People need to realize that at this point, Ed was really on his way to being gone for good. If he hadnt gotten help in '07, we probably wouldve lost him before 2010. Only Wolfgang could get thru to Ed. He loved Wolf more than his own addictions, thank God. On another note, when Ed was talking about how great Wolfie was in this interview, I remember thinking at that time "yea, right. Just another father who's bragging about his kid." Years later, in 2021, I started seeing that Ed wasnt just bragging. He was absolutely serious!
Eddies spun out here, he went into rehab in 2007, I mean to claim you beat cancer with your own designed treatment is straight up nuts, your a musician bro not a doctor, talk about delusional, he even mentions meth in the interview 5 mins in, RIP
Eddie Van Halen on WolfGang Van Halen : 12:50 “His main instrument is drums, number two is guitar, and 3 weeks ago he started playing bass. This kid is fucking dangerous. If I excel at the speed of sound, this kid excels at the speed of light.”
Loved, and still love, Eddie's playing. I met him briefly once decades ago, and he was kind to me. Thus having heard interviews with Michael Anthony and his respect and love for Ed (unless its fake), and complete lack of resentment for taking away a source of his income decades ago, the only thing I can figure is that EVH valued loyalty to the VH cause above everything else and believed MA transgressed by touring with Sammy Hagar. But who knows? Ed's gone, and MA and AVH aren't revealing anything...yet.
This is a really interesting time for Eddie. It was right before he finally got clean, he had just started dating Janie, the band was at a standstill - Roth wasn’t back yet and Wolfgang wasn’t in, but you can tell Eddie was thinking about it here. This is Ed right before starting the final chapter of his life.
Is Clapton really that good, I dont think hes that good'- Howard Stern. What a joke. Howard thinks he knows a lot about music and guitars but he doesnt. Hes fake. And for drunk Eddie to say Clapton was only good when he was on heroin, is embarrassing. Clapton was always a way better guitar player than Eddie Van halen lol. Eddie had no skills playing the Blues.... the place where rock n roll came from. Eddie got cancer from smoking, not a metal pick. He was always in denial about that.
Clapton was also a talented lead singer and showed it on many of his songs. Eddie was never a lead singer and was instead cursed by the continuing loss of lead singers in his band.
Hendrix was playing one of the thinnest sounding guitars at the time and it was hard to push the front of the amp hard enuf to break up and distort. the single coil pickup in the bridge was only in the 5k range witch is a low amount of resistance compared to a Gibson paf humbucker at 7.5- 8.0. so Hendrix used a big muff or a fuzz face to push the amps, along with a vox whaawhaa pedal. Eddie simply took the Gibson paf from the bridge of his old 335 and routed a space for mounting it in the bridge of his strat body and made history...and wen i was about 14-15 years old wen i made my own franken caster with my dads parts collection..lol it followed the same basic blue prints..lol
I have played most all of Hendrix music and EVH music on guitar. Hendrix was good for his time but EVH transcends music and time! DONT SMOKE! EVH didn't stop smoking. Cancer is DNA damage and it all contributes! EMF, smoking, environmental chemicals and other things cause damage but smoking is the real killer! Smoking is insidious and infiltrates all your organs and cells!
Was hoping for a great interview until I heard Howard’s voice. He’s aShill for CNN and Joe Biden all of his good work in the past 30 years means nothing now.
Eddie Van Halen. Literally saying he's not talking **** about people while steadily talking **** about people. Belittling them. I liked his music I respected his guitar playing but him as a person, no.
His lifestyle eventually killed him. Glad he got to do one more album and a few more tours. I could have done without the porno idiot that Eddie got involved with.
Cancer is totally curable, but as Eddie has alluded to, you need to be rich, have connections... and you will get the wonder drug. The Pharma treatments are designed to make them rich, while slowly kill you.
It angers me that til the day he died , Eddie told the truth about Sam quitting . Sam wasn't fired . He even said so himself . In the VH3 album promo issue of THE INSIDE MAGAZINE , Alex Eddie AND Mike said he quit . In the individual interview with Mike , Mike was told by the reporter that Sam told the reporter he didn't want to do the greatest hits album .
Edward was such a great guy and an absolute legend and he is sorely missed. I could never thank Ed enough for all of the inspiration he has given me as a guitarist and the massive catalog of music he left behind.
