David Lee Roth has shared a couple of new pieces of original artwork in which he reflects on the racist past of his longtime hometown of Pasadena, California. Check out the artwork below.
VAN HALEN guitarist Eddie Van Halen and his brother, VAN HALEN drummer Alex Van Halen, were sons of Dutch and Indonesian immigrants and spent their childhood in the Netherlands.
According to NBC News, the brothers’ mother, Eugenia, met her future husband Jan, who was a traveling musician, in Indonesia when it was still under Dutch rule and the couple later moved to the Netherlands where Eddie and Alex were born.
Eugenia was treated like a “second-class citizen” in the Netherlands and the brothers were referred to as “half-breeds,” according to an interview Eddie gave in 2017 with music journalist Denise Quan for Smithsonian‘s National Museum Of American History. The family left for the U.S. in 1962. Once they settled in the Pasadena, area, their issues with discrimination and racism continued.
“Now, you’re in a whole other country where you can’t speak the language, and you know absolutely nothing about anything and it was beyond frightening,” Eddie said. “I don’t even know how to explain but I think it made us stronger because you had to be.
“My first friends in America were black,” Eddie explained. “It was actually the white people that were the bullies. They would tear up my homework and papers, make me eat playground sand, all those things, and the black kids stuck up for me.”
Eddie passed away in October at the age of 65. His death was announced by his son Wolfgang.
VAN HALEN was inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame in 2007.
Rolling Stone magazine ranked Eddie Van Halen No. 8 in its list of the 100 greatest guitarists.
— David Lee Roth (@DavidLeeRoth) April 26, 2021
