| Eddie and Alex were born and raised in Holland. Their family moved to Pasadena, California in 1967, when Eddie was 10 and Alex was 12. |
| Roth was in a band called Redball Jet when he met Eddie and Alex. Michael Anthony met Alex at Pasadena City College. |
| They had a provision in their contract demanding M&Ms backstage with the brown ones removed. This was a way of seeing if the promoters read the contract. If they saw brown M&Ms, they knew there would be problems with the show. |
| Their original name was Mammoth. They changed it after finding out another band had it first. It was Roth's idea to use the name Van Halen, Eddie and Alex didn't like it. |
| When Van Halen first appeared, there was a rumor that the group were actually members of KISS without their make-up and attire. If you take a close look at early pics of them, David Lee Roth resembled Paul Stanley, Eddie Van Halen resembled Ace Frehley, and Michael Anthony resembled Gene Simmons. This rumor may had been fueled by Gene Simmons' discovery of the group, and the fact that Van Halen had appeared right around the time KISS had taken a break from the recording studio in 1977. The rumor was soon quelled when the individual members of KISS released their "solo" albums in 1978 around the same time Van Halen II was released, and people began to really notice the height differential between Alex Van Halen and Peter Criss. (thanks, Randy - Colerain Twp., OH) |
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