I was a Van Hagar fan, at first: as a kid, only the dudes who saw me as a nerd were listening to Van Halen, so they always seemed a little too cool and dangerous for me. But then my bestie got me into them via 5150, and by the time I wound up with my own guitar (a Fender Squire II Strat) I was ready to take off the back panel to try and make sounds with the tremolo springs; I was fumbling about with finger taps and harmonics; and I was trying to figure out how to play super fast.
Of course, I was never patient enough with any of it (I can play power chords like a mother fucker, but...little else), but I'm kinda proud, in a weird way, to be one of the bezillion quintillion wanna-be guitar slingers who listened to Eddie Van Halen in awe, and picked up a guitar to see if they could also make look that easy.