VAN HALEN'S LIFE AND DEATH

'Drink a bottle of booze, pop a couple of ludes': How rock god Eddie Van Halen lived by a very fast motto that saw him spend his wedding day with head down toilet, pull a gun on Fred Durst and have lines of coke racked up on EVERY stage he played

 

Daily Mail

October 7, 2020 

 

Guitar virtuoso Eddie Van Halen, who died Tuesday at 65, was an icon for his performances onstage, but his and his band's antics backstage were epic. 

 

'Drink a bottle of booze, pop a couple 'ludes, smoke a joint or two (or ten) and see where the night takes you,' was the band's motto, according to their former manager's 2017 memoir. (The 'ludes refers to quaaludes.) 

 

In the 1980s, there was the supposed filming of sex backstage with women, who did anything to get close to the group during their heyday. An argument between Van Halen and singer David Lee Roth, whose relationship was acrimonious, involved flung guacamole and a bowl of peanuts, according to the book. The time a man won an MTV contest to party with the band in 1984 that included lobster, filet mignon, champagne, cocaine and a woman getting naked to dance with him. 

 

Onstage, Van Halen kept lines of coke near an amplifier and had a drug dealer on call who would meet him anywhere to supply him blow, chronicled in Noel Monk's 2017 book, Runnin' with the Devil. That was the 1980s. 

 

In 2001, Van Halen pulled a gun on Limp Bizkit frontman Fred Durst at his house over equipment, claimed the book, Eruption in the Canyon: 212 Days & Nights With the Genius.