VAN HALEN guitar legend Eddie Van Halen spoke with Denise Quan from CNN recently about a number of topics. A few excerpts from the chat follow:

CNN: How was it touring with David Lee Roth after all these years?

Van Halen: "It was great."

CNN: No smackdowns?

Van Halen: "No, no. Everything went great. It went smooth."

CNN: Is there going to be another Van Halen tour?

Van Halen: "Oh, I know so. I mean, we're a band! That wasn't just a one-off thing. It's officially a band. And Wolfgang Van Halen is the bass player. Janie and I are getting married in June, and my son's going to graduate, and we'll pick it up after that. Obviously, I hope we record some new stuff. I'm writing, and just doing the same thing I always do."

CNN: You've been tearing guitars apart and redesigning them all your life, haven't you?

Eddie Van Halen: "It kind of started when I went to a Radio Shack-type of store in Pasadena. They had a 12-string guitar hanging there, and I didn't want 12 -- I wanted six. And so I asked the guy, 'Could I take six strings off and try it?' And the guy said, 'No, not unless you buy it.' So I borrowed the money from my parents, bought it, took six strings off and voila -- did what I wanted. The guitar -- it's on the first album cover. It's called Frankenstein. I'm always tinkering with stuff. And basically, the new Wolfgang is a combination of all the years of tearing things apart, ruining things, creating things and coming up with things that I later found out I could patent."

CNN: How many guitars have you accidentally broken on stage?

Van Halen: "On stage? (He shrugs.) During the last show, I actually tried to break a Wolfgang, and it wouldn't break. I picked it up and I couldn't break the damn thing. I threw it up in the air, and later put it out in the rain. I picked it up half an hour later, and it was still in tune. It pissed me off."

To read the entire interview head to this location.

Van Halen's 'Ice Cream Man' live at MGM Arena in Las Vegas on December 30th: