Van Halen– The Band That Came to the Rescue
Imagine dear reader that you are having a nightmare in which you find yourself as a teenager back in the late 1970’s. As you look around at the cultural and musical landscape you note, with disdain, that since the movie Saturday Night Fever appeared in 1977 guys have been, a la John Travolta, parting their hair in the middle, wearing trousers with flared bottoms, and sporting gold chains around their necks—ones they probably purchased at Spencer Gifts at the local mall…
The lean years
In this nightmare you hear strains of the music that is popular but that you can’t stand: Debbie Boone with You Light Up My Life, Captain and Tennille with Shop Around and Muskrat Love, Anita Ward’s Ring My Bell, and the downright grating, if not terrifying Afternoon Delight by the Starland Vocal Band.
I lived through those years and can assure you that the level of musical misery ran deep. Good rock and roll was under attack on many fronts—from the sappy and cloyingly annoying Peter Cetera singing If You Leave Me Now to former rockers who thought adding keyboards to their acts would be cool even if they did not know how they could be used to make a great song. This pablum of the airways indeed required rock and roll fans to dig deep to survive.
The worst however, was that this was still the age of disco and the mere mention of this word sent shivers down many a spine. Yes, I know that today’s musical scholars contend disco had roots in great musical traditions such as Latin and R&B where it morphed into something new in places like New York where it provided a sound that people wanted to dance to—and who can criticize someone for wanting to dance? But still…
The problem was, that along with millions and millions of my contemporaries, I lived in the plain vanilla suburbs of America and was an outsider to the hip scenes of New York and Miami where I might have gained a broader and more sophisticated listening palette. I heard only what the record stores, the radio stations, or friends offered up and much of it was, as you can tell, not to my liking. Throw in the influence of Saturday Night Fever, the stardom of the Bee Gees (who did the soundtrack to that movie), acts like K.C. and the Sunshine Band, Gloria Gaynor, Donna Summer, and many others and it was cause for despair.
Lest you think I am simply slagging musicians and styles I did not like in my teenage years, well…yes and no. If you skipped the links that I provided in the second paragraph, I encourage you to listen to them for as long as you can hold up. Under the soccer maxim of “play the ball and not the man,” I am actually trying not to be critical of the artists themselves, but rather their musical output. In fact, interviews have revealed many of these musicians, such as the late Robin Gibb, to be interesting, thoughtful, and dedicated to their craft.
Furthermore, the keen observer of music rightfully argues that not all was hopeless. Since art never moves just in a straight line from A to B to C, it constantly spins off new ideas and paths to follow. So, while disco might have prevailed at the end of the 70’s, many artists were looking for new things.
Van Halen
Looking surprisingly youthful in 2008
Plus, there was the inertia from the outstanding rock of the mid-decade years: Frampton, Heart, Queen, Boston, Rush, AC/DC, Warren Zevon, Aerosmith, and Journey with their new lead singer Steve Perry on the group’s Infinity album are but a few examples. No doubt you can name a dozen more without much effort.
But for every great band there were, seemingly, twenty times that number which were descending into a pop wasteland of pap that lacked a punch. Fighting words to some I know, but was Bowie ever the same without guitarist Mick Ronson or was Styx the same once they started marching toward things like Mr. Roboto? I rest my case…
Ah, but help was on the way and it arrived in 1978 in the form of four young men, two brothers and two band-mates, from Pasadena, California who promptly bulldozed aside the detritus of the pop/rock music scene…and I do mean bulldozed. These gents pushed through the fog of disco and second-rate musical refuse with rock chops that gave meat and drink to those to those listeners hungry and thirsty for serious rock and roll.
I speak here, of course, of Van Halen. Brothers Eddie (lead guitar) and Alex (drums), lead singer David Lee Roth, and bassist Michael Anthony. Formed in the early 1970’s it wasn’t until 1978 when they released their first album, humbly named Van Halen, but when they did it was as if an atomic bomb had been dropped.
In the 60 years that rock has been big business how many albums can legitimately be considered to have been real game changers? A dozen? Two dozen? It’s hard to say.
Yet Van Halen’s first effort did change the landscape as the band exploded, as if fully formed, onto the world’s music scene and quickly planted their flag on the high ground of heavy rock. There was indeed a new sheriff in town.
