Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan and Stone Temple Pilots bassist Robert DeLeo confirmed and reacted to the death of Eddie Van Halen in emotional tributes on social media. Billy Corgan recently took a vicious shot at Sonic Youth’s Kim Gordon.
Robert DeLeo said, “Wow we’ve lost a great innovator and songwriter. Eddie will always be a huge part of my upbringing and there was no way to avoid what this man was always doing on guitar. I remember going to see Van Halen and hanging with Eddie backstage after the show.
He said to me ‘I watched your MTV Unplugged show. You’re F@#$ing badass!’ I felt like I was just knighted by one of the Kings. Rest In Peace Eddie. Thank you for all your talent. My sincere condolences to the entire Van Halen family @wolfvanhalen.”
Corgan wrote, “I’m touched today, in the wake of Eddie Van Halen’s untimely passing, to see so many of his fans celebrating his brilliance and Spirit with a capital S. What a musician, what a legacy, what power and mastery. Just WOW WOW WOW, what a life! I have a few stories about my occasional times in his presence, and even some silly stuff when I used to send him faxes of all things to his 5150 studio. But today seems out of step (or time?) with what I’d really like to say. And that is, first, to his family, my heart goes out to you.
I don’t think it’s possible to sum up what his inspiration did for me as a musician. No man made me practice harder, or push myself more on the guitar than he did. And it was simply because he made his playing so effortless that I endeavored to make mine sound the same.
I am truly, truly saddened by his loss; and isn’t it strange that a man who played an instrument spoke directly to so many in an unmatched way that rivals only a few: Coltrane, Hendrix, Parker, Miles, Django…I find myself struggling to sum it all up, but there’s just no way to piece the right words together in the right order to say what you feel when you are in absolute awe of someone who at the same time doesn’t ask for a hero’s worship. I once asked him when he knew he was ‘that guy’, and he said ‘I don’t know. I just sat on the edge of my bed and practiced and practiced…’
Yet the funny thing is a whole army could sit on the edge of their beds and never come up with 1/100th of what he did by the age of 22. A man of staggering genius, who wrapped his gift in a smile and a party’s swing; inviting the world in on the joke. Sometimes you just have to stop and say, ‘Wow, I was lucky to see that comet flash by…’
Bless you EVH. I owe you much and then some…”
