In a new episode of “The Roth Show” podcast, David Lee Roth reveals the nickname that the late Eddie Van Halen got in Van Halen.
Roth said:
“We didn’t call Eddie Van Halen ‘Eddie,’ we called him ‘Vard’. That’s because his mother used the Dutch [pronunciation]. The way she said it was Dutch, Edvard! Edvard! And we would call him Vard. My security guy’s name was Ed, and we called him ‘Big’ Ed.”
Roth recalled as well how his grandmother reacted at a Van Halen show:
“She demanded to leave ’cause she thought the volume was gonna shake her bones apart. Came backstage, [said] hello: ‘Oh, I love ya, darling; I love ya, darling.’ She was like Aunt Em out of Wizard of Oz, ‘Ah, love ya, darling.’ Pinched my face and everything.
“And halfway through the show, I said, ‘What happened to Grandma?’ At the end of the night, Oh, she [thought] the volume was gonna shake her bones apart. So she took off.”