Latest / Booked On Rock with Eric Senich / "Van Halen: Every Album, Every Song"/Morgan Brown [Episode 129]

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"Van Halen: Every Album, Every Song"/Morgan Brown [Episode 129] · Booked On Rock with Eric Senich

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Oh we're roll. I mean I'll leave you do you're reading little hands.
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It's time to run and roll roll. We are totally booked. Welcome to
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book down Rock, the podcast for those about to read and rock. Subscribe
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and follow on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok videos weekly
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links to all the social media sites at booked on rock dot com. Morgan
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Brown is our guests to talk about his new book, Van Halen, Every
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Album, Every Song. Van Halen is undoubtedly one of the most influential rock
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and roll bands America has ever seen. Morgan takes readers through the band's classic
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albums, charting their ascent from sunset strip amateurs to chart topping arena rockers and
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beyond, exploring the components of their music and its inspirations, as well as
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introducing us to the musicians behind the songs, including the late Edward van Halen,
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the one of a confrontman, David lee Off, and Sammy Hagar,
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who revitalized the band when he took the reins. This book is perfect for
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new fans and longtime fans like myself. I put together a playlist to Van
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Halen, which you can find on the show notes page. But first here
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is Morgan Brown. Morgan, welcome to the podcast. Hello, thanks so
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much for having me. Always great to talk to a fellow van Halen fan.
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I want to talk about your history as a fan of Van Halen and
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being from the UK. It's interesting because here in the States van Halen toured
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all the time, you know, almost year in and year out for a
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while they're into early days with Dave, But in the UK was different.
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After that seventy eight tour, I think maybe a few times they came around.
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When did you become a fan and what kind of fan base did the
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band have in the UK when you were growing Yeah, it's an interesting one
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that I think they definitely they've had some success in the UK, but nowhere
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near the kind of sort of cultural saturation that you get in the States,
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I think, so there definitely is a kid I had to do a bit
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of detective work to find out about Van Halen. I guess the first thing
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I would have heard Eddie van Halen playing on would have been beat It.
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I guess that that came out when I was about four years old, so
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that was always in the background all the way through, Like as long as
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I was aware of popular music really, and I started to get interested in
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the guitar, kind of realized that what is this amazing guitar solo? Had
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to do some digging around to find out who played it, and then realized
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that it was a band called van Halen, that that must be the band
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that this guy's from, went and found a cassette. I went to Woolworths,
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which was like the nearest place that had any music. I was nine
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years old, I think, saved up my pocket money and they had two
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Van Halen albums, one of which was van Halen two, one of which
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was All You eight one two, which I guess had just come out around
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that time. Being completely clueless, I just went for the newest one.
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I was like, well, the newest one must be the best, right,
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But I thought it was amazing. I never heard anything like it.
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Obviously, I wasn't like nine years old. Just completely blew my head off,
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and then obviously saved up my pocket money again to go back and buy
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Van Halen two. I didn't know they had two different singers, so it's
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completely different. I was like, what's going on? And then gradually,
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you know, read everything I could, bought every record I could find and
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went from there. Really, But isn't that interesting though, I mean,
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that's so interesting because here in the States it would be really a whole different
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story. It's I heard Eruption for the first time, you know, or
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my older brother like for me, my older brother played Eruption, or a
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lot of the older generation would say I saw the band on the strip Sunset
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Strip. But for me, I discovered them in eighty eight and it was
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through oh eight one two my friends kept banging. I mean, man,
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you gotta listen to this. You gotta listen to this. That's my personal
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favorite Sammy era album. So not a bad way to start. And Van
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Halen two is a great album as well. It's it's underrated because of Van
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Halen one. It's it's a great yeah, yeah, great collection of songs.
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But yeah, how about that it all starts with Michael Jackson and the
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beat it solo. Yeah, that's interesting. You couldn't get off to a
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better start to a recording career than this band did with that seventy eight self
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titled debut, released February tenth, nineteen seventy eight, reached number nineteen,
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went on to sell ten million copies. Ted Templement the producer engineered by Don
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Landi an important name in van Halen history. They would be the team behind
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the sound of Van Hallen for all of the Roth era albums, and this
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album has timeless classics radio staples running with the Devil you Really Got Me,
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Ain't talking about Love, Jamie's Crying ice Cream Man, the album tracks I'm
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the One, Atomic Punk, feel Your Love Tonight, Little Dreamer on Fire,
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and then there is the instrumental you may have heard of called eruption,
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And as you point out in the book, there are hints of Dick Dale's
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surf rock, some classical influences, and a nod to the band Cactus.
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Can you talk about those influences and the techniques that Eddie's using here to create
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Eruption you write about that, Yeah, absolutely. I mean I've obviously,
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like a lot of Van Halen fans, I've played guitar for for years,
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so I've just always been an in awe of his playing. And yeah,
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I believe some of the first pop sort of popular music that the Van Halen
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brothers would have got into when they came to the States was was surf music.
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I guess that was the sound of California at that point. Dick Dale
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definitely with that sort of high speed tremil or picking. That's like definitely the
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influential sounding surf and I think Eddie's like speedy tremill all that you do get
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in Eruption and a lot of his other playing. I'd like to think that
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probably comes from that. I'm not one hundred pop. I don't think I've
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ever read him talking about dig Dale, but I've definitely read him the interviews
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where he's said that, you know, he grew up with with surf music,
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and that would have definitely been in the background. But then yeah,
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once you get into the the two handed tapping section, obviously that's the technique
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that's most closely associated with Eddie van Halen. All though as I think I
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say, there were other people who've been experimenting with that for years before,
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I don't think there's ever anyone who really sort of incorporated it into their whole
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style in the way that Eddie had. And he's pulling out these sort of
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neoclassical kind of triplets that it's like something out of Bark the Code Progression.
