Steinmetzify
Well-known member
That was great fun to read. Thanks for posting it.
Stramm8
Active member
Not much of an "interview". Interesting nevertheless.
P
PrestoDone
New member
Interesting Interview...funny how he says he lied about raising the voltage to his marshall to 140 Volts and kids started to do it to emulate his sound and they all blew up their amps..lol
lester
Well-known member
"stock" that is that.... 
finally.
finally.
mojotone
New member
I remember reading many years ago about the 140 volt comment. I never had the nerve to try it, thank goodness.
squank
Active member
Great read. Thanks for posting it!
Stramm8
Active member
Stramm8":3dnj9a5o said:
Ok, I'm an idiot
I didn't read the actual interview 
Carry on.
sixstringking713
New member
thanks!
A
Anonymous
Guest
great interviews...for a shy dude, he sure has the gift of gab!!!!
and, is it me, or is he stilll not making sense here about the variac?
"ESQ: Come on man, rumor was that you rebuilt the damn thing.
EVH: I lied in. Okay, this is a long story, actually. I think this is also my paranoia of interview, because, is because the very first — Dave and I did a promo, a radio promo, an interview promo thing before the first record came out. And here we were on live radio, and the guy's going, "We have Van Halen, a brand-new band from L.A. here in the studio. So Dave, tell me" ... And here's Dave, "Bop, bop, yabba, dabba, doo," you know? Then he turns to me and says, "I understand you and your brother, Alex, are from Amsterdam, Holland." And I went, "Yeah." Dead air. Dead air. And then the guy starts going like this, and I go, "I'm over here." And I'm looking at him, and I start gesticulating, too, and then I say, out loud, "What the fuck does this mean?" It was a fuckin' disaster. So afterwards, Dave goes, "Here's what you're gonna do. You're gonna lie. You're gonna make up some shit so they don't remember it." And, you know, I had to say something. I couldn't just say, "Yeah." But he asked me a stupid question. "Yeah" sufficed. You know, I wasn't about to say "Van Gogh's from there, you should see it during the winter," you know? I'm not good at elaborating in that respect. So anyway, I do my first full-blown interview with Guitar Player, and that whole thing is in my head. You gotta make up shit. You gotta keep it interesting. All that Dave told me. So — oh, Joe Walsh calling me?
ESQ: Really? Joe Walsh?
EVH: Yeah. Grab it. Tell him I'm in the middle of an interview. But, so — okay, what I did was the amp was completely stock, but I used a light dimmer.
ESQ: You used a light dimmer on what?
EVH: I bought an English version, I had my 100-volt Marshall. I bought one through the recycling or the newspaper that was from England, and it was set on 220 volts. I didn't know. So I plugged the thing in, but I'm going, "Fucking thing doesn't work. I got ripped off." I just let it sit there. After about an hour, there's sound coming out, but it's really quiet, cause it's running on half voltage. So I go, "Hey, wait a minute. It sounds exactly like it's supposed to all the way up, but it's really quiet." So we had a light dimmer in the house, and I hooked up the two leaves from the amp to the light, so I did it backwards, blew out the fuse box. Then I went down to DOW Radio and asked, "Do you guys have any kind of super duper light dimmer?" They go, "Yeah, it's all Variac, variable transformer, you know." And on the dial you could crank it up to 140 volts or down to zero. So I figured, if it's on 220 and it's that quiet, if I take the voltage and lower it, I wonder how low I can go and it still work. Well, it enabled me to turn my amp all the way up, save the tubes, save the wear and tear on the tubes, and play at clubs at half the volume. So, my Variac, my variable transformer was my volume knob. Too loud, [makes knob turning sound] I'd lower it down to 50."
so, at 220, it's quiet, but at 140 amps are blowing up...and lowering it down to 50 gets the desired "club volume effect".
did he just give the wrong info on accident...or??
and, is it me, or is he stilll not making sense here about the variac?
"ESQ: Come on man, rumor was that you rebuilt the damn thing.
EVH: I lied in. Okay, this is a long story, actually. I think this is also my paranoia of interview, because, is because the very first — Dave and I did a promo, a radio promo, an interview promo thing before the first record came out. And here we were on live radio, and the guy's going, "We have Van Halen, a brand-new band from L.A. here in the studio. So Dave, tell me" ... And here's Dave, "Bop, bop, yabba, dabba, doo," you know? Then he turns to me and says, "I understand you and your brother, Alex, are from Amsterdam, Holland." And I went, "Yeah." Dead air. Dead air. And then the guy starts going like this, and I go, "I'm over here." And I'm looking at him, and I start gesticulating, too, and then I say, out loud, "What the fuck does this mean?" It was a fuckin' disaster. So afterwards, Dave goes, "Here's what you're gonna do. You're gonna lie. You're gonna make up some shit so they don't remember it." And, you know, I had to say something. I couldn't just say, "Yeah." But he asked me a stupid question. "Yeah" sufficed. You know, I wasn't about to say "Van Gogh's from there, you should see it during the winter," you know? I'm not good at elaborating in that respect. So anyway, I do my first full-blown interview with Guitar Player, and that whole thing is in my head. You gotta make up shit. You gotta keep it interesting. All that Dave told me. So — oh, Joe Walsh calling me?
