All sorts of stories about Eddie Van Halen, the man Kerrang! calls, quote, "the greatest
guitarist of his generation," are cropping up as the music world reacts to the sad news
of his death on October 6th, 2020 after a long battle with throat cancer. In addition
to his legacy as the man who changed the electric guitar forever, Van Halen also served as a
pop culture touchstone, inspiring everything from a claymation guitar-playing hamburger
in 1985's Better Off Dead to Bill and Ted's air-guitar-riff handshake and their dream
of recruiting Eddie to play in Wyld Stallyns in 1989's Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure.
"...How can we have decent instruments if we really don't even know how to play?" "That
is why we need Eddie Van Halen!"
There are also several references to Van Halen in 1985's Back to the Future, including a
scene in which Michael J. Fox as Marty McFly has gone back in time to the 1950s to impart
some information to his nerdy teenage father. To make his point and scare Teen Dad into
listening to him, Marty dons a hazmat suit, pulls out a cassette tape labeled "Edward
Van Halen," and awakens his father with some distinctively 1980s guitar riffs.
"Silence, Earthling! My name is Darth Vader!"
The music from the Edward Van Halen tape sure sounds like the work of Eddie Van Halen, but
was it actually him? In 2012, TMZ finally got the answer to this question once and for
all.
A TMZ reporter-slash-obvious Van Halen fan followed the band through an airport and onto
an escalator to ask Eddie about the alleged cameo. The reporter took the opportunity to
clear up the Back To The Future trivia once and for all, asking if it is indeed Edward
Van Halen on the cassette tape; Eddie confirmed with a calm, matter-of-fact "Yeah." When asked
what music he was playing, Van Halen admitted that he was just, quote, "playing a bunch
of noise." Typical modesty from the man who so often let his guitar do all the talking
– and also not entirely true! The "bunch of noise" has a name and was even used in
another movie. According to Van Halen News Desk, it's a song called "Out The Window"
and it also appeared in the 1984 film The Wild Life. According to the IMDb, the movie
is an "eighties teen romp" written by Cameron Crowe with the tagline "After the hottest
summer of their lives, getting back to basics was easy, getting back to normal was the hard
part." Upon its release, the New York Times called it, quote, "something like a sequel
to 1982's Fast Times at Ridgemont High."
Interestingly, The Wild Life starred Eric Stoltz and Lea Thompson; they played a couple.
Stoltz was originally cast in the role of Marty McFly in Back to the Future; according
to Vocal, he filmed the part for five weeks but was replaced because, quote, "he played
the part too dramatically, and [screenwriters] had written the part of Marty to be a comedic
character."
"He's a magnificent actor but his comedy sensibilities were very different than what I had written
with Bob."
Michael J. Fox had been the original choice for the role, but was starring on the TV show
Family Ties and couldn't get away. When the part became available again, he took it and
filmed both Family Ties and Back to the Future for months, acting alongside Lea Thompson,
who played the part of his teenage mother who develops a crush on Marty, not realizing
he's her time-traveling son.
Meanwhile, per Ultimate Classic Rock, Eddie Van Halen scored the entirety of The Wild
Life, including "Out The Window." His original musical role was supposed to be small, but
he ended up, quote, "recording searing guitar riffs over drum machine tracks" that appear
throughout the movie. The score was never officially released, and just one Van Halen
song, an instrumental called "Donut City," appeared on The Wild Life soundtrack. This
didn't seem to bother Eddie Van Halen, who said, quote, "We were concerned about doing
stuff for the film, not selling a record." Later, Eddie incorporated pieces of The Wild
Life's score into several Van Halen songs, including "Right Now" and "Feels So Good."
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