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It's it's something you don't really hear in heavy rock, or certainly didn't at
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that time. I just listened to some interviews Jazz Obrek. The Rock Journalists
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has been releasing a lot of these audio interviews with ed from late seventies or
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nineteen eighty eighty one, and one of them, Eddie's talking about how he
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was listening to classical music. I was so into it. It certainly was
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something that was part of his just one part of the influences that he had
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that went into his sound. I mean, the guy was brilliant. Yeah,
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absolutely. It's funny he really trying to pick apart these influences because it
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could be particular, particularly early on it. It's quite cagy about letting too
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much slip about what had influenced his style. I think he was really worried
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about other people trying to mimic him, But you can really tell he was
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just absorbing everything and things that he heard. He'd just find a way of
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reproducing, even if it's a totally different to the way the person who he'd
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heard would have done it. And you'd definitely see that later on as well,
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with things like the intro to the little guitars as well. He could
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just hear something and reproduce it perfectly, even by a totally different means.
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Do you have a personal favorite track from Van Hill in one and why that
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is tough? Yeah, it probably changes on a daily basis. I'd often
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go back to Feel Your Love Tonight, just because I think it's a magnificent
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pop song really as much as anything. I think one of the things that
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really set the band apart from their contemporaries was just combining this really kind of
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hard hitting rock but with these gleaming pot melodies. I mean, the tunes
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could have been some kind of bubblegum song really, but it's always got that
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rock solid kind of base to it that just makes it the perfect kind of
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meldinge. Really. It's almost like a Beach Boys influence in there with yeah
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absolutely, yeah, yeah, always Michael Anthony on top there stopping that kind
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of little special kind of shine. It's not it's not easy, but I
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would say, since I put you to the challenge, I should come up
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with mine. I guess just because I've been burned out on the hits,
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you know, the ones that have been on the radio, I usually gravitate
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towards I think on fire. The deep tracks are the ones that didn't get
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a lot of airplay. I would say, I love, but you just
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can't. There isn't anything one of those albums where you say, would would
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you do anything different? Or do you do you think is there anything on
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there you would remove or add? It's really nothing, Yeah, absolutely that
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it's it's just perfectly sequenced. It's every trucks an absolutely killer. They arrived
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sort of fully formed, really that. I think they've had a good long
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gestation period to work out any kind of any any thinks that need to be
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removed, and by the time they arrived, everything was absolutely in place,
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wasn't it playing them in the clubs with the exception of Jamie's Cry, and
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that was the one that they came up with at the time. So let's
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talk about the second album nineteen seventy nine, it's released. You say that
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the band is stretching out here and you write quote for me, it strikes
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a perfect balance between radio friendly fun and more intense aggressive material. Dance the
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Night Away still one of my all time favorite DH tunes. Beautiful Girls.
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Those are the two big singles. Somebody Get Me a Doctor Out of Love
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again Light Up the Sky Classic. They led with that on the twenty fifteen
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tour, that last tour, Women in Love DA and another instrumental, the
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Accousa track Spanish Fly Dance the Night Away my personal favorite top twenty hit number
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fifteen. Interesting comment you make in the book about that when it's about the
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riff Eddie plays, it's based on major triads rather than typical heavy rock power
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chords. Can you talk about that? Yeah, I mean it's probably a
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bit of a sort of nerdy guitar thing really both. Yeah, you don't
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get certainly at the time, and it didn't really get much in the way
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it kind of break kind of major chords in heavy rock. There's a bit
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of a kind of received wisdom among guitar players that, oh, you just
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play the root in the fifth, that that gives you a power, it
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sounds tops. You don't don't want to play the third. It's meant to
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make clashing harmonics with distortion and everything, and it's it's nonsense, obviously,
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as Eddie proves right away in that song. It's just he plays major chords
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all the way through and it sounds glorious and it still sounds powerful as well.
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It's just powerful without doing heavy rock cliche. Yeah, and it still
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feels like you're in the room with these guys recording those albums at Sunset Sound.
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They sound so good. I mean Ted Templeman did a beautiful job just
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knowing to let them set up as pretty much as they would live and just
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record it that way. I mean, if you compare it to like the
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demo they did with Gene Simmons, which is very much kind of everyone's everyone's
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going to record their parts separately and we'll overdup this, and we'll overdup this.
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It still sounds great because it's Van Halen, but it's it's a much
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more artificial sound and much less natural. Nineteen eighties women and children first,
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here's an interesting album. It's overlooked, I would say by many, and
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the credible will rock and everybody wants on. Those are the standout tracks.
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One of my all time favorite Van Hillen tracks that few know about is Romeo
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Delight, and they brought that back when they returned with Dave and Wolf Kang.
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He made up the set list for those tours and that's one he wanted
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in there. And take your whiskey home too. Your thoughts on this album,
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you say it falls into a valley between the second album and the next
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album, fair Warning, in a way, I guess because there's just there's
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a shift towards the darker tone, which kind of really comes out on the
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next album. But I love it. It's got its own character. It's
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definitely it's the rawst, heaviest kind of record that they made. I think
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definitely sounds like they just kind of come off tour and they've run into the
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studio when it just ripped through these songs. Pictures exactly what they did.
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But it's like there's definitely noticeably less of the pop edges, there's less of
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the harmonies, but just amazing riffs, so much power. I think that's
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that's the overwriting kind of impression from it, although you still get the odd
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outlier like could this be Magic? Just to add a little contrast there.
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Yeah, that's it's a song like that that I always think of. That
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album is where they're really they're starting to stretch out. She's trying to do
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some things. But then we get to fair Warning, and this is many
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say this is Eddie at his finest moment. Nineteen eighty one's Fair Warning,
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and as you point out in the book, it's noticeably darker and heavier.
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It's the slowest selling of the Roth era albums. Yet all these years later,
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many Van Hillen diehards. They see it as the band Eddie specifically at
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their best main Street Unchained, So this is Love? Here about it later
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the highlights? Where do you place it among Van Hillen's discography? A lot
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of days it's my favorite gained mainStreet sect. You can't go wrong really and
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but it's still got still got popping moments. So this is Love, I
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think is a terrific I don't don't know how that wasn't a gigantic single.
