Of the most anticipated reunions of the last five years,
certainly the most lucrative – speaking in financial
terms – has been a reawakening of the mighty rock
behemoth that terrorized the eighties by the name of Van
Halen. The Van Halen unit, dubbed after the two Van Halen
brothers working at its core through countless lineup changes,
defined rock music and determined pop trends for the eighties.
The simple multi-million dollar question is: can it do the
same again?
The answer may perhaps be found in the band’s own
colourful history. Young Eddie and Alex Van Halen were encouraged
on the piano by their jazz player father who harbored the
ambition that they might become good concert musicians.
Eddie graduated to drums and Alex to guitar. Then they switched
instruments – if they hadn’t the musical landscape
of today, might’ve been very different. When they
set out in the seventies, Michael Anthony joined them on
bass and a loudmouthed surgical orderly by the name of David
Lee Roth took on vocals. From high school parties, the band
moved to play the Hollywood club circuit and it is here
that they were “discovered.” Their self-titled
debut, Van Halen, was released in 1978 – the band
was also considering the name Rat Salad – and effortlessly
went on to become platinum thanks to a frenzied American
public.
The technique Eddie used went on to become guitar standard,
something that is now quaintly referred to as “tapping.”
The song Eruption set the tone of the future with Eddie’s
heavy guitar solo – he played that on a giant metal
“thing” of a guitar that he assembled himself!
Eruption served as intro to a cover version of the Kink’s
classic, You Really Got Me, and it went on to become the
de facto standard version of the song.
Further releases also went platinum several times over:
Van Halen II, Women and Children, Fair Warning and Divers
Down. The 1984 album (released in 1984), with hits Jump,
Panama and Hot for Teacher made them superstars. Van Halen
mania can be judged from the fact that Mayor Sara Robertson
in Worchester declared October 15, 1982, Van Halen Day,
after a radio station sponsored a 25,000 signature petition
to get the band to do an extra show.
Things were to fall apart, as they normally do. In 1984,
David Lee Roth quit to form his own band – rumor has
it he informed the others on April Fool’s day. The
band picked up Montrose vocalist, Sammy Hagar and soldiered
on for another decade. More multi-platinum releases followed:
5150, 1998, For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge, LIVE: Right Here
Right Now and Balance.
Things were to fall apart again: age finally caught up
with the rockers and multiple issues coalesced in 1995.
Side projects, solo shows and physical ailments contributed
to rising temperatures. Sammy Hagar left. The band tried
out Gary Cherone from Extreme but things didn’t work
out. Nor did another session with David Lee Roth. Van Halen
went into hibernation.
The band’s association with legendary rockers KISS
makes an interesting bit of trivia: not only was the band
patronized by KISS bassist Gene Simmons himself to the extent
of him personally financing their very first demo tape,
but also years later, KISS encyclopedia Kisstory reveals
that at a certain time early in the band’s career,
stifled in Van Halen, Eddie Van Halen was seriously interested
in becoming Ace Frehley’s replacement in KISS.
More common knowledge is Van Halen’s association
with a certain gloved freak/hero who almost effortlessly
rose to become the undisputed king of pop music for two
straight decades. Eddie Van Halen played guest guitarist
on a track in Michael Jackson’s Thriller LP, which
went to sell more than any other album in history. The track
itself, Beat It, is one of the most recognizable songs in
our pop/rock collective memory, thanks to MTV setting it
on almost non-stop rotation. Eddie himself didn’t
show up in the video for Beat It, but the song’s sheer
popularity made him a household name – and far more
importantly, shred guitar play caught on like wildfire.
This episode is one of the several many ways that Michael
Jackson has decisively altered the course of mainstream
music: previously pop music was not entirely too keen on
guitar as lead, that being an instrument best left handled
by the rock camp; but almost overnight, a hot guitar lead
was to become mandatory for pop fare and a whole generation
of Van Halen clones were to take the eighties by storm.
MTV was to capture this trend in its highly popular Headbanger’s
Ball show, a weekly three-hour rockfest featuring the best
the day had to offer – it’s still made today
but is little more than a shadow of the original show. This
was the end of disco and punk – thankfully –
and a whole generation of youngsters opted for rock as their
poison of choice – and we owe it all to the guitar
muscle of Eddie Van Halen.
Also of note to many rock freaks is what is easily considered
one of the most powerful bills in rock festival history:
the Monsters of Rock Festival in Donnington, Britain, 1984
headlining Van Halen and featuring on that same day AC/DC,
Motley Crue and Accept – these acts played the same
day! It is not possible to imagine a more potent combo of
rockers showcased at such appropriate moments in their careers,
at the pinnacle of their creative powers, before the decay
of success and excess sets in – bands of such stature
simply aren’t made anymore.
Reunion talk culminated in the real thing in 2004 with
the return of Sammy Hagar, a highly recommended two-volume
greatest hits release featuring three new songs and an album
in the works. Van Halen is the biggest touring sensation
right now. It remains to be seen if they can pick up from
where they left off – several aging rockers have returned
to great sales but mediocre releases, namely Black Sabbath,
Iron Maiden, etc. Van Halen has a limited style but they
have done a bit of experimentation with synthesizers and
different genres in their time and there’s more than
just one great musician in the band. This just might be
the real thing, but then again…
