It's funny, when bands or younger musicians ask me: 'So, what does it take to make it?' Well, first explain to me what you mean by 'making it': Do you want to be a rock star or do you want music to be your livelihood?
Interpretation
Success in music can be defined in different ways, and it's essential to clarify one's goals.
Eddie Van Halen emphasizes the importance of understanding one's own definition of success in the music industry. He suggests that aspiring musicians should differentiate between the fame associated with being a rock star and the more pragmatic approach of earning a living through their music, highlighting that the definition of 'making it' varies from person to person.
In practice
In a motivational speech to aspiring musicians about defining their personal success.
When I'm home on a break, I lock myself in my room and play guitar. After two or three hours, I start getting into this total meditation. It's a feeling few people experience, and that's usually when I come up with weird stuff. It just flows. I can't force myself. I don't sit down and say I've got to practice.
Music is for people. The word 'pop' is simply short for popular. It means that people like it. I'm just a normal jerk who happens to make music. As long as my brain and fingers work, I'm cool.
There's a plaque on our wall that says we've sold over 65 million albums, and I don't feel I've accomplished anything. I feel like I'm just getting started.
And if I would have taken lessons I probably wouldn't have done it, and what forced me to do all this weird stuff on the guitar was I couldn't afford effects pedals, I didn't have all this stuff when I was a kid so I just tried to squeeze all the weird noises I could out of the guitar, which brings me to building guitars.
If you want to be a rock star or just be famous, then run down the street naked, you'll make the news or something. But if you want music to be your livelihood, then play, play, play and play! And eventually you'll get to where you want to be.
Music kept me off the streets and out of trouble and gave me something that was mine that no one could take away from me.
I never saw myself as a folk singer.
Hip-hop, pop, dance - the common point is melancholy. That's international, and I like this word because it's not only about sadness or happiness - it's both at the same time. And that's human, and that's life.
If wed known we were going to be The Beatles wed have tried harder.
Pearl Jam is a band I have a lot of respect for. Nirvana and Sonic Youth I feel the same way about. Mumford & Sons, My Morning Jacket, Wilco, Givers, and Foo Fighters are just some of my favorites. I respect bands that give me something of themselves that I can feel. ("Posing" bands turn me off generally speaking.) It all has to do with a feeling I have about them. That is what music is to me, a feeling. It's similar with people too.
Most frontmen are not born hams like David Lee Roth. We're more like Joey Ramone: awkward geeks who somehow find our place in the world on the stage.
I'm one of a dying breed who goes out and tours all the time. Labels don't spend the money to send people out to play before they become famous, but we did do that so the fans we have are word of mouth fans who have been travelling around with us for years, and they buy the albums, but they are also the ones who go out and get the bootlegs. I don't discourage bootlegging, I like playing live, I don't think it hurts my album sales at all if there are bootlegs out there. Who cares?
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