Ed in Guitar World (part 1)

Every new Edward Van Halen interview is cause for comment. Lately most of the Ed interviews revolve around product launches, which is the case for the February (yes, February) 2009 issue of Guitar World, “on news stands now!”

Anyhow, it’s always cause for comment because Ed is Ed, and because of his well-known penchant for misdirection. Back in the day, Ed threw out a bunch of disinformation to stop everyone in the world from trying to cop his thing (didn’t work!), and since then no one’s real sure whether he’s fibbing or not.
I’m in the camp where I don’t think he is misdirecting people anymore because it doesn’t matter anymore. Ed is famous, he’s moved on to different guitar sounds other than his classic first-four-album sound, and has lots of money — why mislead anyone?

For those reasons, I also don’t subscribe to the line of thinking, espoused by some on forums, that Ed is out to BS people into buying more gear just to make money. I’m sure Fender Musical Instruments Corp. (FMIC), which developed the EVH-brand gear with Ed, is out to make money, as it should as a business. But Ed? To steal a line from Unchained, gimme a break.

The guy has literally millions of fans, many of whom play guitar, want to use what he uses and still want to learn from him. Gotta love Ed for giving a crap enough to do it, and for always chasing tone and coming up with new stuff. Love ya, Ed!

All that said, I entered the Guitar World interview a cynic. That’s mostly because Guitar World consistently does some of THE WORST Ed interviews ever, and if you watch the video of the interview on YouTube (below) you will see what I mean.

Look at it this way: If you had an hour to spend with Ed to interview him, would you just make brown-nosing open-ended statements about how brilliant the guy is (a given), or would you ask as many penetrating questions as you could to get the most info you could out of one of the most incredible guitarists ever to live on planet Earth?

I’ll stop myself there, but that’s why I went into the Guitar World article cynically. But when I was done with it, I was pleasantly surprised — except for the fact that GW screwed up the layout and clipped off part of the interview. I also really wanted to try one of the new EVH Wolfgang guitars, even though I’m not a fan of basswood or Floyd Rose bridges.

Following are parts of the interview — which was edited by someone to sound less brown-nosy than the video — I found interesting from a WoodyTone standpoint.

Pickups — Most of the detail involved pickups.

GW: What was the most painstaking process about making this guitar?

CHIP ELLIS [Fender’s guy on this project, picked by Ed after Chip developed the Franky replicas]: Developing the pickups.

VAN HALEN: Chip would show up with a new batch of pickups, and all I had to do was plug into the new 5150 III amp and hit one note. Chip would look at me confused, but I can really tell by one note. Explaining sound is like trying to explain what something looks like to a blind person. It’s very difficult. Over and over I would say, “It ain’t hitting me in the gut!” It was either too shrill in the high end or too muddy. All it took was one note.

ELLIS: I didn’t get that at first. I wasn’t tuned in to what Ed was thinking about pickups. When he would hit that one note, I would go, “That’s it?” I couldn’t hear it at first. Once Ed pointed it out to me, it was clear as day.

VAN HALEN: Eventually, anybody will hear it. But the feel is what’s really important. The harmonic overtones and the overall tone of a guitar all contribute to sustain and the feel, which has so much to do with how easy it is to play. A lot of factors come into play when it comes to making pickups, including placement, coil windings and magnets, etc.

MATT BRUCK: We went through about 80 sets of pickups.

VAN HALEN: The pickups were all great, but they weren’t what we were looking for. Ultimately, we decided to try making our own pickups [using an engineer].

(Part 2 tomorrow!)

Category: Edward Van Halen, Fender