ROCK LEGEND EDDIE VAN HALEN DIES

Guitar legend, Eddie Van Halen, and one of the founding members of the rock group Van Halen, has died after a 20-year battle with throat cancer.

His son Wolf announced his father’s death on his Twitter page.

"I can’t believe I’m having to write this, but my father, Edward Lodewijk Van Halen, has lost his long and arduous battle with cancer this morning."

Eddie was born in the Netherlands but his family moved to California when he was still young. He was raised there and started the rock band Van Halen with his older brother Alex in the early 1970s.

Eddie was hailed as one of the legends in the guitar world and some of the band’s hits like Jump, Panama and Runnin’ with the Devil featured his legendary guitar riffs.

EWN reports that he was seen as a hero among his peers and they often celebrated his rare talent by comparing him to Jimi Hendrix.

"Ed’s a once- or twice-in-a-century kind of guy. There’s Hendrix and there’s Eddie van Halen," friend and guitarist Jerry Cantrell of Alice in Chains said during Grammy weekend in January 2019. "Those two guys tilted the world on its axis."

Besides being part of one the world’s best rock bands, his other work also includes being the lead guitarist on Michael Jackson’s 1983 smash hit Beat It.

Musicians from all over the world paid tribute to the legend himself.

He was 65.

Watch the Entertainment Tonight video below for a tribute to the rock legend Eddie Van Halen.

Image credits: NME and Twitter