And if I would have taken lessons I probably wouldn't have done it, and what forced me to do all this weird stuff on the guitar was I couldn't afford effects pedals, I didn't have all this stuff when I was a kid so I just tried to squeeze all the weird noises I could out of the guitar, which brings me to building guitars.

However Cherone soon had an amicable departure and without a lead singer Van Halen went on hiatus. He has been seen with three new Wolfgang guitars first a sunburst one then a black one which he stated he liked less than the sunburst one and now he uses a white one the best sounding one out of the three prototypes according to Ed. a pre-CBS Fender tremolo bridge (later to be a Floyd Rose bridge) and a single volume control with a knob labeled "tone".

Allan Holdsworth has described him as "Second only to Jimi Hendrix undoubtedly the most influential original and talented rock guitarist of the 20th century. He is best known as the lead guitarist keyboardist and co-founder of the eponymous hard rock band Van Halen. In 2012 Guitar World's poll named him as the greatest guitarist of all-time.