Just read this interview that Esquire did with Eddie Van Halen. What an eye-opener! It’s a great interview, and guess what? He finally reveals the secret behind the “brown sound,” and it’s nothing like all the speculation that has circulated through the guitar world for years. It actually had me laughing at what he did. 🙂 Once you’re done with the interview, there are two more articles following. I haven’t gotten through them yet, but I’ll probably read them tonight.
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Guitar Gear 
“Sales of the Variac voltage transformer have risen 10,000 percent since guitarist Eddie Van Halen revealed, in an interview with Esquire, that the device is the secret ingredient that enabled him to get his famous brown sound. Film at 11.”
Whodathunkit?
What made me laugh was that the “brown sound” was no more than a stock British Marshall set up for 220V, and Eddie used a variac to actually bring the voltage down. Then he admitted that he lied in the Guitar Player article back then and felt so bad because people were using a variac to bring the voltage up and were blowing up their amps!
But his explanation of what he did to create the “brown sound” was so different than all the snake oil that has circulated all these years about what he did. That really made me laugh. 🙂
Dawg, I don’t think people blew their amps up because they used a Variac. What I read was that he lied and said he maxed his amp for 140 watts and when the people heard that, they tried it and blew up their amps. Wouldn’t it be pretty close to impossible to blow up an amp with a Variac?
You’re right there. It’s still kind of funny. On a serious note, I was actually thinking that all the lying that he did combined with his natural shyness perhaps had u big impact on his alcoholism.
I was thinking maybe we should start a class action suit on behalf of everyone who blew up their amp trying to do what he did. LOL. You’re probably right about lying and shyness and alcoholism. Interesting how he just quit cold turkey. Anyway, I’m glad his new album is doing so well. He’s a true genius! That was funny about winning the piano competition when he was a kid.