Meanwhile, 14 years later... In 2019, when I moved into my current apartment, I inadvertently hung my mini frankestrat over my bedroom window, and next to it a religious cross. On October 6, 2020, I'm in tears and looked up...realizing then just why I had done that. Back on July 16th, 1981, I saw VH in New Haven promoting Fair Warning. During one of Dave's onstage blathering, Ed was at his rack of equipment having a smoke. I'm right at that side of the stage, I yell, "EDWARD VAAN HEYYLAAN!!"...he whirls around, gave me that famous grin, and threw the cigarette at me. Awesome! (sadly, that was the day Harry Chapin died in his VW on the Long Island Expressway; we heard it on the radio on the way to the show)
Eddie was the Mozart of our generation. In 100 years from now people will be talking about his playing like we talk about Mozart. There is a lot of videos with Eddie but I wish Eddie did some instructional videos.
The problem is people thinking that you can learn what is the result of pure talent. There are plenty of videos analyzing Eddie's style that you can watch but they'll never make you an innovator like he was.
@@junodonatus4906 100% man! People like to think they need to become a super technical player that can play anything, they waste years and years to become an amazing player, they learn how to play every every Van Halen, megadeth, Metallica, pantera solo but they can’t write any good music to save their lives and the stuff they write sounds like their favorite guitarist. Then they talk about how all these bands suck because the music is so easy to play because they still don’t understand the most important thing is writing good music no matter how simple or complex a song is.
Wolfgang said his Dad was a terrible guitar teacher. He showed him some “simple stuff” and he then proceeded to turn into EVH and Wolf said f you I can’t do that.
What Van Halen was has nothing to do with Mozart Beethoven classical music or jazz for that matter. Eddie wrote music for the lions. Mozart wrote music for the brain. It’s like comparing a poet with a novelist or a science fiction writer to prose. Different capacities of literature. Different capacities of music. Neither is “better” than the other just different. Eddie and the stones and things like that is dance music, folk music. Mozart and miles Davis is intellectual music. What Eddie did was creative in his field but it’s still simple three chord bluesin’ Jamin’ and flashy hot licks confined to three minutes. His solos were 30 seconds. Mozart wrote 25 minute “songs”.
Eddie ended up using more effects than Hendrix ever did. Maybe that's because Hendrix died so young but still all the great rock and roll guitar players have used effects.
Even in the early days, Ed used the MXR phase 90 and MXR flanger, along with the Echoplex, a harmonizer (which is more a tool than an effect). He was pretty effects heavy in the early days. In fact, not much more than he was in modern days. It’s just that mixing, mastering, and the house main board have since went digital, thus, making everything and everyone else sound digital… which I then can be mistaken with being effects heavy
. If Eddie's saying he couldn't afford pedals as a kid, OK but guaranteed jimi didn't have any when he was learning either. Not sure what he was getting at, but eddie used 3 or more pedals on his very first album.
Yeah pretty obvious he was either free basing or smoking meth starting around 98 ish up until 2006 or so considering how he deteriorated. He looks like Lou Reed in the 97 interviews, scary skinny during the Cherone period, and then teeth start falling out early 2000s..and he's a goblin by 2006. If he wasn't Eddie Van Halen he'd have died in the street 15 years earlier.
Eddie was so proud of Wolfgang, but rightly so. He can play all the instruments, sing and write catchy hooks and riffs - the dude is a natural. The Van Halen name is sure to live on with WVH and EVH will live on in our hearts forever.