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I think I speculated that maybe the rather disturbing pictures leave might have put people
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off the do a song cale, So this is Love and have a picture
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of someone being beaten up on the front cover. Yeah, I know it
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is. Yeah that that was chosen by Alex too. What is Eddie doing
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to create that guitar sound on Unchained? I think because this is really probably
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his greatest moment. He's using a drop D tuning, which I guess is
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pretty common now in heavier stales of guitar playing, but playing again major major
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treads over that, like shifting around while keeping that kind of low heavy d
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kind of chugging away underneath, and think he's got a flanger on there too,
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which is like a major part of his sound in those days. And
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it's just it sounds like the world end in that guitar sound. It's amazing.
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A few more overdubs than previously on this album. I think him and
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Don Landy had had formed a bit of a closer relationship, so they were
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spending late evenings in the studio just adding extra lay as while everyone else was
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off partying, and it does make for a bit of a denser, kind
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of darker sounding record. Years ago, I remember hearing a rumor that Eddie
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put a bass string in the guitar to get that sound, but that was
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like an urban legend everything. But yeah, it sounds you know, it's
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like what is he well, that was the thing that was so great about
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It's like, what is he doing there? You know, what isn't I'm
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even hearing others. I think that was often the case with with things that
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was playing A lot of the time. It was just doing something for the
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first time that just no one else had ever thought of, and it's did
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the constant just jaw dropping moments on the guitar. Definitely. You do speak
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in defense of Dave's vocals later in the book, but I also want to
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ask you about your thoughts on his vocals during these first six albums those days.
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I thought it was just so unique to the Vane Hill and sound.
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Absolutely, I think he's such an essential part of the van Hill and sound.
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I get really annoyed when people, oh, well, you know Dave
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as a showman, but Sammy could really sing it. Dave could really sing.
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I don't think it's a natural single like Sammy Hagar. I think he
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really had to work on it. But there's he brought so much to the
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band. There's so many different influences in his vocals. You hear bits of
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bits of old style blues, he hear bits of soul in there. There's
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a real showbiz kind of vaudeville style that he brings sometimes he can. And
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he's a great interpreter of songs as well. I think he rather than just
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sort of going out there and showing off, he really inhabits the lyrics.
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So one minute he's he can just be delivering this kind of powerful good l
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shout, and then the next minute he can sound really tender and vulnerable,
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so I don't be gets something people associate with him. But if you listen
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to Push Comes to Shove from that album, that's that's such a I think,
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really sensitive performance, which isn't something you'd think from from davely Wroth.
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But and another song that we're going to talk about, Secrets from Diver Down
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too. Absolutely yeah. Yeah. And also the humor of course, you
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know, hey man, that soon is you. You know that all that
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stuff is just classic. It's classic. And we talked about unchained that that
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high note he hits right there. Yeah. And it's also important to remember
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too, he wrote these songs with Ed. Yeah. Absolutely, I think
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I don't think he really gets the credit that he deserves for a the lyrics,
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which I think are often brilliant, and the melodies as well, because
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I think people just think, oh, yeah, he wrote wrote the music,
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but yeah, he wrote the riffs and the chords. But Dave robe
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those melodies and they're great melodies. Now, the band's under pressure here from
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Warner Brothers to come up with another record after the band released the cover of
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Roy Orbison's Pretty Woman. Not a lot of time, so we have covers
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of the Kinks, Where of all the good Times Gone? The Martha and
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the Vandella song Dancing in the Street, Big Bad Bill of Sweet William,
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Now that dates back to nineteen twenty four. But I think this album gets
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a bad rap, unfairly labeled as a covers album. You've got some killer
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originals, hang them high secrets. We just mentioned little Guitars, you mentioned
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the full bug is on this album as good as anything you'll hear from the
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band. Is this an underrated album in your opinion or other critics? Right?
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Usually underrated? Yeah, to this day. I mean I'm in loads
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of van Hat owned fan groups and now I'll still see people kind of go
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oh, is the worst the worst album by the original lineup? But it's
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great. It's so good, as you say, all of the originals on
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there, like there's not a dut moment. Every every song is pretty much
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a classic. And I think those covers are superb as well. Really just
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shows it's kind of shows them just expanding the range a bit. You know,
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I don't think any other and in that genre could have done the things
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that they did on that album, Big Bad Bill. It's you know,
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some people will find it to be a novelty song and won't won't like you.
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But I just think it's great. They carry it off so well.
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You know, Dave's made for that kind of stuff. It's really nice hearing
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their father Yan playing with his sons. And Yeah, also, although I
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know Ed was really not into making an album at all, it's got some
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of his best playing on it. He covers so much ground and everything he
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plays is absolutely perfect. If the Best of Volume one they came out ninety
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six, he omitted that album entirely. If you were to pick one to
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put into that Best of what would you have chosen? Pretty Woman Dancing in
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the Streets because that's Dancing in the Streets is my personal favorite cover. But
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I'm in the minority on that one. It's great. Yeah, I think
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the way they incorporated that Syndergriff into that and just completely transformed that song is
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spectacular. He threw those would have been a good, great emission in that.
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But I would have like to see one of the originals in there too.
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Yeah, I was if I was making that. Yeah, I mean,
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I guess if you're going to go with the numbers, then you would
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go with pretty Woman because that was the biggest hit. But yeah, yeah,
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it's just a shame that Eddie felt that way about the album because those
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originals are great, so good. Then we get to and this is why
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we get to what we hear on nineteen eighty four, because finally Eddie's like,
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I'm done. I'm creating my own studio and him and Donald NDI create
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a fifty one fifty studio right there, right where Eddie lives, so he
19:33
can be like a mad scientist, and he's sometimes he never left for like
19:37
days, and there's stories of Ted Templement and David Lee just waiting literally waiting
19:42
on the on the law and there, like when is he coming out?
