I've been to his house, they played at the local high schools in San Gabriel Valley. Everyone in his Netherlands family played an instrument. He was born in Amsterdam, and the family moved to California around 1965. Very much talent in that gene pool. Eddie began playing the drums, while Alex took up guitar. The brothers switched their respective instruments shortly thereafter (while Eddie was out working a paper route trying to make his drum kit's payments, Alex was bashing away at his drums, until he was actually better than Eddie). Guitarists like Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page influenced the youngest Van Halen to pick up the guitar.
The Van Halen brothers began playing backyard parties and clubs in the Los Angeles area (mixing covers with originals), and eventually hooked up with New York singer David Lee Roth and bassist Michael Anthony in the early '70s, as the group Mammoth. Eddie quickly became the top guitarist on the local music scene, as the group changed their name by the mid-'70s to simply Van Halen.
Ed has also appeared on other artist's recordings -- his most famous being an uncredited solo on Michael Jackson's 1983 monster hit, "Beat It."