Yes he was it was so cool how great a father Eddie was! Valerie and Eddie really brought up their son very well obviously we have no clue what they did but obviously it was a pretty normal upbringing but Eddie was closer to his son then most fathers get he brought him everywhere, he had his so join his band. I remember some comedian was talking about how Eddie came bowling one night and the one guy the comedian was with said do u care if Eddie brings his son? And he said dude it’s bowling of of course he can bring his son but what I’m getting at is when a bunch of 40 something year old guys go out together they always want to be alone just the guys but Eddie brought his son with him because he absolutely loved his son so much they were best friends. I know it might not sound like a big deal Eddie bringing his son bowling with Eddie’s friends but that little stuff is what makes kids have a much better childhood all the little things like that not just leaving the kids home. I got a ton of friends that will go out so much you will forget they even have kids, guys that have no money they spend what little money they have going to the bar then when u go to their houses their kids have no toys and the ones they have are junk, their kids ask for a go cart or something like that and they don’t have the money to buy a go cart but they have the money to buy parts for their race cars or whatever hobbies they have. My daughter was born 3 years ago, I’ve wanted to buy a project car to build because I now have a shop at my house with a lift and everything I need to build a project car but If I bought a project car I would be dumping a ton of money into the car and I would feel guilty if my daughter wanted or needed something and couldn’t do it for her because I spent my money on a car. I remember I was at a friend of mines house working on his project car and his son asked to join little league and he told his son he couldn’t afford it so maybe next year. It was only 300 bucks and in just the past month he spent a few grand on that car I felt so bad for that kid if I were him I would have sold or returned the stuff I just bought for the car so he could go to little league screw the car u can always buy a car you can’t go back in time and let ur kid go to little league. When I was a kid I didn’t ask for much I really didn’t and I didn’t have much all I wanted was a dirt bike and I never got one and to this day I think back about how I never got one and all the fun I missed out on. I didn’t want anything to do with sports, toys, video games none of that all I wanted was a dirt bike I would have spent all my time doing that. My daughter is 3 and when we go shopping she picks stuff up and puts it back down she doesn’t try to make me buy everything but every couple weeks she will pick something out that she really REALLY wants and i will get it for her because I want to make her happy and I tell her if ur a good girl I don’t have a problem buying it, you can’t let ur kids think they can get whatever they want they need to know they are getting something because they have been a good girl/boy. I just wanted to say a few things about kids and hopefully some people will read this and treat their kids better and not be selfish and realize the day their kids were born was the day life is not about u anymore it’s about ur kids!
Let me know when wolf is capable of a decent piece of music. There are 10 year olds in Japan that can play every instrument well. Creativity is much more challenging.
I love EVH's playing, a true innovator, wonderful technique, tone and feel - but wtf is his problem with Hendrix? Clapton was an utterly derivative, racist cock, yet Eddie rates him higher than Jimi? Do me a favour, Jimi is the rock on which all rock guitarists stand. Maybe its a racism thing? It certainly seems like Eddie was best playing, and not talking.
Howard Stern is such a jerk off. He ask Eddie how he beat the cancer then changes the subject and ask him who was the hottest chick he ever banged. He is really something I tell you.
Another indicator confirming eddie is genuinely all around good guy is how awesome his son turned out. He is the complete opposite of every kid with famous parents. All of them are so shitty. Wolfgang didn't get that illness. Famous parent kids are probably unbearable to tolerate. Absolute lack of empathy and self esteem. It'd got to fuck u up always seeing people worship them
It was a cheap shot to mention Cabo Wabo like all Sammy does is blow money on bars and stupid stuff. Sam donates to food banks in every city he plays, and he does benefit shows for Children's Cancer. He's extremely generous and he does a lot of charity work and Ed acts like only he uses his money for good.
Sam was and is a great guy who happens to be a great musician. Eddie and Alex are more the frustrated artistic genius types and eventually there was a clash
Eddie sounds pretty delusional here. I mean, he was always very insecure and unsure of who he was. You have to know thyself. "Smoking didn't cause my cancer," "people call me a drug addict but they do drugs and I don't anymore." Ok. He went back into rehab about a year after this. Ed was one of the greatest musicians, not just guitarists, but musicians to ever live. But he was a drunk, and trouble follows drunks wherever they go.
Might be the saddest EVH interview ever
Stern sucks
Couldn't afford a $60 distortion pedal ??? Come on Eddie 😂
Stern is an ASS!
Eddie was so Right about everything in this interview!!
I just don't like the Howard way he's a twat be an intellectual Howard not an asshole
Bless you Eddie. Howard you're an instigator
People need to realize that at this point, Ed was really on his way to being gone for good. If he hadnt gotten help in '07, we probably wouldve lost him before 2010. Only Wolfgang could get thru to Ed. He loved Wolf more than his own addictions, thank God. On another note, when Ed was talking about how great Wolfie was in this interview, I remember thinking at that time "yea, right. Just another father who's bragging about his kid." Years later, in 2021, I started seeing that Ed wasnt just bragging. He was absolutely serious!
EVH did his own thing "GOAT"
Eddies spun out here, he went into rehab in 2007, I mean to claim you beat cancer with your own designed treatment is straight up nuts, your a musician bro not a doctor, talk about delusional, he even mentions meth in the interview 5 mins in, RIP
Eddie Van Halen on WolfGang Van Halen : 12:50 “His main instrument is drums, number two is guitar, and 3 weeks ago he started playing bass. This kid is fucking dangerous. If I excel at the speed of sound, this kid excels at the speed of light.”
