Eddie Van Halen
In this excerpt from Eruption: Conversations with Eddie Van Halen, Brad Tolinski and Chris Gill reveal how Ed’s recording studio and outside projects unleashed his creativity. The result was Van Halen’s masterpiece, 1984.
AFTER COMPLETING WORK on 1982’s Diver Down, Ed Van Halen felt unusually restless. Although he and the band had worked almost nonstop for five years, the guitarist was in no mood for rest and relaxation. The album may have been an unexpected obligation forced upon Van Halen by Warner Bros., but instead of feeling relieved that he’d gotten it out of the way, Ed had the uneasy sensation that he could have done more.
Van Halen had more than four months of time off before their 1982 Hide Your Sheep tour was scheduled to begin in mid-July. With his bandmates away on vacation and his wife occupied with shooting One Day at a Time and made-for-television movies, Ed spent most of his time off alone, playing guitar or writing songs on his piano and synthesizers. The many accolades he’d received for his playing never went to his head, and in fact they made him more determined to grow as a musician instead of resting on his laurels.
Ed’s impact on the guitar world had by this time become incalculable. Besides being arguably the most innovative and most imitated guitarist on the planet, he’d also joined the ranks of the most influential guitar designers of his time. His DIY Frankenstein was hailed as a genuine breakthrough, even receiving a big thumbs-up from the genius of geniuses himself, Les Paul, a man notoriously difficult to impress.
A growing number of guitar manufacturers were shamelessly copying Ed’s minimalist single humbucking pickup/volume control–only/vibrato bar “super Strat” design, with some even having the unmitigated gall to rip off his signature striped graphics. He was justifiably becoming angrier by the day as he watched others copy his ideas and rake in the dough. So when the founding partner of Kramer Guitars, Dennis Berardi, approached Ed in February 1982 with a generous endorsement deal, the guitarist was ready to sign on the dotted line.
Meanwhile, Edward’s revolutionary two-handed tapping technique, squealing harmonics and deep whammy-bar dives were also being brazenly cannibalized by other players and seemingly overnight incorporated into the arsenal of heavy metal, new wave, pop and even jazz players. Ozzy
Osbourne’s guitarist, Randy Rhoads — who rose to prominence with Quiet Riot on the Hollywood club scene along with Van Halen — was one of many who built upon Ed’s foundation. The 25-year-old Rhoads’ tragic death in a plane crash on March 19, 1982, temporarily led to his superseding Ed as rock’s preeminent guitarist.
But if he felt threatened in any way by Rhoads — or any of the other up-and-coming guitar virtuosos — he didn’t show it. In fact, Ed went out of his way to befriend a number of guitar-playing peers he respected.
During the spring of 1982, one in particular caught his attention: the British jazz-fusion/progressive-rock guitarist Allan Holdsworth, whom Ed had met on tour in 1978. Holdsworth’s outlandish choice of notes and sophisticated left-handed legato work that produced horn-like tones and timbres captivated him like nothing since Eric Clapton’s playing in his Cream years. He was thrilled when he discovered that Holdsworth was moving to Southern California, and Ed was determined to jam with him — and perhaps produce a record for him on Warner Bros.
“I took [him] to some meetings and somehow he ended up spending the night at my house,” Ed recalled. “When we woke up, Allan said, ‘Shit, I have to be at GIT [the Guitar Institute of Technology] at noon to do a seminar.’ I raced him down there just in time. Before I knew it, I was onstage with him and his band, and we were both answering questions and playing together. It was quite fun, actually, and very interesting, especially for the students. Because Allan and I play very different, we answered the same questions very differently.”
This incident led to Ed contributing a chapter to the Musicians’ Institute/GIT instruction book Ten, published later that year. The guitarist’s involvement with the Hollywood music school resulted in a surge in enrollment of wannabe rock guitar heroes, who would later form bands that became part of the “hair metal” scene that dominated Los Angeles clubs for the rest of the ’80s. The notable Van Halen–inspired players who studied at GIT included Paul Gilbert (Racer X, Mr. Big) and Dave Kushner (Wasted Youth, Velvet Revolver).
GIT graduates weren’t the only musicians trying to follow in Van Halen’s footsteps to stardom via the now-exploding Hollywood club scene. The band Steeler imported hyperkinetic Euro-shredder Yngwie Malmsteen from Stockholm, Sweden, and Ed’s club days accomplice George Lynch finally found fame with the band Dokken. Ratt and Stryper both worked their way up the scene by starting as house bands at Gazzarri’s, and although Mötley Crüe and Poison might not have had guitarists with Eddie’s chops, they had a similar pop-metal sensibility that eventually made them household names.
