Latest / DISGRACELAND / Van Halen (Part 1): Bootleggers, U.S. Marshals, and Protecting Innovation at Any Cost

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Van Halen (Part 1): Bootleggers, U.S. Marshals, and Protecting Innovation at Any Cost · DISGRACELAND

0:00
Speaker 1: Disgraceland is a production of Double Elvis. The stories about
0:15
Speaker 1: Van Halen are insane. They hunted down bootleggers with the
0:20
Speaker 1: help of US marshals. They barely escaped the wrath of
0:24
Speaker 1: an angry fan after cracking open his head with a
0:27
Speaker 1: beer bottle. Their singer was arrested after violating the fire
0:32
Speaker 1: code at a venue where eleven people had been killed
0:35
Speaker 1: just months prior. Their guitarist had a drug dealer on call.
0:39
Speaker 1: Twenty four to seven, the Fly around the World and
0:42
Speaker 1: scorm Dope, and on the backs of one of rock
0:46
Speaker 1: and Roll's greatest innovators and its greatest ring master, Van
0:51
Speaker 1: Halen made great music, unlike that clip I played for
0:56
Speaker 1: you at the top.
0:57
Speaker 2: Of the show.
0:58
Speaker 1: That wasn't great music. That was a preset loop from
1:02
Speaker 1: my mellotron called Neither Husk nor Cobb MK two. I
1:08
Speaker 1: played you that clip because I can't afford the rights
1:12
Speaker 1: to a clip from Say Say Say by Paul McCartney
1:15
Speaker 1: and Michael Jackson. And why would I play you that
1:19
Speaker 1: specific slice of Ooh Ooh ooh cheese? Could I afford it?
1:25
Speaker 1: Because that was the number one song in America on
1:29
Speaker 1: January ninth, nineteen eighty four, and that was the day
1:33
Speaker 1: Van Halen released their sixth studio album, an album that
1:37
Speaker 1: was intended to keep the band together but instead wound
1:40
Speaker 1: up being the thing that finally tore them apart. On
1:44
Speaker 1: this episode Cracked Heads, drug dealers on call, bootleggers, us.
1:50
Speaker 2: Marshals, ooh ooh, ooh, cheese and van Halen.
1:54
Speaker 1: I'm Jake Brennan, and this is disgracelant. Eddie van Halen
2:24
Speaker 1: was not like other guitar players. I'm not talking about
2:27
Speaker 1: a sheer musical talent, which was light years ahead of
2:30
Speaker 1: his peers. I'm talking about the way he looked when
2:33
Speaker 1: he played guitar, The joy that radiated from his face.
2:38
Speaker 2: It was infectious, It was unique. It was a look
2:41
Speaker 2: that said, holy shit, can you believe that I'm doing this?
2:45
Speaker 1: Playing amused him, just as it amused kids like me,
2:49
Speaker 1: those of us lucky enough to come of age when
2:51
Speaker 1: Eddie van Halen was making some of his greatest music,
2:54
Speaker 1: and lucky enough to watch Eddie play with the same
2:56
Speaker 1: effort it took the rest of us.
2:58
Speaker 2: To eat our wheaties in the morning.
3:00
Speaker 1: Eddie van Halen his two hand tapping his lightning speed.
3:04
Speaker 1: Both sets of fingers attacking the next simultaneously with complete
3:08
Speaker 1: ingenuity and exhilaration. He was chaos and creativity, a trickster
3:13
Speaker 1: and a comic bugs bunny with a six string. Eddie
3:19
Speaker 1: van Halen didn't just play things that others had failed
3:21
Speaker 1: to play. He played things that others had failed to imagine.
3:25
Speaker 1: And he did it all with a huge smile on
3:27
Speaker 1: his face.
3:28
Speaker 2: It's so refreshing. It was then and it is now.
3:32
Speaker 2: But it's not like Eddie van Halen.