Loved, and still love, Eddie's playing. I met him briefly once decades ago, and he was kind to me. Thus having heard interviews with Michael Anthony and his respect and love for Ed (unless its fake), and complete lack of resentment for taking away a source of his income decades ago, the only thing I can figure is that EVH valued loyalty to the VH cause above everything else and believed MA transgressed by touring with Sammy Hagar. But who knows? Ed's gone, and MA and AVH aren't revealing anything...yet.
Watch Johnny b Goode by Hendrix at Berkeley best guitar performance ever
Howard Stern is so fu.king immature. He sounds like a damn 16 year old.
HSISAPOSDEM ! RIP EDWARD
This is a really interesting time for Eddie. It was right before he finally got clean, he had just started dating Janie, the band was at a standstill - Roth wasn’t back yet and Wolfgang wasn’t in, but you can tell Eddie was thinking about it here. This is Ed right before starting the final chapter of his life.
Is Clapton really that good, I dont think hes that good'- Howard Stern. What a joke. Howard thinks he knows a lot about music and guitars but he doesnt. Hes fake. And for drunk Eddie to say Clapton was only good when he was on heroin, is embarrassing. Clapton was always a way better guitar player than Eddie Van halen lol. Eddie had no skills playing the Blues.... the place where rock n roll came from. Eddie got cancer from smoking, not a metal pick. He was always in denial about that.
Clapton was also a talented lead singer and showed it on many of his songs. Eddie was never a lead singer and was instead cursed by the continuing loss of lead singers in his band.
Hendrix was playing one of the thinnest sounding guitars at the time and it was hard to push the front of the amp hard enuf to break up and distort. the single coil pickup in the bridge was only in the 5k range witch is a low amount of resistance compared to a Gibson paf humbucker at 7.5- 8.0. so Hendrix used a big muff or a fuzz face to push the amps, along with a vox whaawhaa pedal. Eddie simply took the Gibson paf from the bridge of his old 335 and routed a space for mounting it in the bridge of his strat body and made history...and wen i was about 14-15 years old wen i made my own franken caster with my dads parts collection..lol it followed the same basic blue prints..lol
I have played most all of Hendrix music and EVH music on guitar. Hendrix was good for his time but EVH transcends music and time! DONT SMOKE! EVH didn't stop smoking. Cancer is DNA damage and it all contributes! EMF, smoking, environmental chemicals and other things cause damage but smoking is the real killer! Smoking is insidious and infiltrates all your organs and cells!
Steve Vai said it best 🤔. There's some really good guitarist / songwriters & there was EVH 🎼🎸🫡 🤘
Was hoping for a great interview until I heard Howard’s voice. He’s aShill for CNN and Joe Biden all of his good work in the past 30 years means nothing now.
Eddie Van Halen. Literally saying he's not talking **** about people while steadily talking **** about people. Belittling them. I liked his music I respected his guitar playing but him as a person, no.
Kinda gives some insight as to why Sammy finally got fed up with him.
Hendrix couldn't carry EVH's guitar case.
His lifestyle eventually killed him. Glad he got to do one more album and a few more tours. I could have done without the porno idiot that Eddie got involved with.
Cancer is totally curable, but as Eddie has alluded to, you need to be rich, have connections... and you will get the wonder drug. The Pharma treatments are designed to make them rich, while slowly kill you.
It angers me that til the day he died , Eddie told the truth about Sam quitting . Sam wasn't fired . He even said so himself . In the VH3 album promo issue of THE INSIDE MAGAZINE , Alex Eddie AND Mike said he quit . In the individual interview with Mike , Mike was told by the reporter that Sam told the reporter he didn't want to do the greatest hits album .
I just had my lifetime-Sirius for a few months when Eddie called in. Great interview. I'm glad I heard this live. I miss you EVH. Peace, brother.
This is why they never did a tribute for Eddie.He spilled the beans on tbe cancer Industry and broke the code.
9:40- how much $$$ do you have Wiggy???
Ed sure did get weird towards the end. 😮
Great View Of The Older Edward !!!! AWESOME !!!!
Edward was such a great guy and an absolute legend and he is sorely missed. I could never thank Ed enough for all of the inspiration he has given me as a guitarist and the massive catalog of music he left behind.