You might remember hearing, for the first time, those chords of Eddie Van Halen’s guitar as it opened the first track of Running With The Devil. Woah! What in the blazes is that? They were releasing a genie from the bottle that was full of energy, wickedly soaring vocals, and ferocious guitar riffs. All this was served up with a zest for life, a joie de vivre if you will, that displaced the naval gazing egoism and pretentious seriousness of their competitors.
What attracted listeners, like moths to the flame, was not just Eddie’s inspired brilliance on the axe, but how he combined it with David Lee Roth’s screaming, yelping, and caterwauling to form a crisp tapestry of sound in which voice and guitar were almost interchangeable. Roth, in the flaxen-haired Greek god model of lead singers such as Robert Plant and Roger Daltrey, left no doubt that his vocal chops were fit to match whatever Eddie conjured up with his six-string.
Ah, you probably thought, Running With The Devil was good so maybe this band has a future…but as you collected your thoughts the second track blasts off the launchpad with one of the most famous guitar riffs in musical history: Eruption linked with the cover of the Kinks’ 1960’s hit You Really Got Me. Talking about having your ears pinned back and your socks knocked off—Eruption seemed to have been from a totally different sonic universe.
Hard to believe, but there are detractors who argue that any technically skilled guitarist could have done what Eddie Van Halen did. That his famed “tapping” of the strings was nothing new, that his arpeggios were what every good guitarist perfects in practicing scales, and that in the years to follow even middle school and weekend amateur guitarists could pull off Eruption.
The Band
Circa 2008
To which the only reply is: Seriously? Are you then going to criticize Michelangelo for using the wrong tint on the Sistine Chapel ceiling? If it were all so simple then why didn’t someone come up with it before? The answer, of course, is that it took Eddie’s brilliant ear and imagination to bring it all together—to set fire to the guitar while simultaneously producing chords and a melody that Johann Sebastian Bach would feel at home with.
Yet that was not all. The boys spread their talents evenly across this debut album. Every single song was first rate and any one of them would be considered many bands to be a career crowning achievement. Just look at the choice: Ain’t Talking ‘Bout Love, Jamie’s Crying, Atomic Punk, Ice Cream Man, and Feel Your Love Tonight.
This is no small matter. For even today, 42 years later, albums are still a mixture of the very good, the middle of the road, but also weak efforts that are there for no other reason than to fill out the remaining space. It’s close to impossible for even the best artists to get every track to be top shelf.
Back to the Beginning
The Van Halen story starts just north of downtown Los Angeles in Pasadena. Eddie (born 1955) and his older brother Alex (born 1953) were originally from the Netherlands but settled in California in 1962. Both boys started piano at a young age with Eddie being so good as to win first place in his age group at the Long Beach City College piano competition from 1964 to 1967—despite the fact that he was learning it all by ear and not reading the notation.
Initially Alex was interested in the guitar and Eddie in the drums, but they switched out and, having found their calling and passion, started the countless hours of practice necessary to master their instruments.
By 1974, with bassist Michael Anthony and Roth onboard, their band took on the name Van Halen and they built a very strong and loyal following in the Southern California rock scene with gigs at such famous spots as the Whiskey a Go-Go. Like almost every group, they encountered some dead-ends. The most memorable of these was when KISS bassist/singer Gene Simmons forwarded the group’s demo tape to his management but was quickly told that they didn’t have a chance.
Yet these dead-ends were temporary and the quartet continued to hone their musicianship, showmanship, and unique sound in performance after performance. In other words, they were ready for opportunity when it crossed their path.
The group released four more albums between 1979 and 1984 and tallied up a staggering number of hits: You’re No Good, Dance The Night Away, Somebody Get Me A Doctor, Bottoms Up, D.O.A., Beautiful Girls, And The Cradle Will Rock, Where Have All The Good Times Gone, Pretty Woman, Dancing In The Street, and one of my favorites, Little Guitars—a nicely packaged work that showcases Roth’s lyrics, Alex’s brilliantly solid percussion, and another great Eddie intro and riff.
Their sixth album, 1984, released that very year with its rather interesting cover art, went platinum. Although known for the songs Jump Jump (which reached #1) and Hot For Teacher, whose videos fit well into the MTV zeitgeist, the real gem, however, was Panama—truly one of the group’s best.