3:33
Speaker 1: Just woke up one morning a guitar guy. He worked
3:37
Speaker 1: for it. He fought for it, just like he fought
3:39
Speaker 1: for everything. The son of a Dutch father and Indonesian mother,
3:44
Speaker 1: Eddie was just seven years old when his family moved
3:46
Speaker 1: from Holland to America. He and his older brother Alex
3:50
Speaker 1: didn't catch rays or waves in Pasadena, California, not at
3:54
Speaker 1: first anyway.
3:56
Speaker 2: Instead, they caught beatings.
3:58
Speaker 1: Local kids saw them as outcasts, weirdo freaks who couldn't
4:01
Speaker 1: speak a lick of English, and bullies were everywhere. They
4:04
Speaker 1: ripped up Eddie's homework and they made him eat sand, so.
4:08
Speaker 2: He retreated to his room.
4:10
Speaker 1: Not unlike another California musical genius, at the very same
4:14
Speaker 1: time searching for something in the sandbox in his living
4:17
Speaker 1: room Brian Wilson. Just like Brian Wilson from The Beach Boys,
4:22
Speaker 1: Eddie van Halen ran from what scared him and chased
4:25
Speaker 1: the sounds that he heard, sounds no one else could hear,
4:31
Speaker 1: and the chase thrilled him.
4:33
Speaker 2: He knew the sounds were out there.
4:35
Speaker 1: Hot rotting through southern California car culture, garage culture, a
4:38
Speaker 1: gold rush landscape of beaters and cherries, junk yards and
4:42
Speaker 1: chop shops, a world where scraps can build something new.
4:46
Speaker 1: But the van Halen's found building a new life harder
4:49
Speaker 1: than expected.
4:49
Speaker 2: In the land of.
4:50
Speaker 1: Opportunity, all they found were the scraps. A respected musician
4:55
Speaker 1: back home in Holland, Eddie van Halen's father was no
4:59
Speaker 1: more than a jan in America. The family had little money.
5:03
Speaker 1: Innovation was all Eddie had. Necessity, being the mother of
5:07
Speaker 1: invention and all that. Eddie van Halen literally built himself.
5:11
Speaker 2: A guitar that didn't exist for cheap.
5:13
Speaker 1: He bought a factory secondhand stratocaster body from a repair
5:16
Speaker 1: shop that specialized in aftermarket hardware, cost him fifty bucks,
5:21
Speaker 1: and then he spent another eighty bucks on the neck
5:24
Speaker 1: and then a strat tail piece with a Whammi bar
5:26
Speaker 1: and some jumbo Gibson Fretz and vola a guitar of necessity,
5:30
Speaker 1: a Frankenstrat.
5:32
Speaker 2: But he didn't stop there.
5:34
Speaker 1: The guitar's body, being a stratocaster style, was pre routed
5:38
Speaker 1: for three single coil pickups, which I don't get deep
5:40
Speaker 1: into the weeds here on Nerdy guitar Ship, but just
5:42
Speaker 1: hear me out. Pickups are the things in the guitar
5:45
Speaker 1: that amplify the guitar. A Fender stratocaster has space in
5:49
Speaker 1: the body of the guitar for three skinny pickups, and
5:52
Speaker 1: that's just the way they're made. If you want something different,
5:55
Speaker 1: you gotta get a different guitar. Eddie van Halen did
5:58
Speaker 1: want something different, but he couldn't have it, so he
6:01
Speaker 1: chiseled out a bigger cavity in the guitar's body to
6:04
Speaker 1: be able to fit in a single humbucker pickup, which
6:07
Speaker 1: is more common with Gibson guitars than with Fender guitars.
6:10
Speaker 1: Like the stratocasters, Eddie preferred the humbucker pickup because it
6:14
Speaker 1: gave him a fatter sound, and this in turn left
6:18
Speaker 1: his Frankenstrat with two gaping holes in the middle of
6:21
Speaker 1: its body because there were no pickups in there, and
6:23
Speaker 1: he just sort of covered that up with this narrowly
6:25
Speaker 1: piece of black vinyl. It was a monstrosity, but it
6:28
Speaker 1: didn't matter. The guitar wasn't the important thing. The sound,
6:33
Speaker 1: the tone, that was the thing. Eddie van Halen chased
6:37
Speaker 1: that thing while his brother Alex, already an incredible drummer
6:40
Speaker 1: in his own right, chased tail at high school parties.