Well Mike and Sammy were the other half of Van Halen. Where would eddie and Alex be without a lead singer and bass player _ typical eddie.
Way to go. Pick on a dead man. 🙄
Meanwhile, 14 years later... In 2019, when I moved into my current apartment, I inadvertently hung my mini frankestrat over my bedroom window, and next to it a religious cross. On October 6, 2020, I'm in tears and looked up...realizing then just why I had done that. Back on July 16th, 1981, I saw VH in New Haven promoting Fair Warning. During one of Dave's onstage blathering, Ed was at his rack of equipment having a smoke. I'm right at that side of the stage, I yell, "EDWARD VAAN HEYYLAAN!!"...he whirls around, gave me that famous grin, and threw the cigarette at me. Awesome! (sadly, that was the day Harry Chapin died in his VW on the Long Island Expressway; we heard it on the radio on the way to the show)
Eddie was the Mozart of our generation. In 100 years from now people will be talking about his playing like we talk about Mozart. There is a lot of videos with Eddie but I wish Eddie did some instructional videos.
The problem is people thinking that you can learn what is the result of pure talent. There are plenty of videos analyzing Eddie's style that you can watch but they'll never make you an innovator like he was.
@@junodonatus4906 100% man! People like to think they need to become a super technical player that can play anything, they waste years and years to become an amazing player, they learn how to play every every Van Halen, megadeth, Metallica, pantera solo but they can’t write any good music to save their lives and the stuff they write sounds like their favorite guitarist. Then they talk about how all these bands suck because the music is so easy to play because they still don’t understand the most important thing is writing good music no matter how simple or complex a song is.
Wolfgang said his Dad was a terrible guitar teacher. He showed him some “simple stuff” and he then proceeded to turn into EVH and Wolf said f you I can’t do that.
What Van Halen was has nothing to do with Mozart Beethoven classical music or jazz for that matter. Eddie wrote music for the lions. Mozart wrote music for the brain. It’s like comparing a poet with a novelist or a science fiction writer to prose. Different capacities of literature. Different capacities of music. Neither is “better” than the other just different. Eddie and the stones and things like that is dance music, folk music. Mozart and miles Davis is intellectual music. What Eddie did was creative in his field but it’s still simple three chord bluesin’ Jamin’ and flashy hot licks confined to three minutes. His solos were 30 seconds. Mozart wrote 25 minute “songs”.
Love Eddy but it was smoking .. not the pick , still I bow to his genius 🙏🏼
Eddie ended up using more effects than Hendrix ever did. Maybe that's because Hendrix died so young but still all the great rock and roll guitar players have used effects.
Even in the early days, Ed used the MXR phase 90 and MXR flanger, along with the Echoplex, a harmonizer (which is more a tool than an effect). He was pretty effects heavy in the early days. In fact, not much more than he was in modern days. It’s just that mixing, mastering, and the house main board have since went digital, thus, making everything and everyone else sound digital… which I then can be mistaken with being effects heavy
Miss you goat, Long Live the King. Need you now more than ever.
. If Eddie's saying he couldn't afford pedals as a kid, OK but guaranteed jimi didn't have any when he was learning either. Not sure what he was getting at, but eddie used 3 or more pedals on his very first album.
4:03 the way he casually added that to his question 😂
Yeah pretty obvious he was either free basing or smoking meth starting around 98 ish up until 2006 or so considering how he deteriorated. He looks like Lou Reed in the 97 interviews, scary skinny during the Cherone period, and then teeth start falling out early 2000s..and he's a goblin by 2006. If he wasn't Eddie Van Halen he'd have died in the street 15 years earlier.
@@TheDmonet "and he's a goblin by 2006" LOL
Eddie was so proud of Wolfgang, but rightly so. He can play all the instruments, sing and write catchy hooks and riffs - the dude is a natural. The Van Halen name is sure to live on with WVH and EVH will live on in our hearts forever.