Van Halen would, of course, merit serious musical study based solely on their studio work, but the band consisted of, first and foremost, performers whose element was the stage. Rock artists and musicians to be sure, but also entertainers and showmen of the first rank.
They decided early on to alternate their studio work with an extensive touring schedule in which they transformed mere concerts into spectacles. Not being content just to stand in front of an audience and bang away at their instruments, they offered up a vaudeville experience—all delivered with a wink of the eye to let the concert goers that they were also an integral part of the show.
Roth, labeled “Diamond Dave” by his fans, was arguably the most athletic front-man ever as he matched his vocal gymnastics with equally nimble physical moves such as full splits, high kicks, whirls, and flips over Eddie’s back. He and his bandmates would, tethered by a cable, fly over the audience and make entrances from any and all directions.
Remember when I said that they bulldozed second rate musicians to the side? They did this on stage as well where, with their extroversion, became the perfect antidote to those acts whose self-seriousness raised introspective naval gazing to an art. You simply couldn’t stand around picking lint from your belly button when Van Halen was in town.
They partied as hard, if not harder, than any band known to man and certainly embodied the “rock star as a god” persona. Yet they were also business savvy in demanding that the arenas and concert promoters pay strict attention to safety lest someone get hurt—as happened early in their touring career when a couple of their roadies were nearly electrocuted to death whilst setting up equipment.
Roth put the famous “no brown M&M’s” clause into the band’s performance contracts requiring promoters to provide bowls of M&M’s candy at the hotel for the band—but with all the brown ones removed. If, upon arrival, there were brown ones in the bowl, then Roth immediately knew that the promoters had not carefully read the contract and therefore possibly missed important safety items. Quite a clever way to see if the workers were doing their jobs properly.
Changes in the band
Yet such are the personal and creative dynamics of any musical ensemble that friction always arises. Roth and Eddie were often at loggerheads as to the direction the band should take and by 1985 these differences became so severe that Roth departed for other pastures.
Eddie didn’t mourn for long however, and replaced Roth with Sammy Hagar with whom the band recorded four albums—the first of which went platinum in a week. Such record sales are pretty mind boggling but with hits like Dreams, Why Can’t This Be Love, and Love Walks In this shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. In other words, Van Halen just continued to steamroll ahead no matter who was doing the lead singing.
The Steamroller
Now should you wish to plunge deep into a rabbit hole, you can spend hours/days/years debating who the better singer was for Van Halen. Pro tip however: Skip this futile debate. DLR and Sammy Hagar were simply two completely different singers with two completely different voices and styles.
Sammy Hagar left the group in 1995 and while fans feared this spelled the end of Van Halen, fortunately there was still fuel in the tank. After many years of jostling that are too long to detail here, in 2007/2008 Roth returned to join Eddie, Alex, and Eddie’s son Wolfgang for a successful multi-city tour that was successful both performance wise and financially—netting over 90 million dollars. The magic to draw an audience was still there as older listeners were joined by younger and newer ones to experience Van Halen live.
After Michael Anthony left the group in 2004, he continued to play and record yet his estrangement from his former bandmembers seems to be permanent.
Alex Van Halen, originally one of the hardest partying members of the four, has remained behind the drum kit from the beginning. He embraced sobriety in the late 1980s and even became an ordained minister—an office that allowed him to officiate at Eddie’s second marriage.
Eddie has had a number of struggles over the years. His battle with alcohol found him in and out of rehab, he had part of his tongue removed due to a cancer, and as of 2020 is reported to be suffering from throat cancer. Yet his catalog of outstanding musicianship and innovative guitar work spans decades and through all his ups and downs, his guiding muse has never abandoned him.
David Lee Roth’s thirst for life did not slacken one bit after he left the group in ’85. He released solo works, did a lounge act in Las Vegas, studied art in Japan, and became an Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) in New York where he went on scores of real ambulance calls. You can listen to him describe his life’s journey during a long interview with podcaster Joe Rogan here: DLR on Joe Rogan. While many of us might find DLR to be too talkative and too high-energy to sit next to on a ten-hour flight, he certainly is a great raconteur.
Hope for the youth of today and a final comparison.
Van Halen, both as a group and individually did so much after that first album in 1978 that we could hardly have anticipated what was in store. But they arrived, just in time, to help rescue rock lovers from a period of abject mediocrity when disco was ruling the roost.