6:43
Speaker 1: Alex had a sound. Every time Alex hit his snare,
6:45
Speaker 1: Eddie went full synesthesia and saw a color brown. Thus,
6:51
Speaker 1: the brown sound a tone so elusive and so impactful,
6:55
Speaker 1: as I understand it, when you find it and play
6:58
Speaker 1: it out loud, you immediately shit your pants.
7:00
Speaker 2: No wait, I'm thinking of the brown note.
7:01
Speaker 1: Sorry, I know that's gross, but this is an episode
7:04
Speaker 1: on van Halen, so get ready to be grossed out.
7:06
Speaker 2: My point is Alex van Halen would return home from.
7:10
Speaker 1: Those wild parties find Eddie van Halen right there where
7:13
Speaker 1: he left him, sitting on the corner of his bed.
7:14
Speaker 1: Franken Stratton hand six empty Kansas Schlitz at his side
7:18
Speaker 1: and thinking about the Zeppelin show with the form they'd
7:20
Speaker 1: just seen Jimmy Page hammering the strings with a single hand,
7:23
Speaker 1: thinking why couldn't you do that with both hands. A
7:27
Speaker 1: smile crept across Eddie van Halen's face as he began
7:29
Speaker 1: to let his own hands do. What they did, and
7:33
Speaker 1: what they did amused the hell out of him. Eddie's
7:38
Speaker 1: innovations were on full display on his band van Halen's
7:42
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy eight self titled debut, an album that introduced
7:46
Speaker 1: the world to not just Eddie and Alex, but to
7:49
Speaker 1: bassist Michael Anthony and the incredible and flamboyant lead singer
7:55
Speaker 1: David Lee Roth. It's an album that went platinum in
7:58
Speaker 1: a little over six months. It featured their lethal cover
8:01
Speaker 1: of the Kinks You Really Got Me, and also killer
8:04
Speaker 1: original tunes like Ain't Talking About Love and Eddie's mind
8:07
Speaker 1: blowing solo guitar track eruption. It is so fucking good
8:11
Speaker 1: this record. Okay, this record when you first hear it.
8:14
Speaker 1: If you're a young kid out there who has not
8:16
Speaker 1: heard this album before, just go stop Stop. I'll take
8:19
Speaker 1: the hit on the podcast download Just stop go listen
8:22
Speaker 1: to the first Van Halen record, It will blow your
8:25
Speaker 1: fucking mind. I remember exactly where I was when I
8:28
Speaker 1: first heard it. I was sitting in the back of
8:30
Speaker 1: rich host car. They were passing a bong into the
8:32
Speaker 1: back seat. I was fifteen years old. I hit it,
8:35
Speaker 1: eruption hit. My mind was blown. As Eddie van Halen says,
8:39
Speaker 1: so Brown, Okay.
8:41
Speaker 2: Back to the.
8:41
Speaker 1: Episode, Eddie was extremely proud of this record, and of
8:46
Speaker 1: his innovations and how his guitar and his playing were
8:49
Speaker 1: unlike anyone else's. He was also extremely protective of these things.
8:54
Speaker 1: It had been a struggle to get to this point,
8:56
Speaker 1: the humiliation that he and his family had endured as
8:59
Speaker 1: immigrants trying to make it, the countless hours of practicing
9:02
Speaker 1: and building and rebuilding, gouging, routing, painting, only to now
9:06
Speaker 1: watch all of his innovations, his ideas, his struggle, they
9:10
Speaker 1: were all now incredibly being stolen from him. Other guitar
9:16
Speaker 1: manufacturers were now on the heels of Van Halen's hit
9:18
Speaker 1: new record, making their own freaknstrats, flooding the market with
9:22
Speaker 1: pale imitations, copycats, con artists, Charlatan's hawkers, trying to make
9:28
Speaker 1: a quick buck with a knockoff, just like the grifters
9:30
Speaker 1: slinging fake gucci on the streets of La just like
9:34
Speaker 1: the bootleggers selling bogus van Halen merchandise. The bootleggers were fearless,
9:40
Speaker 1: and they were everywhere, working the arenas and parking lots
9:43
Speaker 1: at every stop of van Halen's tour. And these bootleggers,
9:47
Speaker 1: they were selling fake shirts for a fraction of the price.
