After living in Indonesia and Netherlands, the Van Halen family moved to the United States in 1962 and since Alex and Eddie Van Halen were kids their parents encouraged them to become musicians. Their father, Jan van Halen, was a Dutch jazz pianist, clarinettist and saxophonist player but was not a famous musician. He not only had the chance to see the success of his two sons with the band that had their surname, he also played in one song the group recorded. The Van Halen song that Eddie and Alex’s father played in This full circle moment happened in 1982 on Van Halen's fifth studio album "Diver Down". He played clarinet in the cover of "Big Bad Bill (Is Sweet William Now", a song from 1924, written by Milton Ager, with lyrics by Jack Yellen. Alex Van Halen, who is now promoting the book "Brothers", telling their story and the story of the band, recalled in an interview with Rolling Stone that moment with his father. "He was so nervous, man. The beauty of it was that we were all just equals in the studio playing." What Eddie said about the session with his father Jan Van Halen passed away almost the same age as his son Eddie would die a few decades later. Jan died in 1986 at the age of 66 and Eddie Van Halen sadly passed away in 2020 at the age of 65. As Van Halen News Desk reported, the legendary guitar player once recalled what it was like to play with his father in the studio. “It’s so funny, because I couldn’t play the song for you right now. I had to read because there were so many chords, I just couldn’t remember it. So here’s my father to the left of me, sitting on a chair with a music stand in front of him, and I’m sitting next to him with sheet music in a stand. Mike was there, too, playing like an acoustic guitar bass." "The kind they have in Mexican restaurants where they come up, play in front of your face, and aggravate you. We had a great time. It looked like an old ’30s or ’40s session. I used some thick Gibson hollowbody with f-holes. My father hadn’t played in a long time because he had lost his left-hand middle finger about ten years ago." "He was nervous, and we told him, ‘Jan, just have a good time. We make mistakes! That’s what makes it real.’ I love what he did, but he was thinking back ten years ago when he was smokin’, playing jazz and stuff. He played exactly what we wanted,” Eddie Van Halen said. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkxqcWhym9U&pp=ygUWYmlnIGJhZCBiaWxsIHZhbiBoYWxlbg%3D%3DThe post The Van Halen song that Alex and Eddie’s father played on appeared first on Rock and Roll Garage.