A short while after the GIT seminar, Holdsworth invited Van Halen to join him onstage once again for a show at Hollywood’s Roxy Theatre on April 29. Ed jammed with the band during their last song, and backstage after the show he met a young guitarist named Steve Vai, who was playing in Frank Zappa’s band. Vai gave Van Halen his phone number and offered to introduce him to Zappa.
After a series of phone calls the following week, Van Halen, Vai and Zappa convened at Zappa’s home studio. “Oddly enough, Edward lived, like, a mile away from Frank,” Vai recalled. “While we were there, he ran home and came back with the new Van Halen record — I think it was Diver Down — and we listened to it. At Frank’s studio there are just tons of instruments, so Edward started playing, and then Frank started playing, and then I started playing. It wasn’t a song — it was just jamming. It was a lot of fun, and it went on for a while.”
This encounter led to Zappa asking Ed if he would produce a single by his son, Dweezil, who was a huge Van Halen fan. Ed agreed, and a short while later he returned to Zappa’s home studio with engineer Donn Landee. Both were impressed with the sound quality they were able to coax from Zappa’s studio, and after the sessions were finished, the two talked about building a similar studio at Ed’s house. Having such a facility literally in his backyard would provide Ed with an ideal place to capture and work on ideas, leading to his reestablishment as the driving force behind Van Halen’s subsequent albums. Thus, the concept for 5150 was born.
Around this time, Van Halen also frequently hung out with studio guitarist and Toto member Steve Lukather, one of the handful of players Ed respected. In addition to his membership in a chart-topping band, Lukather had recorded hundreds of sessions with rock, pop, jazz and funk artists, including ripping solos on hits from Olivia Newton-John’s “Physical” to “Talk to Ya Later” by the Tubes.
In 1982, Lukather was working in the studio with R&B giant Michael Jackson and legendary producer Quincy Jones on an album tentatively called Thriller. Jones suggested Jackson compose a rock song, in the hope that it would cross over to MTV and the white teenage market. Jackson wrote “Beat It” and came up with the idea of having Eddie Van Halen play a guitar solo on the song.
When Jones first called Edward to inform him of Jackson’s request, the guitarist thought it was a prank call and slammed down the receiver. This scenario repeated itself several times before Ed stayed on the line long enough to realize that it actually was the real Quincy Jones. Jackson and Jones dropped by the Coldwater Canyon house a few days later to play a rough version of “Beat It” for him, and, liking what he heard, Ed agreed to record a solo.
Since his bandmates were all away on vacation, Ed was unable to ask how they felt about his playing on the record. Truth be told, he didn’t think too much about it. He was bored, had time on his hands, and it sounded like fun to work with Jones and Jackson. Besides, who’d ever notice his contribution to an R&B dance record?
The entire session took a mere two hours, and during that time Ed would write a new section for the song and record a 30-second solo [see sidebar, page 46]. The whole thing happened so quickly, Ed was too embarrassed to ask for compensation, but in an attempt to hide his infidelity from his bandmates, he did request that he not be credited on the album sleeve.
It didn’t quite work out that way. “Beat It” went on to become a chart-topping, worldwide explosion of a song, winning Record of the Year at the 1984 Grammy Awards. Even though Ed’s name was buried among the inner sleeve credits, the doorbell
“I WASN’T GOING TO ALLOW THEM TO CONTROL ME ANYMORE” — EDDIE VAN HALEN
harmonics, distinctive vibrato-bar dips and frantic tapping could be the work of only one man.
David Lee Roth later was the first to take notice. “I was in a 7-Eleven parking lot,” he recalled. “There were a couple of butch Mexican gals with the doors open of their pickup truck, and the new Michael Jackson song ‘Beat It’ came on. I heard the guitar solo and thought, Now that sounds familiar. Somebody’s ripping off Ed Van Halen’s licks. It was Ed, turns out, and he had gone and done the project without discussing it with anybody, feeling as though I would stand in the way. Actually, I wouldn’t have at all. Quincy Jones is stellar company. If you’re going to do something, climb the big one.”
Ed’s brother Al and bassist Michael Anthony were equally forgiving — it was hard to criticize something that was exploding into a global phenomenon. And the crossover to the Black listening market was beneficial for the Van Halen brand.
