“Nirvana was huge, but it didn’t appeal to everyone.”

You’ve only got 12 notes and however you mix them up is your thing.

My son, Wolfgang, plays drums, guitars and bass.

Some people think a song without words isn’t a real song. Tell that to Beethoven and he’ll kick your ass!

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.

Once you savor God’s goodness, sin holds no lasting appeal.

I’m so lucky to be in a position to help people, and that’s appealing to me.

You’re not going to be persistent and tenacious enough if you don’t love what you’re doing. If it’s not something that excites you, that appeals to you deep down inside.

Autumn wins you best by this its mute appeal to sympathy for its decay.

Lost rights are never regained by appeals to the conscience of the usurpers, but by relentless struggle.

An appeal to fear never finds an echo in German hearts.

Nobody in the world, nobody in history, has ever gotten their freedom by appealing to the moral sense of the people who were oppressing them.

Japan is the only country that can appeal to the world about the horror of the atomic bomb and the misery of the bombing.