“A good producer brings out the best in the artist he’s working with. You shouldn’t be able to listen to something and say, ‘So-and-so produced this album.”

If you have a great-sounding guitar that’s a quality instrument and a good amp, and you know how to make the guitar talk, that’s the key. It starts with the guitar and knowing what it should sound and feel like.

You know, most people, they want to go to Hollywood. They want to be a star. They want to be a rock star. That thought never entered any of our minds, the Van Halen family.

Actually, if I could deliberately sit down and write a pop hit, all my songs would be pop hits! Let’s put it this way. I play what I like to hear. And sometimes I like to hear something poppy, and sometimes I don’t.

I’m not a drunk anymore, but since they cut out my tongue, I sound drunk.

It’s all about sound. It’s that simple. Wireless is wireless, and it’s digital. Hopefully somewhere along the line somebody will add more ones to the zeros. When digital first started, I swear I could hear the gap between the ones and the zeros.

If I can help a kid discover a liking, or even a passion for music in their life, then that’s a wonderful thing.

Major third complications can be overcome by lots of alcohol.

When Van Halen started out, there was no path to fame. We just played what we liked. Even today it always comes down to the simplicity of rock and roll.

I never dreamt of being a musician for my livelihood. I certainly never would have wanted to be in the business that I’m in, meaning the fame and the glory, the glitter, the rock star, the famous part.

A guitar is just theoretically built wrong. Each string is an interval of fourths, and then the B string is off. Theoretically, that’s not right, all the strings should be off.

It makes me feel kind of weird, but obviously the Man Upstairs gave me something and it touches people, and I’m just so blessed.

It’s always about the music, never about anything else.

A guitar is a very personal extension of the person playing it. You have to be emotionally and spiritually connected to your instrument. I’m very brutal on my instruments, but not all the time.

I don’t really know what inspires me to write the music I do, but usually, the music will set the tone for the lyrics.

I’m blessed with a good pair of ears. That’s how I fooled my piano teacher. I’d watch his fingers and I’d listen to it, and I just kind of basically learned it by myself.

I applied to Uncyclopedia Bassists, and was accepted!!

My mother kept asking me, “When are you going to do a gospel album?” And I’ve always wanted to do a gospel album.

I’m free to do what I please, I’m probably not going to do albums. Just because I think releasing tracks as singles is a better way for me to stay topical.

People say releasing an album is like giving birth, but it’s more like having a gallbladder operation.

I’ve always known that if I recorded an album, it would come out, and people would enjoy it!

One of the hardest things I’ve had to deal with in my career is keeping my material topical even though I only release albums every three or four years.

I like to think that I’ve gotten better at what I do. I spend more time and pay more attention to detail album after album. But pretty much it’s stayed the same.

Probably 90 percent of my albums have polka medleys.

Buy our album, were Nirvana, a garage band from Seattle. Well, it sure beats raising cattle.