Yes he was it was so cool how great a father Eddie was! Valerie and Eddie really brought up their son very well obviously we have no clue what they did but obviously it was a pretty normal upbringing but Eddie was closer to his son then most fathers get he brought him everywhere, he had his so join his band. I remember some comedian was talking about how Eddie came bowling one night and the one guy the comedian was with said do u care if Eddie brings his son? And he said dude it’s bowling of of course he can bring his son but what I’m getting at is when a bunch of 40 something year old guys go out together they always want to be alone just the guys but Eddie brought his son with him because he absolutely loved his son so much they were best friends. I know it might not sound like a big deal Eddie bringing his son bowling with Eddie’s friends but that little stuff is what makes kids have a much better childhood all the little things like that not just leaving the kids home. I got a ton of friends that will go out so much you will forget they even have kids, guys that have no money they spend what little money they have going to the bar then when u go to their houses their kids have no toys and the ones they have are junk, their kids ask for a go cart or something like that and they don’t have the money to buy a go cart but they have the money to buy parts for their race cars or whatever hobbies they have. My daughter was born 3 years ago, I’ve wanted to buy a project car to build because I now have a shop at my house with a lift and everything I need to build a project car but If I bought a project car I would be dumping a ton of money into the car and I would feel guilty if my daughter wanted or needed something and couldn’t do it for her because I spent my money on a car. I remember I was at a friend of mines house working on his project car and his son asked to join little league and he told his son he couldn’t afford it so maybe next year. It was only 300 bucks and in just the past month he spent a few grand on that car I felt so bad for that kid if I were him I would have sold or returned the stuff I just bought for the car so he could go to little league screw the car u can always buy a car you can’t go back in time and let ur kid go to little league. When I was a kid I didn’t ask for much I really didn’t and I didn’t have much all I wanted was a dirt bike and I never got one and to this day I think back about how I never got one and all the fun I missed out on. I didn’t want anything to do with sports, toys, video games none of that all I wanted was a dirt bike I would have spent all my time doing that. My daughter is 3 and when we go shopping she picks stuff up and puts it back down she doesn’t try to make me buy everything but every couple weeks she will pick something out that she really REALLY wants and i will get it for her because I want to make her happy and I tell her if ur a good girl I don’t have a problem buying it, you can’t let ur kids think they can get whatever they want they need to know they are getting something because they have been a good girl/boy. I just wanted to say a few things about kids and hopefully some people will read this and treat their kids better and not be selfish and realize the day their kids were born was the day life is not about u anymore it’s about ur kids!
@@peanutbutterisfu Agreed, if people put more time and effort into their kids lives, the world would be a less F'ed up place for sure.
@Bpjames - Agreed. It’s cool to watch this years later and see that Eddie wasn’t exaggerating. Wolfie is the real deal.
Let me know when wolf is capable of a decent piece of music. There are 10 year olds in Japan that can play every instrument well. Creativity is much more challenging.
“Eddie cured cancer!” Wait he’s dead? 😮
weed may have made him feel better, but it doesn't cure cancer clearly, shouldn't sprook that false hope.
I love EVH's playing, a true innovator, wonderful technique, tone and feel - but wtf is his problem with Hendrix? Clapton was an utterly derivative, racist cock, yet Eddie rates him higher than Jimi? Do me a favour, Jimi is the rock on which all rock guitarists stand. Maybe its a racism thing? It certainly seems like Eddie was best playing, and not talking.
Howard Stern is such a jerk off. He ask Eddie how he beat the cancer then changes the subject and ask him who was the hottest chick he ever banged. He is really something I tell you.
David Gilmour, Pete Townshend, Jimmy Page, and Tony Iommi are just a few that are better than Eddy way better !!!!!!!
Ok 🤡
Everybody has their favorites. EVH is mine!
Another indicator confirming eddie is genuinely all around good guy is how awesome his son turned out. He is the complete opposite of every kid with famous parents. All of them are so shitty. Wolfgang didn't get that illness. Famous parent kids are probably unbearable to tolerate. Absolute lack of empathy and self esteem. It'd got to fuck u up always seeing people worship them
It was a cheap shot to mention Cabo Wabo like all Sammy does is blow money on bars and stupid stuff. Sam donates to food banks in every city he plays, and he does benefit shows for Children's Cancer. He's extremely generous and he does a lot of charity work and Ed acts like only he uses his money for good.
Sam was and is a great guy who happens to be a great musician. Eddie and Alex are more the frustrated artistic genius types and eventually there was a clash
Eddie sounds pretty delusional here. I mean, he was always very insecure and unsure of who he was. You have to know thyself. "Smoking didn't cause my cancer," "people call me a drug addict but they do drugs and I don't anymore." Ok. He went back into rehab about a year after this. Ed was one of the greatest musicians, not just guitarists, but musicians to ever live. But he was a drunk, and trouble follows drunks wherever they go.