Gene Simmons confirms that Eddie Van Halen, frustrated over his relationship with David Lee Roth, approached him about joining Kiss in the early 1980s. The timing was right, too, as Simmons and Co. were working without a guitarist on Creatures of the Night.

The rift between Sammy Hagar and his bandmates has become the stuff of legend, up to and include their fractured induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame — which saw only Hagar and Michael Anthony appear. But is it all made up?

Criticizing Van Halen for the times it were too corny or over-the-top almost feels disingenuous. After all, the band’s legend was founded on their blend of dizzying virtuosity with pervy jokester asides.

Producer Andy Johns has worked with Led Zeppelin and the Rolling Stones, but he never saw anything like Eddie Van Halen — who displayed a genius for guitar and every-day home tools during sessions for 1991′s For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge.

Recent positive reports of Eddie Van Halen’s recovery from surgery following a nasty case of diverticulitis have proven true: Van Halen has rescheduled the Japanese shows that were postponed in the wake of the guitarist’s health scare.

It probably came as little surprise that some long-time fans of Van Halen chafed when the band’s guitarist chose his teenaged son to replace departed co-founding bassist Michael Anthony.

Wolfgang Van Halen has passed along encouraging news on how his father Eddie Van Halen is doing after undergoing surgery for a nasty case of diverticulitis.

Stuck on a desert island, you’re going to want to rock every once in a while, right? That’s where this string-bending, axe-swinging, fretboard-melting, amp-blowing list comes in.

When Ann and Nancy Wilson of Heart crossed paths with Van Halen in 1979, the brothers Eddie and Alex were at the height of their wild-and-crazy days. Nancy, in Heart’s just-released memoir, says the pair even propositioned her and her sister.

Journey co-founder Neal Schon knew, from the first, that Eddie Van Halen was a special guitar talent. He’d also worked with Sammy Hagar on a project away from Journey — and that’s how Schon played a role in the second Van Halen era.