Eddie Van Halen - Edward Van Halen (commonly known as 'Eddie' Van Halen) was born to a Dutch father (Jan) and an Indonesian mother (Eugina) in Nijmegen, Netherlands. The Dutch Roman Catholic Van Halen family moved to Pasadena, California, from The Netherlands in 1962. He immediately started classical piano training, and won several talent competitions as a child[citation needed] (although during a radio interview he stated he cannot read music notation [citation needed]). Upon their arrival in America, his parents immediately sought a piano tutor for him[citation needed] and his older brother, Van Halen drummer Alex Van Halen. However, playing the piano did not prove sufficiently engaging - he once said in an interview, 'Who wants to sit in front of the piano? That's boring.'[citation needed] Consequently, whilst Alex began playing the guitar, Eddie bought a drumset and began studying drumming. According to Eddie, while he was delivering newspapers (to pay for his drum kit) Alex would practice on it[citation needed]. After Eddie heard Alex's performance of the The Surfaris' drum solo in the song 'Wipe Out', he grew annoyed[citation needed] that his brother had overtaken his ability and decided to switch and begin learning how to play the electric guitar. Eddie was approximately twelve years of age when he started playing guitar - allegedly practicing during every free moment. He once claimed that he had learned almost all of Eric Clapton's solos in the band Cream 'note for note' by age 14[citation needed]; however in other interviews he contradicted this by stating he could never play the solos precisely, instead he would modify them somewhat to suit his style[citation needed]. In an April 1996 interview with Guitar World, when asked about how he went from playing his first open G chord to playing 'Eruption', Eddie replied: “ Practice. I used to sit on the edge of my bed with a six-pack of Schlitz Malt talls. My brother would go out at 7 P.M. to party and get laid, and when he'd come back at 3 A.M., I would still be sitting in the same place, playing guitar. I did that for years — I still do that. ” [1] He has many influences; most notably Eric Clapton, however he has also acknowledged the influence of Queen guitarist Brian May and fusion guitarist Allan Holdsworth (of whom he has said: 'He's the best in my book.')