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But their ascent continues with the album in nineteen eighty four. Now they're the
19:49
biggest rock band in the world. A number two album, ten million copies
19:52
sold. Jump goes to number one Panama, Hot for Teacher, huge on
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radio, huge on MTV. I'll Wait as a hit single, which I
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wish they had made a video for that. I always pictured a video of
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Dave like as a detective or you know, reading the magazine and he's trying
20:08
to track down the girl in the magazine, but never happened. Don't know
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why. But an interesting comment from your book regarding Jump that Mark Farner of
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Grand Funk Rail just recently pointed out as well in an interview. The keyboard
20:21
parts on Jump written from a guitarist approach, and you say he's using the
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same harmonic structure on the keys as he does on the guitar here, Yeah,
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definitely. It's a thing that a lot of those classic Van Hallen griffs
20:33
have built on the same idea, just keeping a solid kind of pedal based
20:37
note going and then moving those again major triads around over the top. So
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it's you could imagine just viewing the keyboard the same way you do the guitar.
20:48
That's kind of what you'd come up with, and it works beautifully.
20:52
It translates perfectly over to the keyboard. Obviously Eddie as well classically trained pianist
20:57
anyway, so he had that advantage which comes out in that instrumental section as
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well, with those elaborate flourishes he gets in there rounding out those hits Tap,
21:07
Jimmy Drab, Dead Legs Girl go on Bad House of Pain. If
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you had to choose between this album and the seventy eight debut, which would
21:15
you say is better, or which is your favorite and why? But me,
21:19
although nineteen eighty four has so many great high points, I'd go back
21:25
to the debut of the two. I think it's more even, the qualities
21:30
more even across the album, and I think sonically it's a bit better two.
21:33
I think that Sunset Sound recording is great. Obviously the fifty on fifty
21:38
allowed Eddie so much more creative control, which is excellent for him, but
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I think they made some compromises because of that. You get Alex starting to
21:48
have to use a scale down kit and like electric drums to fit to physically
21:52
fit into the into the room, which, yeah, it's kind of the
21:56
sound at the time, but it doesn't sounds so good to my ears.
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Now. Interesting points, and they're all valid. I go with nineteen eighty
22:06
four just because from a personal standpoint as a kid seeing the video jump and
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listening to that album for the first time and just being blown away by it,
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I have to go with the nineteen eighty four. But you're right,
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I think from start to finish, the Van Halen debut beats out in nineteen
22:22
eighty four. Because some people will say the House of Pain and Girl Gone
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Bad. Those who are into the pop side of Van Halen, don't like
22:30
those songs. But if you're into the hardcore, have your side of Van
22:33
Halen. It's a welcomed departure from the keyboard stuff. Yeah, I mean
22:37
that the tremendous workouts, particularly for Eddie and Alex, that playing on those
22:42
is just phenomenal. Yeah, great risks. I don't know if as sort
22:48
of whole songs the necessarily as satisfying to some of the songs on that deybut
22:53
but just collections of spectacular moments there, they're incredible and just sing that Wilson
23:02
Pickets in the Midnight Hour was recorded for that album, done, mixed the
23:07
whole thing. It's somewhere in the vaults. I don't know if I will
23:11
hear it, but that would be fascinating to listen to. That would be
23:15
an amazing thing to hear. Yeah, I had the balance of power not
23:19
swung further away from the sort of roth templement side of things, maybe we'd
23:26
we'd have actually got to hear that. Hopefully, if there's going to be
23:29
some archival release in the future, maybe some of these things will actually find
23:32
their way out of the Volts, because I'd love to hear that the book
23:34
Don Rot podcast will return after this. Morgan Brown is here to talk about
23:41
his book Van Halen, Every Album, Every Song. With nineteen eighty six
23:45
and fifty one fifty the band proved they can move on without David Lee Roth
23:48
number one album, huge hit singles here, Sammy Hagar on lead vocals,
23:52
Why can't This be Love? Dreams? Best of both worlds? Love walks
23:56
in Why can't This be Love? Biggest hit of all the singles that reached
24:00
number three. You know the prog fusion influence here, it's when Sammy scats
24:03
along with Eddie's offbeat arpeggio based guitar, synth melody, Ed and Alex were
24:07
big prog fusion fans. We also hear the progressive side of the band in
24:12
the title track to fifty one fifty two. That title track, I think
24:15
it's a it's an influence really that it's been kind of creeping in a little
24:19
bit more over the years preceding that too. I know Eddie was a particular
24:26
fan of Alan Holesworth, and you get some of the more kind of out
24:30
there guitar kind of stiling is kind of coming in that don't sound like sort
24:36
of straight up heavy rock, and I think, yeah, the title track
24:40
fifty one fifty is noticeably a bit more adventurous, just sort of harmonically and
24:45
in terms of the way it moves between different sections and things than some of
24:49
the other tracks on the album. There's otherwise, there's a bit of a
24:52
move more towards what you expect to hear from, kind of a bit more
24:56
of a radio rock band. I always think with fifty one fifty book,
25:00
the title track, I think just keeps that adventurous spirit that you're hearing things
25:04
like go Gone Bad and stuff on the previous album. That keeps that alive
25:10
a little bit. When did you first hear in fifty one fifty and what
25:12
was your impression of it? Because you're a day fan I could tell from
25:15
reading the book. Yeah, yeah, that's I mean as the same my
25:21
first album was. It was a Sammi album. I guess I got fifty
25:26
one fifty about a year after I got that first set. I loved it.
