Most 12-year-olds don’t get visited at home by their electric guitar heroes, but that's exactly what happened to Dweezil Zappa on the night he first met Eddie Van Halen.
Zappa is the latest big-name player to guest on Rick Beato’s YouTube channel, and during their candid discussion, he opened up on the first time he met the late Van Halen.
Young Dweezil had been playing guitar for about a year at that point, and had originally developed a fascination for the instrument through watching his father, Frank Zappa. Before long, he was “obsessed” with Van Halen's music.
“When I heard Van Halen, it was so guitar-specific that in my mind I could focus on exactly what that was,” he recalls. “I could hear every little nuance and I was obsessed with the sound that was coming out of the speakers.”
Thanks to the radio, Dweezil soon started hearing music that wasn't his dad's, or from his dad's record collection. Van Halen was a key influence – and soon after, Dweezil met him in the comfort of his own home following a chance telephone call.
“I've been listening over and over, hours all the time and then suddenly out of nowhere the phone rings at the house. It's maybe eight o'clock at night on a school night and it's a guy saying it's, ‘Edward Van Halen.’”
Understandably, young Dweezil was skeptical: “This could be anybody,” he reasons. “We also don't know what Edward Van Halen sounds like because there's no interview footage – it was really rare in 1982. Of course, I want it to be him.
“My dad gets on the phone and starts talking to him and 15 minutes later he's at the house; he's wearing the Women and Children First jumpsuit, he's got the Van Halen necklace... He might as well have just stepped right off the album cover.
“I couldn't believe I was listening to music and then out of nowhere he's coming over. He walks in and he's got this purple guitar with a piece of tape over the headstock, because he wasn't letting anyone know that he was endorsing this guitar. But it was a purple Strat with two humbuckers in it, so that was unusual. It turns out it was a Kramer.
“He plugs in and it was like having your own toy Eddie Van Halen. I was like, 'I'm gonna make mine play Eruption and Mean Street!’”
And that’s exactly what happened. Like a personal jukebox, Van Halen would execute the young guitarist’s requests and he’d watch, soaking up every little detail he could.
“I would ask him to play stuff and he'd show me how to do it,” he continues. “He wasn't a guy that picked every note, he just had a finesse about how he did everything with the rhythm, note choice and vibrato. It was all about a personality and a voice on the instrument versus just technique.
“I watched and I listened for the sound,” Dweezil goes on, “but the thing with Ed and other great guitar players is, it doesn't matter what they plugged into, they just sound like what they sound like on the instrumental. Unplugged, he's gonna sound exactly like Edward. Not everyone has a personality that comes through when they play.”
EVH would also show Dweezil the secret to his tapping technique: Eddie would flick his tapping finger upwards, instead of in the downward motion that most players prefer.
Years after that chance meeting, the pair would go on to enjoy a fruitful friendship. Dweezil even gave Eddie a guitar lesson to help him tackle a Frank Zappa lick he could never nail.
