In an era where it feels as though the lines of satire and reality have begun to blur, it almost makes sense – though is no less excusable – that US publication People managed to quote a fake interview with Eddie Van Halen while paying tribute to the late rocker.
Yesterday morning, the world woke up to the news that Eddie Van Halen, the eponymous guitarist of hard-rock icons Van Halen, had passed away following a battle with cancer. Understandably, tributes flowed thick and fast, with every artist, fan, or contemporary of the late axeman keen to share their memories of his time on this planet.
Unfortunately, one tribute managed to slip through the fact-checker, with People magazine quoting a satirical quote from the musician in their own article.
The article, published yesterday, has since been edited, though screenshots of the mistake have managed to survive. In People’s tribute, they cite the interview as having taken place last month during Van Halen’s cancer battle, with the rocker recalling the first time he saw his son, bassist Wolfgang Van Halen, touching a guitar.
“When he was about 9 months old I put a little guitar in front of him,” it quoted. “Instead of using his thumb like a pick, he used his index and middle fingers to strum the strings one at a time. I almost cried seeing my boy touch his first guitar. He looked so lame.”
The source of this false quote came from The Hard Times, a satirical music-based website in the same vein as The Onion.
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Their article was published on September 30th, and used the clearly-fake title “We Sat Down With Eddie Van Halen to Ask How He Accepted His Son Coming Out as a Bassist” to poke fun at the fact that Van Halen was considered one of the world’s greatest guitarists, while his son chose not to follow in his footsteps, but play the bass instead.
One notable moment in the fake chat came at the end, where Van Halen was asked whether he had any advice to young bassists in the world.
“It gets better. I promise,” the article quipped. “If you’re a young bassist thinking about jumping off that cliff and picking up a more respected instrument like kazoo or triangle, please stand strong.
“If I can change, the rest of the world will eventually change too. We need more bassists, not less. But for real, stop trying to play goddamned bass chords under a guitar solo.”
People have since edited their original article, while The Hard Times also recognised the inclusion of their fake quote in the tribute.
Of course, such an incident isn’t uncommon. In fact, communities such as Reddit relish in occurrences like this, with the practice referred to as “Eating The Onion“, in honour of the famous humour website. The community is based around the notion of readers buying into the content offered up by satirical websites, completely ignoring or missing the humorous lean that they have.
Check out ‘Hot For Teacher’ by Van Halen:
