One night in 1983, Eddie Van Halen got drunk in a beachfront Malibu rental and began experimenting on a pristine white Yamaha grand piano that wasn’t his. The instrument belonged to composer Marvin Hamlisch.
Armed with forks, knives, screwdrivers, and even batteries, he scraped the strings, played slide across them, and recorded the eerie noises. He also left lit cigarettes on the instrument, scorching its glossy white finish.
“So I wasted his fuckin' piano,” Eddie later admitted to Guitar Player. “There were cigarette burns all over it. They had to restring it.”
The incident might sound extreme, but for Eddie it was almost routine. The guitarist had a long history of tearing apart instruments in pursuit of new sounds.
His 1975 Ibanez Destroyer provides a famous example. After using the electric guitar on defining Van Halen hits like “Runnin' With the Devil” and “You Really Got Me,” Ed modified the guitar with a chainsaw, cutting a large V-shaped notch into the body below the bridge. The modification drastically altered the tone, and the guitar never sounded the same.
So I wasted his fuckin' piano. There were cigarette burns all over it. They had to restring it.”
— Eddie Van Halen
He even ruined pickups — including a Gibson “Patent Applied For” humbucker — while trying to pot them with wax to stop high-volume squealing.
But Hamlisch’s piano may have been Eddie’s most punishing act of destruction. Hamlisch was a famed composer and conductor who wrote for stage and screen, including the Barbra Streisand hit “The Way We Were,” from the film of the same name.
Because he was often away from his beachfront home in Malibu, Hamlisch made the property available for rental. That’s how Eddie and his wife, Valerie Bertinelli, came to live there during the spring and summer of 1983.
“Everything was white — white piano, white carpet,” Ed recalled in Guitar Player’s March 1995 issue. “We had to leave a huge deposit for cleaning the place.”
Ed likely blew that deposit — and maybe more — during a late-night experiment on Hamlisch’s Yamaha grand.
“I got drunk one night — actually more than one night — and I started dickin' around on this piano,” Ed said. “I don't know what possessed me to do this, but I went in the kitchen, grabbed forks and knives, and started scraping the strings and doing harmonics on the strings. I used screwdrivers and batteries, trying to play slide on the strings. I let a tape roll and recorded it all.”
I don't know what possessed me to do this, but I went in the kitchen, grabbed forks and knives, and started scraping the strings and doing harmonics on the strings.”
— Eddie Van Halen
Hamlisch may have been none the wiser: Eddie reportedly had the piano repaired without his knowledge.
Ed dubbed the recording “Strung Out,” a reference to both his state of mind and the piano’s condition. The tape sat in the vault until the recording of Van Halen’s Balance in 1995, when producer Bruce Fairbairn approached Ed looking for an intro for the track “Not Enough.”
“Bruce asked me if I could come up with some kind of intro for ‘Not Enough,’ the ballad, and I'm going, ‘Well, I've got some pretty twisted shit that you might like.’ He heard it and went, ‘This is great!’
“It sounds like a terrible B-flick horror soundtrack. It was all in fun.”
While staying at the house, Eddie also composed three instrumentals — including one featuring a guitar solo — for The Seduction of Gina, a movie of the week starring Bertinelli. The music was a true solo effort, with Ed playing both guitar and synthesizer.
The film’s director liked the music so much that he asked Eddie to score the entire movie. But Van Halen were busy at work on 1984 — the album that would launch them to global superstardom.