ESQ: Really? Joe Walsh?
EVH: Yeah. Grab it. Tell him I'm in the middle of an interview. But, so — okay, what I did was the amp was completely stock, but I used a light dimmer.
ESQ: You used a light dimmer on what?
EVH: I bought an English version, I had my 100-volt Marshall. I bought one through the recycling or the newspaper that was from England, and it was set on 220 volts. I didn't know. So I plugged the thing in, but I'm going, "Fucking thing doesn't work. I got ripped off." I just let it sit there. After about an hour, there's sound coming out, but it's really quiet, cause it's running on half voltage. So I go, "Hey, wait a minute. It sounds exactly like it's supposed to all the way up, but it's really quiet." So we had a light dimmer in the house, and I hooked up the two leaves from the amp to the light, so I did it backwards, blew out the fuse box. Then I went down to DOW Radio and asked, "Do you guys have any kind of super duper light dimmer?" They go, "Yeah, it's all Variac, variable transformer, you know." And on the dial you could crank it up to 140 volts or down to zero. So I figured, if it's on 220 and it's that quiet, if I take the voltage and lower it, I wonder how low I can go and it still work. Well, it enabled me to turn my amp all the way up, save the tubes, save the wear and tear on the tubes, and play at clubs at half the volume. So, my Variac, my variable transformer was my volume knob. Too loud, [makes knob turning sound] I'd lower it down to 50."
so, at 220, it's quiet, but at 140 amps are blowing up...and lowering it down to 50 gets the desired "club volume effect".
did he just give the wrong info on accident...or??
zz666
Active member
all hail the king
J
jcj
Well-known member
Really enjoyed both of those 
D
domguy
New member
yeti":2cqnl1em said:
In England, the power runs @ 220VAC. Running the amp in the US (110VAC) made the amp run quieter, according to Eddie. So I assume he bought the Variac to lower the input supply to his US version amp. Then he lied in the interview, saying to turn UP the voltage, rather than lower it, hence the blowing up of peoples' presumably US version amps at 140VAC.
moltisanti
New member
he's still lying now, no-one has a clue about that amp, and he's still making everyone look like a bellend trying to work it out 
M
mdc1mdc11
New member
that part about Nugent calling him "you little shit" where is the magic black box.?..lol
zz666
Active member
moltisanti":2tr0ax1e said:he's still lying now, no-one has a clue about that amp, and he's still making everyone look like a bellend trying to work it out
Plenty of people know, some on this board
Rdodson
Well-known member
The amp was stock, save for a VERY minor tweak in the preamp.
Variac to 90 (or lower), bias set at max.
That is it. I promise.
Variac to 90 (or lower), bias set at max.
That is it. I promise.
squank
Active member
I read that back in the late 70's. It sounded like BS back then, too. Nuge had been playing professionally for a long time back then, and EVH was still a kid. I think Nuge had decent understanding of amps and tone by then. It's not a very believable story, imo.mdc1mdc11":cwmtnzeu said:
I mean, I'm sure Nuge did come up and ask to play EVH's rig. But I think our little drunk friend is probably a little hazy on the details of the conversation.
TroubledWine
New member
yeti":1767gids said:
I read that as he had the amp set for 220 volts and plugged it into an American 120 volt outlet and nothing happened. Then after a few minutes he began to get some very quiet sound. So he bought a variac and bumped the line voltage going into the amp up to 140 and it sounded good and was quiet enough. If he bumped it up to 220 it would have sounded normal and loud.
Basically he was accidentally playing the amp full volume but at half voltage because he had the selector on the back set wrong. So he went and actually increased the voltage going in to make it loud enough to use.
His story would translate to get the same effect on an amp correctly set to 120 volts by using a variac and setting the line voltage to 60 or 80 volts.
It's been debated ad-nausem whether this brought any "magic" to his sound and it's my opinion (and others) it had none. As Pete Thorn has demonstrated here, and Eddie has admitted in a round-about way, it was nothing more than a super lead with all the knobs turned to 10 (whether you're running it set to 220 volts and only feeding it 140 or if you have it set correctly) which gets that Van Halen 1 guitar sound. In other words; cranked to 10 stock plexi Marshall. The rest is in the fingers.
Jordon
New member
Is it just me, or is the grammar and spelling in that article really questionable?
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