Toward the end of this video after Eddie Van Halen gave us a little guitar lesson, he claims that he stopped listening to music after he listened to Eric Clapton in Cream.
Eddie pretty much said the same thing in his latest interview with Billboard:
So he’s a guitar player and doesn’t listen to music. Kind of strange isn’t it? Now I see why Eddie Van Halen isn’t the greatest songwriter in the world. Yes, he’s one of the greatest guitar players of all time, yes but when it comes to the songwriting department, he’s terrible.
You’d think if he would listen to a lot of music that would help him become a better songwriter with his band, Van Halen. It’s a known fact that Eddie isn’t the best songwriter.
Even Sammy Hagar knows that Eddie isn’t great at songwriting. Back in 2012, Sammy called out Eddie for the Van Halen song, “Tattoo”.
From this article:
“He says Eddie Van Halen isn’t as good at songwriting as he is at guitar, before directly comparing him to his Chickenfoot colleague Joe Satriani. “Eddie is a genius guitar player and he can really play and he’s got a million things he can lay on you but you’ve got to try to make a song out of it,” he said. “Joe comes with the song, done, all I have to do is write lyrics and figure out what I’m going to sing to it.”
http://www.ultimate-guitar.com/news/general_music_news/sammy_hagar_slams_van_halen_single.html
This is why I believe Eddie should have just been an instrumental guitarist but instead he have chosen to make a lot of money making a bunch of hit songs.
I think if you wanna become a great songwriter when you play an instrument, it’s important to listen to as much music as possible. I’ve always believed it was important to do.
I love Van Halen, the band but only the early David Lee Roth stuff. Most of the newer music by Van Halen isn’t really all that good. I think Eddie is best at being an instrumental guitarist ’cause “Eruption” is one of his best work. I really hope Eddie will one day make an instrumental solo record but I don’t think he will. He needs to make big hits in order to continue to make a living.
It’s no wonder Van Halen hasn’t made great music as of late ’cause Eddie doesn’t listen to others music that could influence and inspire him.
He’s still a genius guitar player, though.
Kev
K'Brocking 
I used to worship this guys GUITAR PLAYING back in the day. Unfortunately, the more he opens his mouth the more of an unfriendly, angry fellow he portrays himself. I’ve always felt in reading through the lines that all the dysfunction in that band had one root and that root was EVH himself. He doesn’t have one nice thing to say about anyone who isn’t related to him. Roth, Hagar, Cherone, Templeman, etc are all fucking assholes according to Ed. So let’s take stock: everyone who isn’t a Van Halen is an asshole, he can’t remember coming up with his own riffs, he doesn’t like or listen to anyone else’s music, he doesn’t know the lyrics to any Van Halen songs, he’s only touring to make the fan’s happy–which doesn’t fly since everyone who isn’t family is an asshole so why would he want to make asshole strangers happy?…this dude has some serious problems relating to the world around him.
While I do love Van Halen’s music, I agree with you wholeheartedly. Eddie is turning out to be a huge douche lately.
Kev
Lemmy has died long live the Ace of Spades.
Yep, I’m about to put up an obit about him soon.
Kev
They were just part of the white, suburban hard rock racket about 1982, Judas Priest, Cheap Trick, Van Halen etc – not real classic rock, but second/third generation bands that grew up playing classic rock covers (Zeppelin, Cream, Hendrix etc).
The band writes good songs, if you think pop choruses and major chords and shallow writing is good – which is fine for commercial music aimed at teens, ie: no the depth of their style isn’t wonderful.
The glut of widdly-widdly “metal” guitarists that came out of MI/Berklee in the 80s made albums that no-one listened to, so I guess rock is really a rhythm (and songwriting) genre, despite the obsession with guitars a lot of musicians seem to have.