Rock journalist Steve Rosen struck up a friendship with guitar legend Eddie Van Halen before his band’s self-titled debut had arrived, and they remained close through the 2000s. He’s sharing some of his favorite Van Halen stories in ‘Tonechaser – Understanding Edward: My 26-Year Journey With Edward Van Halen,’ now in its third edition. The following exclusive excerpt is from Chapter 28, titled “Cello Goodbye,” and takes place in early June 1985:
Edward had mentioned to me back on December 7th, 1984, during that incredibly long interview which would eventually appear on the July 1985 cover of Guitar World, how he was buying a cello and wanted to learn the instrument. When he first told me that, I thought immediately of my friend Ron: He was there with Alex Van Halen and his lady and me and my psychotic female wingnut at the Dar Maghreb restaurant — who was not only an excellent bass player but a trained cellist, as well. (He played cello and bass with Nanci Griffith back in the 1990s.)
For a time, I had forgotten about Edward’s mention of the cello and then about five months later in early June, the conversation came back to me, and I decided to reach out to Ron. He was up for it and said it would be unbelievable to sit there with Edward and show him some basic moves on the instrument. I knew Ron would be totally psyched about it and wouldn’t geek out, but what I didn’t know was whether Ed would be interested at all.
Obviously, he could have reached out and had any cellist worth a shit lining up outside his door to give him lessons and for all I knew he had already been jamming with Yo-Yo Ma (world famous cellist), so I was a bit reluctant to lay my neck out there. I mean my jugular was exposed when I’d tried to bring together Edward and Ritchie Blackmore and you now know what a bloodbath on the high seas that turned into.
Still, I knew Ron was a superb musician and would be ultra-cool around Edward and figured if Ed wasn’t into it, he’d simply tell me so. I suppose I entertained fanciful thoughts of Edward getting really psyched about the cello after hanging with Ron for a night and down the road on a future album, pulling out the instrument and sticking a pickup and a whammy bar on it, jacking it through his Marshalls and creating the most unreal stringed sound anybody had ever heard. For all of that, I only wanted to help him in any way I possibly could.
I called Edward and explained who Ron was and would he be into us coming by sometime? He said yes, so we drove up to 5150 one night during the week somewhere in early June 1985 and by the time we arrived in the early evening, Edward was already well into his cups. He had been drinking heavily, but was in good spirits and seemed truly psyched about the pending cello lesson. Ron had brought his instrument and after introductions, he removed it from the case, retrieved the bow and began the instruction.
He first showed Ed how to position the cello between the legs and the proper way to hold the bow. Before Ron could even finish showing him the basics, Ed impatiently motioned that he wanted to try it — not unlike the time he dismantled my Strat within moments of first holding it — so Ron handed the cello to him and yes, Edward held the instrument for about 30 seconds before it all began to unravel.
He had been holding a bottle of vodka when the bowed instrument was passed to him, and after taking several monster slugs, passed it over to Ron (who could also drink like an entire school of fish) and that was about where the first lesson effectively turned into instruction destruction. I sat there watching them and thought it was like a Laurel and Hardy routine.
At one point, Edward attempted to play a few notes but had been holding the bow incorrectly. Ron reached over and slapped his hand the way an impatient music teacher may have done with an impetuous student, as in, “No, no, Edward, bad student” – and the second he did it, I saw a look of terror cross his face because he realized he had just smacked the most famous right hand to ever hold a cello bow. He sat there rigid and looked at me with an expression of, “What the fuck did I just do?”
Immediately, Edward roared with laughter and thought it was the most hilarious thing he’d ever experienced and that triggered Ron’s laughing mechanism and in turn I was reduced to giggling tears by the hilarity of it. Edward was doubled over and the bow he was holding in his right hand was sort of raised into the air as if he was conducting some mad orchestra of invisible, drunken musicians.
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