van halen

Van Halen caused a seismic shift in rock music with the revolutionary fretboard pyrotechnics and fiery flamboyance of this utterly original eruption.  Brothers Eddie and Alex Van Halen were born in Holland and moved to California where they started playing around locally.  Eddie says:  "We played some outrageous parties. It used to just be me and Alex on drums and a different bass player. We used to be called Mammoth. I got tired of singing. I used to lead sing, you know, and I couldn't stand that crap! I'd rather just play. So Dave was in another local band, and we used to rent his P.A. We said, 'It's much cheaper if we just get him in the band!' So we got Dave in the band, and then we were playing this gig with Michael Anthony’s band – a group called Snake. They opened for us. We were all tripped out, because he was lead singing for his band and fronting his own band. Dave was fronting his own band. Then we all just kind of hooked together."

 One night during their several month stint at the Starwood, Marshall Berle connected them with record company bigwigs:   "All of a sudden Marshall walks in with [producer] Ted Templeman and [Warner Bros. executive] Mo Austin. I mean, it was heavy. Because I remember talking to other bands, and they've always been trying to get Ted to produce their records, but he only works inside of Warner Brothers. He doesn't produce other acts. And there he was. He said, 'Hey, it was great, man.' And within a week we were signed. It was right out of the movies, man, because really… Well, we made a tape once with Gene Simmons from Kiss. We flew to New York with them, and nothing really ever came of it, because we didn't know where the hell to take our tape. So we had a bitchin' sounding tape -- the world's most expensive demo tape, which he paid for. We didn't know where to take it. We didn't start walking around knocking on people's doors, pushing ourselves on them, saying, 'Hey, sign us, sign us!' We just kept playing everywhere, and eventually they came to us."

'Van Halen' was produced by Ted Templeman at Sunset Sound Recorders in Hollywood with David Lee Roth on lead vocals and acoustic guitar; Eddie Van Halen on guitar and backing vocals; Michael Anthony on bass guitar and backing vocals; and Alex Van Halen on drums.  According to Eddie, the sessions took:  "Three weeks. The album is very live with no overdubs – that's the magic of Ted Templeman. I'd say out of the ten songs on the record, I overdubbed the solo in two or three songs. One of them's doubled in 'Ice Cream Man' and 'Jamie's Cryin'.  All the rest are live! I used the same equipment I use live, the one guitar, soloed during the rhythm track, and Al just played one set of drums. And Mike, you know. And Dave stood in the booth and sang a lot of lead vocals at the same time. The only thing we did overdub was the backing vocals, because you can't play in the same room and sing with the amps – otherwise it will bleed on the mikes. The music, I'd say, took a week, including 'Jamie's Cryin', which we wrote in the studio – I had the basic riffs to the song. And my guitar solo, 'Eruption', wasn't really planned to be on the record. Me and Al were dickin' around rehearsing for a show we had to do at the Whiskey, so I was warming up, you know, practicing my solo, and Ted walks in. He goes, 'Hey, what's that?' I go, 'That's a little solo thing I do live.' He goes, 'Hey, it's great. Put it on the record.' So the music took a week, the singing took about two."

'Van Halen' charted at number nineteen and went on to sell more than ten million copies in the US.  David explains their crossover appeal:   "We're the band that sold a Ricky Ricardo rhumba in 'Jamie's Cryin'. Dance the Night Away is Santana, because we used to play all those weddings and those dances at the backyard parties ... I can point for you and go: right there we're imitating Eric Clapton; right there I'm imitating vocally David Bowie; right there is Bruce Springsteen -'Diamond Dave, you're a big man!' - but this is how you create a signature sound. If you're lucky to have it, there's no way around it. I actively imitated everything from the Nicholas Brothers tap dancing to Mick Jagger going 'Oooh yeah!' But because of whatever it never sounds like anything to you but David Lee. And when Edward plays you might never have heard the material before but you instantly recognise it as fast as, say, Jimi's guitar ... Metal is a bit specific.  The neighborhoods we grew up, learning, acquiring musical knowledge, were very separate neighborhoods, unlike, for example, New York City where Mr Chin lives next to Mr Steinberg who owes rent to Mr Patel and they all speak Serbo-Croatian. It's just the school system. Here [in California], the Venice Beach surf neighborhood is very different than San Bernadino Hell's Angels. Below south of the harbor freeway: 'Que pasa? What are you looking at?' And that all works into Van Halen. You can hear it - it's loudly diverse but you can't feel the seams. It's like if you go to a car show and you Stevie Wonder it: you can't feel where the Chevy turned into a Mercedes door frame which turned into – that's a De Soto grill! – 'That's my girlfriend loco! What are you doing?'  All those different neighborhoods add up into the sound, and to say it's one kind of sound – no! It's so much of a hybrid that you have to give it its own name."

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'Van Halen'
full album





All tracks written by Eddie Van Halen, Alex Van Halen, David Lee Roth and Michael Anthony, except where noted.

Side one
1. "Runnin' with the Devil" 3:36
2. "Eruption" (instrumental) 1:42
3. "You Really Got Me" (writer: Ray Davies) 2:38
4. "Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love" 3:50
5. "I'm the One" 3:47
Side two
6. "Jamie's Cryin'" 3:31
7. "Atomic Punk" 3:02
8. "Feel Your Love Tonight" 3:43
9. "Little Dreamer" 3:23
10. "Ice Cream Man" (writer: John Brim) 3:20
11. "On Fire" 3:01