The band’s Hide Your Sheep tour commenced on July 14, 1982, in Augusta, Georgia, and they remained focused on performing through mid-February of 1983, as the dates extended into their first-ever concerts in South America. After the band wrapped up the tour in Buenos Aires, Roth remained behind to go on an adventure up the Amazon River, giving Ed a few weeks of freedom to make some finishing touches on his 5150 studio and get a head start on Van Halen’s next album.
Working mostly by himself, with Donn Landee behind the mixing board and Alex laying down drum tracks on a few occasions, Ed felt free to express himself as he never had before. The first tracks he recorded were synthesizer parts that became the genesis of “Jump.” Ed’s new fascination with keyboards would later become the source of much intraband tension during the album’s recording, but because Ed owned the studio, the naysayers couldn’t do much about it.
While Roth was still stranded up the Amazon, picking fire ants from his G-string (no wonder he selected Western Exterminator’s intimidating
“SOMEBODY’S RIPPING OFF ED VAN HALEN’S LICKS. IT WAS ED, TURNS OUT” — DAVID LEE ROTH
hammer-toting “Mr. Little” character as the 1984 tour’s mascot), Ed made yet another extracurricular guest appearance. In April 1983, he joined Queen guitarist Brian May and an ersatz band of Hollywood session pros at L.A.’s Record Plant Studios to record three songs, including a 12-minute blues jam called “Blues Breaker,” a tribute to Eric Clapton, an early inspiration of both guitarists.
“After we played, [Brian May] called me up about four months later and asked what I thought about putting the stuff out,” Eddie recalled. “I said, ‘Send me a tape, let me hear it first,’ because I didn’t remember how it went. He did and I said, ‘Sure, what the hell? It reeks of fun.’”
Meanwhile, manager Noel Monk announced that Van Halen would be playing at the second US Festival, scheduled for Memorial Day weekend in nearby Devore, California. The band’s headlining set was billed as “The Musical Event of the ’80s” and netted them a record $1.5 million. Playing for just two hours, Van Halen would gross more than they owed Warner Bros. in expenses from their first year with the label. Work on the album came to a halt as Van Halen shifted gears to put together its biggest stage production to date and rehearsed for the show.
On Sunday, May 29, Van Halen took the stage at Devore to close “Heavy Metal Day,” the middle slot of the festival, bookended by “New Wave Day,” headlined by the Clash, and “Rock Day,” headlined by David Bowie. The festival stage covered more square footage than the footprint of entire clubs the band had played only six years earlier, and their 500-plus backstage guest list was bigger than most of those clubs’ attendance capacities. The crowd that showed up, estimated at more than 300,000 people, was the largest the band had ever seen.
Unfortunately, most of the work that went into preparing for the show, including rehearsals, went down the tubes when the band members — particularly David Lee Roth — overindulged during the preconcert festivities. Roth performed like the second coming of Johnny Rotten, slurring his words when he remembered them, scatting guttural noises when he didn’t, and berating hecklers by threatening to fuck their girlfriends. Even heavy postproduction editing couldn’t hide the ugliness captured by television cameras and later broadcast as select segments on Showtime.
Although Van Halen’s US Festival performance was far from their best, fans didn’t seem to care. The camera loved Roth even in his most inebriated state, and the exposure — particularly the overexposure of the singer’s bare ass cheeks in chaps — made Van Halen bigger stars than ever. MTV might have banned the “Pretty Woman” video, but they still loved Van Halen. The music channel went on to play a critical role in the success of Van Halen’s next album.
As work on the album that was to become 1984 progressed, the band was splintering into separate factions. The partnership between Ed and Donn Landee had become particularly tight, with the two working together after hours almost every night. Alex was a part of this grouping almost by default — he was Ed’s brother. On the other side were Roth and producer Ted Templeman, who both found their input increasingly overruled by the guitarist. Roth, meanwhile, bonded with the band’s lighting and creative director, Pete Angelus — a pairing that blossomed later when the two became the producers of Van Halen’s music videos.
Amid all this creative tension, Van Halen somehow managed to deliver its masterpiece, 1984. The album missed its planned New Year’s Eve release date by a little more than a week, coming out on January 9, 1984, but by then the advance single “Jump” was working its way up the charts. By the end of February, it reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100, the only Van Halen song to do so. The album itself peaked at number two, with only Michael Jackson’s Thriller ahead of it. The irony that Ed’s contribution to “Beat It” probably kept their own album from reaching number one was not lost on the band.