25:33
They could do no wrong for me at the time that everything with an
25:36
all and I just loved it. That's pretty obsessed. I had the vhs
25:41
of Life without the Net as well, so all those live versions, Summer
25:47
Night, those two in particular. Yeah, absolutely incredible. So yeah,
25:52
it was super into it. I bought the Tablisher book, couldn't play any
25:56
of it, but really enjoyed looking at it and imagine, Yeah, it's
26:00
one that I go back to now and it doesn't sound as great as it
26:06
did when I was a kid, but that's that's still of it. Yeah,
26:08
the drums are dated, that's the problem with it, but that was
26:11
what was happening at the time. It was the time, definitely, absolutely
26:15
like I didn't hit that at all when I was when I was, when
26:17
I was a kid, I just thought it sounded amazing. As I said,
26:19
nineteen eighty eight, when Oh You eight, when two came out,
26:22
that's when I became a fan. But it was this specific album, and
26:26
I've told the story many times, but fifty one fifty was the one I
26:30
listened to on Christmas Eve of eighty eight and my older brother had it.
26:34
That was the first time, like the goosebumps, you know, and then
26:37
I went back and got everything else and but Oh You eight when two still
26:41
my personal favorite. Let's get to that one. Another number one album,
26:45
Black and Blue. The lead single that's interesting right here. Interesting choice for
26:48
a first single, and it did go to number thirty four, surprisingly because
26:52
it's not a pop song. Yeah, I feel like they could definitely have
26:57
done better with a different selection. I think I feel like I was probably
27:02
a little bit mean in retrospect to Black and Blue in the book. Now
27:06
thinking back, I loved it. I'd loved everything on this album when I
27:08
first first heard it as my first fan Hill album. Still got still got
27:12
my original cassette and the LP that I bought later when the cassette water out,
27:17
and the T shirt. So I love it well, black and Blue.
27:19
It feels lazy now listening back. It's just it's not very inspired.
27:25
It's a little bit sluggish. The lyrics, which I didn't know what they
27:30
meant when I was nine, Now I do know what they mean. The
27:34
kind of made me cringe. He's admitted the lyrics and on this one,
27:38
and I think it was also on What was a Source of Infection. Yeah,
27:45
he could have done better on But he had said the reason for the
27:49
Black and Blue being a lead single was just because, like he said,
27:52
he we just had we just had the balls to do it, like we
27:56
just we're going to do the opposite of what the label wanted us to like.
28:00
On Fight two fifteen, no videos were made When It's Love, of
28:04
course, that's the one that becomes the huge hit number five single, Finish
28:08
What You Started number thirteen, Feel So Good number thirty five. Other standout
28:12
tracks are Mine, All Mine, which I love, Cobble Babble, absolutely
28:17
love. I was happy to read your comments on Feels So Good because I've
28:22
always been a fan of it, but I've been in the minority of it,
28:25
just like with Dancing in the Streets. But I got the feeling you
28:27
would go with this power ballad over when It's Love. Am I right?
28:30
I absolutely would, Yeah, when it's Look. This probably the one song
28:36
that, even when I was in my first blush of ban Halen fandom,
28:40
it was just a little bit on the wempy side. It's something about that
28:47
that particular kind of twinkly electric piano that crops up on so many ballads at
28:52
that point in the eighties that always just sends a little bit of a kind
28:56
of bad shiver down my spine. I'm like, oh, it's yeah,
29:00
it's not not one of my favorites. I understand why it was so great.
29:03
It was successful. It's it's great of it's type, it just doesn't
29:07
really do with me, whereas I think Feels So Good is for me.
29:11
It's a much just a it's a ballsier song. It's sonically, I think
29:19
it's aged a lot better. Yeah, the keyboard just sounds so cool.
29:22
Yeah. I don't think they ever played it live. If they did,
29:26
maybe once or twice. Yeah, it's I don't understand why it's it's so
29:30
underrated because, yeah, excellence on. I think that there's a lot of
29:34
a lot of really good high points on that album. It's for me,
29:37
a big step up over fifty one fifty. There are some low points too,
29:42
but I think overall it's it's It's got plenty of strong parts. It's
29:48
the pushback they got for songs like when It's Love that leads to the next
29:52
one for On Off from Corner Knowledge, like they really wanted to prove they
29:55
could still rock and they did, and the way the nineties started for Van
29:59
Hill and it seemed like they were set for another huge decade. Nineteen ninety
30:03
ones for Unlawful Carnum Knowledge goes to number one. In fact, every Sammi
30:07
album went to number one. The number one rock radio singles pound Cake,
30:11
Run Around, and Top of the World Right Now at number two. Top
30:15
of the World reached number twenty seven on the Hot one hundred. My sleeper
30:19
pick Morgan is Judgment Day. Yeah gets Better, Age gets Better. Yeah,
30:25
Yeah, it's it's it's strongly, it's a great, great riff.
30:30
And you call this album the most consistent album of the same years. Is
30:33
it their best with Sammy? I would say it's the one that I most
30:41
enjoy listening to from start to finish. Definitely. I feel like, you
30:45
know, there are on any pots like when It's Love where I find myself
30:49
kind of going, I kind of wish this wasn't only Yeah, I'm pretty
30:53
happy to just put it on and kind of you know, broke out for
30:57
the entire thing. First one that actually came out while I was an active
31:02
on Hale and Fun, so I was there on the day it came out,
31:06
buying my copy, and yeah, never kind of got quite past that
31:11
that excitement about it. And yeah, there too a tribute to Wolfy three
31:17
sixties Lately Yeah, Yeah, which I guess we first heard in those in
31:23
the midst of the guitar solo on the fifty one fifty tour, and then
31:27
he's repurposed. There's a Little by the Young Wolfie Yeah three sixteen After the
31:33
release of the live album Right Here, Right Now. In ninety three,
31:36
Van Hill and returned for what would be their last studio album with Sammy Hagar
31:38
nineteen ninety five Balance Again, number one, number one mainstream rock track Don't
31:44
Tell Me What Love Can Do, number thirty single, Can't Stop Loving You,
31:47
the number two rock radio single amsterdamn and Not Enough, which reached number
31:51
ninety seven on the Hot one hundred. The seventh Seal, a number thirty
31:55
six mainstream rock track. The bands at odds during the recording of this album.
