13 number one hits. 80 million albums sold worldwide. Tied for the most platinum-certified albums in the history of American bands. And a master shredding the guitar. It’s easy to see that Van Halen had one of the greatest runs in rock and roll history.
It was the early ‘70s when Alex and Eddie Van Halen first started thinking about putting a band together. The choice to have Eddie play guitar, who would go on to be respected as one of the greatest and most innovative guitar players ever, was never a sure thing. Eddie started on drums, but Alex eventually revealed to his brother that he had secretly developed a passion for the instrument. Eddie agreed to switch to guitar in an act of brotherly love.
In the end, it didn’t really matter who was singing or doing much of anything else, as long as Eddie was on the guitar. After he passed away from cancer in October of 2020, the band called it a career.
But before they were going by their surname, Alex and Eddie had been playing gigs under a different name. What was Van Halen called before they got big?
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The answer is: Mammoth. Before David Lee Roth came aboard, the boys in Van Halen were mostly relying on Eddie for the singing, and after a few other names (including Genesis before seeing the British band already using that name) they were calling themselves Mammoth.Roth credits himself with the idea to name the band Van Halen, equating it to something like a Santana. I guess it worked.Source
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