While many artists prefer to go by their stage names, others have nicknames given to them. We all know Eddie Van Halen as ‘Eddie’ or ‘Ed,’ but it seems he also had a lesser-known nickname. In a recent episode of his the Roth Show, David Lee Roth revealed the story behind Eddie’s moniker.
KISS members are also known for their unique stage personas — Gene Simmons goes by the Demon, while Paul Stanley is the Starchild. Bruce Springsteen has the nickname the Boss for sharing the earnings equally between band members, while Eric Clapton is known as the Slowhand for making the audience for so long while changing his guitar strings.
Although Eddie Van Halen didn’t have a famous nickname like these names, it appears he still had one that isn’t very much known by the fans. In his podcast, David Lee Roth revealed that they called Eddie Van Halen not ‘Eddie’ or ‘Ed,’ but ‘Vard.’
According to Diamond Dave, they called the guitarist ‘Vard’ because he was of Dutch origin. As he recalled, Eddie’s mother would call him ‘Edvard’ with her heavy Dutch accent, and they started calling the guitarist the way his mother did. Roth then added that his security guard was named Ed, so they called him Big Ed.
Revealing their nickname for Eddie Van Halen, David Lee Roth said the following:
“We didn’t call Eddie Van Halen ‘Eddie,’ we called him ‘Vard.’ That’s because his mother used the Dutch expression. The way she said it was Dutch — ‘Edvard! Edvard!’ and we would call him ‘Vard.’ My security guy’s name was Ed, and we called him Big Ed.”
So, thanks to his mother, Eddie Van Halen was called Vard by his Van Halen bandmates. Geddy Lee also had a pretty similar story — his mother had a heavy Polish accented pronunciation of Gary, which sounded like Geddy. So, he adapted this as his stage name and later changed his legal name to Geddy.