32:00
An interesting backstory to Don't Tell Me What Love Can Do seem Me and
32:02
Eddie battled over the lyrics, and Eddie one out what was the issue.
32:07
I think Sammy wanted it to be a positive song. He wanted to be
32:09
singing I want to show you what love can do. It's it's sort of
32:15
I think it's written in response to Kirk Cobain. He wanted to sort of
32:21
say I don't I never quite understood what his message was with this, really,
32:25
but I think he wanted to say now that things aren't so bleak.
32:30
Here's what love can do. Things are going to be okay. Or if
32:34
someone if there was someone who really loved him, he would have been okay.
32:37
Yeah, absolutely, you know you could if you if you have love,
32:40
then you know there's no need for this despair. It's all going to
32:44
be all right. And I think Eddie's response to that was no, it's
32:47
whimpy, And then it became, you know, the sort of the exact
32:52
inverse of what Sammy originally wanted it to be. And it is a bleak
32:57
song as a result, I think, but I guess rather more in tune
33:02
with the kind of the sort of fairly downbeat tone of a lot of rock
33:06
at the time. It is a badass reformative though it is. I mean,
33:12
you can't deny its right. It's it's pretty simple, but it sounds
33:15
powerful, and I think a lot of the guitars on that record is really
33:22
trying to get away from kind of the more of the kind of showboat the
33:28
style of a lot of the earlier records and just get into that sort of
33:31
like raw, kind of nasty sounding kind of power that a lot of the
33:36
kind of grunge and post grunge bands that sort of brought in. I think
33:40
there's a lot of tension musically on that record between parts of it that are
33:45
trying to pull back to the more familiar sounds and then parts that are pulling
33:49
away into sort of more contemporary things. It's it's, it's it's an awkward
33:54
listening in that respect, I think because there's a bit of a crisis of
33:58
identity going on. I think, yeah, not a fan and not enough.
34:00
I'm surprised Eddie was okay with those lyrics. You like it, and
34:04
a lot of people like it. I quite liked it. Yeah, I
34:07
think Ballard wise out of the semi era. I prefer it to some of
34:13
the other stuff. Maybe just musically, I don't know. It's got a
34:15
bit more of a kind of a little bit more of a sort of organic
34:20
kind of late Beatles. He failed to me, which would I quite like?
34:22
Ye, my super pick is Aftershock. Yeah you say it doesn't do
34:28
it for me at all? No? Right? Interesting? Yeah, yeah,
34:30
it's so interesting how that can happen. Yes, absolutely, And you
34:34
Can't Stop Loving You was a huge hit. It's a little more well,
34:37
it's one that they asked Eddie to write they said there's no hit, we
34:39
need a hit, Yeah, which shows you how talented he is. Okay,
34:44
here you go, definitely, but why can't I love a little more
34:47
musically sophisticated. It's perfect radio rock, but it kind of feels like it's
34:52
designed to be perfect radio rock. It's it's almost generic, which is something
34:57
Van Hill and never really were at at the peak for me. Well,
35:01
you know, great and people love it rightly. So in the production,
35:07
Bruce Fairbaron on that album, if I always say, if you could have
35:10
put that production, I know you eight one two, WHOA. Well,
35:15
they're remastering all the Sammy era of stuff, so we'll see. It's really
35:17
interesting to see how that comes out. Yeah, because it's long overdue.
35:22
It seems crazy that we've just been listening to the same editions to those for
35:25
all these years. Let's talk about the Dave songs on ninety six is best
35:30
of Volume one. Two songs the band record me Wise Magic and Can't Get
35:36
the Stuff No More? And Dave's back on vocals first time since nineteen eighty
35:39
four. What did you think of them at the time? Have your view
35:42
has changed over the years on those two songs? I think whereas with a
35:46
lot of the Sammi Year of stuff, I just unconditioned. You loved it
35:50
first and then like it maybe a little more conditionally. Now I've gone the
35:55
opposite way with those those Dave songs. I think at the time my expectations
36:00
were so high, unreasonably high, exactly saying I was just bound to be
36:06
a bit disappointed, whereas now I mean to say, can't get the stuff
36:12
no more as a bit more of a grower. It's a it's a bit
36:15
low key. I think people would have not been expecting that, But I
36:19
think it's a really good song. It's it's not spectacular, but it's it's
36:23
got some good stuff going on. And me Wise Magic, I think is
36:28
actually like pretty amazing. Yes, yes, Mawise magic is great. I
36:31
like both love me Wise Magic. But you're right the expectations where we were
36:36
thinking we're going to hear something like old school Van Halen lyrically as much as
36:40
musically, and Dave's writing about some dark stuff. It's amazingly they could even
36:45
get those two songs. Yeah, it's it's remarkable they managed to hold things
36:50
together long enough to to do that. I mean, certainly from everything we've
36:54
seen and heard about that period in time. It's yeah, we're lucky to
36:59
have those. So and by the time they came out, it was already
37:02
done. Like the whole this whole possible Dave coming back thing had already blown
37:07
up. I mean that was done, and we get nineteen ninety eight Van
37:09
Allen three with Gary Sharone, produced by Mike Post, very odd choice best
37:15
known for writing TV theme music. This album has taken quite a beating over
37:19
the years from fans and critics. Michael Anthony was even saying Mike Post he
37:22
wasn't never produced a rock album before, and he looked back on it is
37:27
the only time where they didn't record a song where they were all in the
37:30
same room together, or write a song in the same room together. It
37:32
was just it was just odd and Alex is going through a divorced the whole
37:37
thing. But it did reach number four when it debuted, and the lead
37:40
single, without You that debut at number one on the Mainstream Rock Tracks chart,
37:45
which has often forgotten. You do like the tracks fire in the Whole
37:47
in primary, but overall the album has many problems. What are the reasons
37:52
you feel this album didn't and still doesn't work. I think there a lot
37:57
of issues subtly with it. You know, there were It's still van Halen
38:01
to some extent, so that there are bits that you can find that that
38:06