Yes, they were showmen, but they were musicians who insisted that musicality always be their foundation. We hear that in Alex’s crisp and open drumming. We hear that in Michael Anthony’s bass lines and his backup vocals. We hear a master at work when Eddie picks up his guitar and is quick, nimble, and incredibly clean. He, along with the others, never loaded up a song with too much frippery. And, of course, we hear David Lee Roth’s sense of humor pervade his stage and studio work with an attitude in which he never takes himself too seriously or becomes too distant from his audience.
Van Halen was hard rock that you could dance to at a frat party or in a buzzed concert-goer kind of way, but that was what was so cool about it—it got everyone within earshot moving without having to wear gold chains, flared trousers, and guys having to part their hair in the middle (in other words, disco). It was hard rock without the “hate adjacent” and intense anger of so much other metal music. Instead, Van Halen embraced the fun and sheer enjoyment of it all. For all its seemingly wanton lifestyle, it spoke to why we listen to music in the first place and go to concerts—to be entertained, to share the experience with others, and to be moved by, and in turn move to, the sound.
By the early 1980’s millions of listeners had the famous Van Halen logo sketched onto everything from school notebooks to t-shirts to Air Force pilot helmets. Now, 40 years later, I would bet there are kids sitting around complaining about the barren music scene and how bad it all sounds. Maybe somewhere though, there are guys and gals forming bands that will rise up, wipe the slate clean, and usher in something new. When that moment arrives, it will again be an eruption.
Earlier I mentioned the song Panama. As a close I will leave you one last reminder why we are grateful to Van Halen. It could have been more of this Chicago’s Hard To Say I’m Sorry instead of this Panama. What would be your choice?
Happy listening!
Van Halen ALWAYs had it in there contract that green and only green M&Ms, would be in their dressing rooms. Those out of control rock starts causing problems……..or were they??
because of the enormous pyrotecknic displays, lights and speakers, it was vital that the stage company acutally read the contract so that people did nit get hurt or killed. If the question about green M&Ms was asked, the band knew the stage crews had actually read the contract
These guys were more stuff than fluff or glitter
Great post Neal, You really hit the nail on the head…Van Halen was the soundtrack of my youth, and still is today! During my College years, the release of a new VH album usually occurred in the Spring , and became the soundtrack for that summer! Great memories of “Beautiful Girls” and “Lighting Up the Sky”
Ciro
Great post Neal, You really hit the nail on the head…Van Halen was the soundtrack of my youth, and still is today! During my College years, the release of a new VH album usually occurred in the Spring and became the soundtrack for that summer! Great memories of “Beautiful Girls” and “Lighting Up the Sky”
Ciro
What a terrific post. The Music of Van Halen was amazing when it first came out & it still sounds great today; it has aged well! Alot of music I listened to in the 80s makes be cringe now but not VH. My kids like VH too especially Eddie.
As you said…ROCK ON!!
It not for my younger brother, I would have never heard Van Halen.
Your post brought back memories of our teenage years-so long ago!!!
The early 70’s music you mention drove me to Country Western music for a time. Great reprieve from the disco doldrums. Thanks for mentioning Boston and Journey. Tears for Fears and Kansas also helped bring me back.
Thanks for another worthy effort Neal. I’m an early 50s baby like Alex & Eddie, so we did our teen years in the “sex, drugs & rock & roll” late 60s & early 70s. And while I thoroughly enjoyed listening to Van Halen(more importantly, seeing their fabulous MTV videos & DL Roth’s antics)you will understand that I was already deeply influenced by my era’s iconic bands like The Who, Stones, Pink Floyd, EL & Palmer, Santana, AC/DC, ZZ Top, fabulous crossover county like Waylon & Willy and great blues guys like Stevie Ray Vaughn. I also have some 80s favorites like Police, Bon Jovi, Bruce Springsteen,Prince,Paul Simon, U2, Rush and many metal bands. So, thanks for the memories & every day of my life I drive by an adjacent street called Panama Place!
I find the background information and details about the lives of these musicians to be so fascinating. The songs, of course, bring back fond memories.
Thanks, Neal, for the time and effort you put into another great post.
RIP Eddie V.
A timely tribute Neal