"You're pretty good for a girl." It's like, "Well, you ain't so bad for, I don't know, a monkey, either." (Laughs) Oh yeah. It was nerve-wracking. We were so nervous and so intimidated walking ...

By the middle-'70s, we were a fully fledged, kind of little Led Zeppelin with girls in it ... That's an iconic feeling, that first guitar sound and the riff. But we knew when we caught that ...

If they had seen the dead bird in a state of decay ... just a recording of himself playing scales on the guitar. Higher, faster, changing keys, breaking off into riffs and climaxes.

Van Halen's celebrity extended beyond guitar culture. He could be seen regularly on MTV and had a cameo on Michael Jackson's mega-single "Beat It." But virtuoso shred wasn't the only game in town.