are worth listening to. But I think Eddie was in a very dark place
38:09
still at the time. You read interviews with him, and he sounds upbeat,
38:14
but it's a kind of manic kind of upbeatness, if you know what
38:17
I mean. It's it seems like he's in a quite fragile state where he
38:23
could just tip over at any moment, and it feels like he's pouring so
38:30
many ideas into the songs that everything ends up being about three times longer than
38:32
it needs to be. Nothing kind of settles into a recognizable hook. Michael
38:38
Antony gets frozen out. He only plays on I think four songs, and
38:43
you can't really hear his voice on there at all if you can, yeah,
38:51
yeah, And I don't even think that that's alexand Fire in the Hall,
38:54
No, I think I think ed definitely played to the drums, and
39:00
there's some program drums in there as well, aren't there, And and then
39:04
garish your own. I'm not the biggest fan of his singing. Anyway,
39:07
but he wasn't really given the chance. I get the impression like there takes
39:13
on there where you think, you know, Garry Shrun can sing this better,
39:16
but they just left this take on, right. I think that to
39:22
some ex sense, probably might post production. It's I don't know if he
39:25
just had the authority to kind of say no, you're going to do this
39:29
again, You're going to do this. There's just no kind of nothing to
39:34
kind of bring everything together there. Direction And what drives me crazy about firing
39:38
the Hall because you're right, it is a really good song and it's really
39:43
more down the lane of Van Hill and as to what we would expect from
39:46
them, But it's so damn thin sounding the drums, even if it is
39:51
on the drums, it doesn't have any balls too. It's like it's so
39:54
thin. Yeah, it's such such a massive riff too. It's like I
40:00
want to feel a bass pedal, you know, I want to I want
40:01
to feel the bassline. You don't feel it at all. It's like it's
40:07
a lot of stuff on the it's just sonically weird and you don't have that
40:12
kind of big, rich kind of warmth that you expect a Van Halen record,
40:15
which you're you know, we're familiar with when you're listening back to those
40:21
those kind of classic Sunset sound albums, and then you put this album that
40:24
theoretically should sound so much better with you know, two decades of advances in
40:30
technology, and it just sounds like a pale pale shadow. I'll give it
40:36
up for Without You, though, I like that one. Yeah, it's
40:39
it's I like I would like Without You if it was like a lot of
40:45
the songs. I think with some fairly severe editing, i'd like Without You
40:50
a lot more. It's everything on there could lose like three minutes. Yeah,
40:57
right, exactly. Yeah, One I Want is good too, But
41:00
again, you're right, the songs are lengthy and a really lacking direction.
41:06
Yeah, just some yeah, confusing additional parts in that just don't need to
41:10
be there. That. Yeah, And I think Van Halen at their peak
41:15
were always so concise, just these perfectly formed kind of three minute songs.
41:21
Just you know, if there's a solo, it's twenty seconds of perfect playing
41:25
rather than two and a half minutes of playing that starts out amazing and then
41:30
meander's off because it's just kept going And yeah, for me, just really
41:37
needed a firm hand to kind of guide it. And then things just went
41:40
dark for years, and it wouldn't be until twenty or four that we give
41:45
van Hill and returning and it's still it's still something's not right. You just
41:50
it's sad because ed was getting worse at that point when you saw pictures of
41:53
them and video of them. Sammy returned to record three new songs for Best
41:59
of Both Worlds was the double album compilation two thousand and four. They were
42:02
supposed to make an album, but it just couldn't even get that done.
42:06
It's about time, Up for Breakfast, Learning to See. Those are the
42:08
three they did record with Sammy. You see you like It's about time and
42:13
learning to see, which I do like those not so hot on up for
42:15
Breakfast And as we know, the Sammy Reunion tour disaster until two thousand and
42:22
seven, again goes dark nothing So now we got David Leeback, it returns
42:28
for the tour. Wolfgang van Halen takes over for Michael Anthony on bass twenty
42:31
twelve. I want to ask you about this album. This is the last
42:35
album we would get from Van Halen, last studio album, A different kind
42:37
of truth. Who would have thought and who would have thought they could pull
42:40
off an album this good. The singles Tattooed and She's the Woman. Blood
42:45
and Fire my sleeper pick from this album, which the album number two?
42:49
Okay cool? Yeah they should have led with that as a single. Always
42:52
finds the history of the band, what they went through. Many of the
42:57
songs come out of early demos. What are your personal picks from the album?
43:00
Now we know blood and Fire, what else they like? Yeah,
43:01
blood and Fire obviously, Yeah, tremendous based on Ripley the instrumental from the
43:07
Wildlife soundtrack, Yeah, absolutely great. Yeah, amazing. Like a band
43:14
with like three guys who are basically kind of pretty much pensionable age and one
43:21
one guy just out of his teens can produce something that hard hitting, absolutely
43:25
remarkable. I've read some people kind of being quite critical of the fact that
43:31
they've based things on un early demos, but I mean they're really like massively
43:37
elevated. I think all of those songs from the original demo versions, particularly
43:40
Dave, really put the work in and that they're you know, better lyrics,
43:45
better melodies. I think there are their heads and shoulders above those early
43:50
versions, which is what they did on the first two albums anyway, exactly.
43:53
Yeah, from then went back to the demos, even our women showed
43:57
them first, even unfair warning. You get some stuff. Yeah, just
44:01
running down the track list, you tell me the ones you you really like
44:05
here Tattoo, she's the woman. You and your blues, Yeah, you
44:08
and your blues. That that's I guess one of the first sort of completely
44:13
blood brand new records. The new songs that they came up with for it,
44:16
and it really stands up to the to the earlier material there. It's
44:22
solid van Hill and hard role but also kind of bits of beatlesy melody as
44:25
well. Look the kind of thing that they've always done kind of really well.
