BEGINNINGS

It's rare that something so loud comes to life in someplace so quiet, but that's exactly how it happened with America's greatest rock band. In the 1970s, Van Halen evolved into a musical force in Pasadena, a Los Angeles suburb of white picket fences, tree-lined streets, and good schools. David Lee Roth reminisced about those environs on the band's 2007 reunion tour. "The suburbs, I come from the suburbs," Roth told a packed house at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. "You know, where they tear out the trees and name streets after them. I live on Orange Grove — there's no orange grove there; it's just me ... we used to play the backyard parties there. I remember it like it was yesterday."

But years before Van Halen ever disturbed the peace in Pasadena, the group's future members laid the foundation for a partnership that would make rock history. Soon after arriving in America in 1962, the Van Halen brothers resolved to become top-flight rock musicians. Likewise, David Lee Roth set his sights on becoming a rock singer — a rock star, as he'd put it — before he and his family even made it to the San Gabriel Valley in 1963. Van Halen didn't come to life until the early 1970s, but the band's true genesis dates back a decade prior.

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Before the Van Halen family made music in California, they made it in Holland. Jan van Halen (Jan would begin capitalizing his surname's first letter after he arrived in America) was born in Holland on January 18, 1920, to Herman van Halen and Jannie Berg. When the Netherlands fell to the Nazis in 1940, a young Jan joined the Dutch resistance, only to become a prisoner of war. After his Nazi captors discovered that he had an aptitude with the saxophone and clarinet, they placed him in an orchestra that toured German-occupied Europe.

When the conflict ended, he played in jazz acts, hit the road as part of a circus orchestra, and later performed on live radio shows in Holland. He then relocated to Indonesia, where he met and married Eugenia van Beers. "Our pop went over to Indonesia on a six-week radio contract, which turned into six years," Alex recalled. After the fall of the Dutch-backed Indonesian government, the couple moved to Amsterdam, where they welcomed two new additions to their family: Alexander Arthur van Halen, born on May 8, 1953, and Edward Lodwijk van Halen, born on January 26, 1955.

The boys had their musical baptism almost at birth. In Holland, they started taking piano lessons when Edward was about five years old. They also traveled with their parents as their father toured with jazz and big band acts during the late 1950s. "We were taken all over the place," Alex explained to the Los Angeles Times. "If my dad was going somewhere, we'd all go to the gig and hang out. My mom couldn't afford a babysitter." Edward added, "Growing up in Holland when me and Alex were seven years old, we used to go across the border to Germany to clubs where he played. That was just normal to me ... staying up to two, three in the morning, hanging in the club."

By 1960, Jan's career was on the ascent. His talents had earned him a spot in the elite Ton Wijkamp Quintet, which won honors at Holland's Loosdrecht Jazz Festival that year. Edward, reminiscing about his father's musical career in Europe, said, "My dad was one of the baddest clarinet players of his time. He was so hot — unbelievably."

Despite Jan's success, the van Halen family began to conside