EDDIE VAN HALEN Says Reunion Tour 'wasn't Just A One-Off Thing'

Denise Quan of CNN recently conducted an interview with VAN HALEN guitar legend Eddie Van Halen. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

CNN: How was it touring with David Lee Roth after all these years?

Eddie Van Halen: It was great.

CNN: No smackdowns?

Eddie Van Halen: No, no. Everything went great. It went smooth.

CNN: Is there going to be another Van Halen tour?

Eddie Van Halen: Oh, I know so. I mean, we're a band! That wasn't just a one-off thing. It's officially a band. And Wolfgang Van Halen is the bass player. Janie [Liszewski, Eddie's publicist] and I are getting married in June, and my son's going to graduate, and we'll pick it up after that. Obviously, I hope we record some new stuff. I'm writing, and just doing the same thing I always do.

CNN: You've been tearing guitars apart and redesigning them all your life, haven't you?

Eddie Van Halen: It kind of started when I went to a Radio Shack-type of store in Pasadena. They had a 12-string guitar hanging there, and I didn't want 12 — I wanted six. And so I asked the guy, "Could I take six strings off and try it?" And the guy said, "No, not unless you buy it." So I borrowed the money from my parents, bought it, took six strings off and voila — did what I wanted. The guitar — it's on the first album cover. It's called Frankenstein. I'm always tinkering with stuff. And basically, the new Wolfgang is a combination of all the years of tearing things apart, ruining things, creating things and coming up with things that I later found out I could patent.

CNN: How many guitars have you accidentally broken on stage?

Eddie Van Halen: On stage? (He shrugs.) During the last show, I actually tried to break a Wolfgang, and it wouldn't break. I picked it up and I couldn't break the damn thing. I threw it up in the air, and later put it out in the rain. I picked it up half an hour later, and it was still in tune. It pissed me off.

Read the entire interview from CNN.com.