44:29
Chinatown what an open so basse, Yeah, you really get some of
44:37
the sense of Wolf's bass playing in there as well. I mean, I
44:40
love Michael Antony, and I like everyone else, has sag that it was
44:45
that he wasn't involved in the readium, but I mean Wolf he can do
44:49
some things on the base that Porld might could just could never have done.
44:53
And yeah, China sounds one of the places where that really showing through a
44:57
thing. The opening to Chinatown is really what Eddie wanted to do with half
45:00
her Teacher and apparently there is a version where he does the bass and guitar
45:06
and show to half her Teacher together. They said no, let's have just
45:10
the guitars. So that's Chinatown is really what he wanted to do. Yeah,
45:15
Blood and Fire, we talked about bullethead as is this is amazing.
45:21
Yeah, absolutely, and just wild to open Yeah yeah, absolutely, wild
45:31
song just keeps taking kind of left turns when you least expected, really exciting
45:37
stuff. Yeah, Honey Baby, Sweetie Dow interesting. Yeah. Again,
45:44
it's probably not my favorite on the record. Yeah, a lot of people
45:46
don't like it. It still stands up well. And I think they're not
45:52
just wrestling on the laurels either. It's not just doing a pastiche of what
45:55
you'd expect Van Halen to do. There are some things that you've never heard
46:00
from them before on some of these these songs. It's, um it's pretty
46:02
bold stuff and they just they carry off so convincingly. Yeah. You talk
46:07
about Dave's lyrics, the trouble with never I Love. When you turn on
46:12
your stereo, does it return the favor? Yeah? Out of Space,
46:19
Stay Frosty, Big River, it's working the rest of the tracks. Yeah,
46:23
it's stay frosty, I guess absolutely. And I think Eddie was saying
46:32
that it started as just a Dave solo and then it was Wolf for you
46:37
who turned it into the ice Cream Man style kind of electric kind of rave
46:40
up and yeah, great stuff, so much fun. So let's finish out
46:45
with I want to give you the chance to defend Dave here on the twenty
46:50
fifteen live album Tokyo Doman Concert. When I read the book, I was
46:55
pleasantly surprised, like, Okay, somebody's defending this, so let's get to
47:00
it. Dave took a lot of heat for the vocals on this. There
47:04
is no overdrabbing, nothing was done. It was just this is the actual
47:08
concert recording. Put it out now, You right that Sammy Hagar and the
47:13
other naysayers are missing the point slutely, I think anyone. I mean,
47:20
I sadly never got to see I never got to see any form of van
47:22
Halen live at all. I've just seen lots of videos. But I think
47:27
anyone who had seen early Roth era of van Halen would know that you're not
47:32
going to get a recording of a note perfect davely Roth vocal performance from a
47:38
live gig that it really isn't the point. You know that the show is
47:43
Dave doing what Dave does. And you know, I've got so many bootlegs
47:47
where he's just in, you know, mid song you'll just start scatting,
47:53
or I'll see something that takes his fans and just start talking about its festival
48:00
perfect case in point. It'll jammer it out of his mind. Yeah,
48:05
it'll just stop to do a jump off something. You'll forget, to forget
48:08
the words and go I forgot the fucking words. Yeah that's what that's that's
48:14
the experience. And I love the instead of trying to clean it up and
48:17
create some kind of false impression that they had this really slick VOT performance.
48:22
I love they just turned over the tapes exactly as they are, completely honest
48:27
thing. I mean, Sammy can say what he wants about it, but
48:30
I'd rather listen to that than an entire concert that's been re recorded and just
48:36
over a recording of an audience lived right now, yeah right right, and
48:40
it maybe I would have benefited them more if they put it out as a
48:44
video so you get the visual, because Dave is visual I mean that would
48:47
have been cool too. I don't I kind of don't know why why they
48:51
didn't do a visual version as well, But I'm still happy listening to it.
48:55
I think you get a sense of the excitement of the occasion, that
49:00
the playing is great. You can hear them having fun. Oh, no,
49:04
doubt never. There has never been a criticism of how the band sounds
49:07
on that album. That is for sure tight. Yeah, but it's it
49:14
sounds like Dave having a blast too, and it just it's it's nice to
49:17
just hear that kind of the camaraderie, that that's that's going on there,
49:22
and for me, that kind of spirit is much more important than having,
49:27
you know, this no perfect vocal performance, which everyone seemed terribly disappointed that
49:32
Dave hadn't delivered. But and he lived in Japan around that time, so
49:37
he's speaking in Japanese, which is that's interesting to hear the Japanese. So
49:43
the book is out now, right, Van Hill, and every album,
49:45
every song, it's a k now. And then I believe able twenty eighth
49:50
year in the States, right that I should probably have found that out.
49:52
I didn't know that, but I'm glad you did. Yeah, Yeah,
49:55
available in the UK from all the places that people normally order books from Amazon
50:01
UK, Burning Shed, yeah, absolutely, Waterstones, black Wells, all
50:07
of those places. So if anyone feels like picking up a copy, that
50:12
would be great. Yes, And where can people reach on line? Social
50:15
media pages? Yes? Absolutely, I'm on Instagram embarrassing Instagram handle of geek
50:23
from the Past. Okay, I will put the link in the show notes
50:29
page geek from the past. Geek from the Past, and the show is
50:32
geeking out on music, so don't exactly. Yeah, and on Twitter I'm
50:37
Morgo Polo, also embarrassing, but yeah, if anyone wants to find me,
50:44
that's where I am. Cool, all right, Morgan, thanks so
50:46
much. It was great having you on. No, thank you so much
50:50
for having me. I love the show and it's it's really great to just
50:52
talk to another fan. That's it. It's in the box.