was borderline indestructible.