Available Now: ‘Eruption: Conversations with Eddie Van Halen’ Book, a Definitive EVH Oral History

ERUPTION: Conversations with Eddie Van Halen is a new book published this week by Hachette Books that is billed in a news release as ” a candid, compulsively readable, and definitive oral history of the most influential rock guitarist since Jimi Hendrix.”

Exhaustively compiled by authors/journalists Brad Tolinski and Chris Gill, the book aims to be a can’t-miss collection of anecdotes and stories pertaining to the legendary guitarist, who passed away exactly one year ago today after a courageous fight with throat cancer.

Happy pub day to my @GuitarWorld friends @BradTolinski and Chris Gill for their fab book, Eruption: Conversation With Eddie Van Halen. https://t.co/PWm9qHnHGK#VanHalen pic.twitter.com/VxEQfG8ahZ

— Alan Paul (@AlPaul) October 5, 2021

Here are additional details about the book, per the news release:

• Eddie Van Halen and his older brother Al and their parents moved to Pasadena, CA in 1962 when Eddie was 7 years old, with less than $50, some suitcases and a piano. During the nine-day boat ride over, Eddie and Al played piano for spare change. “We were like a kid freak show,” said Eddie.
• The boys attended a segregated school in Pasadena and were ostracized because they knew little English. “My first friends in America were black,” Eddie said. “It was the white kids that bullied me. The black kids stood up for me.”
• While words often failed him, as a child Eddie expressed himself through the piano, maintaining a rigorous practice schedule under the watchful eye of his mother. A few short years later, at the age of twelve, he would apply the same diligence to learning the electric guitar, spending countless hours locked in his bedroom developing the technique that would help him become one of the greatest players in the world.