9:50
Speaker 1: And by the early eighties, a few records deep into
9:53
Speaker 1: their career, van Halen were grossing two hundred and fifty
9:56
Speaker 1: thousand dollars in merch sales alone every night night, all cash,
10:02
Speaker 1: big money again, quarter million dollars.
10:05
Speaker 2: A night in cash.
10:07
Speaker 1: The bootleggers naturally wanted a taste of that action, but
10:11
Speaker 1: soon they had other action headed their way.
10:17
Speaker 2: Not Eddie.
10:18
Speaker 1: Eddie was busy installing a dummy pickup in one of
10:20
Speaker 1: the holes in this frankenstra a second pickup that wasn't
10:23
Speaker 1: actually wired to anything, but through the guitar manufacturers for
10:26
Speaker 1: Loot fucked up and fucked the bootleggers too. They messed
10:30
Speaker 1: with the bull and they were going to get the horns.
10:32
Speaker 1: Van Halen's manager, a guy with a background in martial
10:36
Speaker 1: arts and a permit to carry a concealed weapon. Which
10:38
Speaker 1: isn't to say that Noel Monk handled these clowns unlawfully.
10:42
Speaker 1: Their manager, Nol Monk, actually obtained a nationwide injunction against
10:46
Speaker 1: bootleggers which allowed for the assistance of US marshals and
10:50
Speaker 1: taking these bootleggers down. But knockoff t shirts weren't high
10:55
Speaker 1: on the purp list, and the marshals weren't always.
10:57
Speaker 2: There right when you needed them.
11:00
Speaker 1: The urge to go after a bootlegger the moment you
11:02
Speaker 1: saw them was just too tempting to pass up. Some
11:05
Speaker 1: caught one glimpse of Noel Monk took off running. Others
11:08
Speaker 1: weren't so lucky. Their bullshit merch confiscated the keys to
11:12
Speaker 1: their van tossed them a nearby lake. Some had a
11:16
Speaker 1: deal not just with Monk, but with Pack Kelly, former
11:19
Speaker 1: Chicago cop now head of Van Halen's merch team.
11:23
Speaker 2: Pack Kelly used.
11:24
Speaker 1: Cop intuition and cop intimidation to get the job done
11:28
Speaker 1: and get his man go after the little guy, some
11:32
Speaker 1: foot soldier with an armful of knockoff teas he's selling
11:34
Speaker 1: for eight bucks a pop. Pack Kelly put the fear
11:37
Speaker 1: of God and kids like that, or rather even better,
11:39
Speaker 1: the fear of a retired police officer with zero focks
11:42
Speaker 1: to give and even less to lose, a real tough
11:45
Speaker 1: guy who now made ends meet by ringing the next
11:48
Speaker 1: little dickheads for one of the biggest rock groups in
11:50
Speaker 1: the world. So what's it gonna be?
11:52
Speaker 2: Pat would say, speak up or eat shit, fuckstick.
11:56
Speaker 1: Pretty soon that little punk is telling pack Kelly what
11:58
Speaker 1: he wants to know, who's running this sad excuse for
12:01
Speaker 1: business and where the fuck is he?
12:04
Speaker 2: And that's when the local PD and.
12:05
Speaker 1: The marshals get there and the whole thing is squashed,
12:09
Speaker 1: at least for tonight. Noel Monk and Pat Kelly's efforts
12:13
Speaker 1: helped to protect their employer van Halen's brand and their
12:16
Speaker 1: bottom line as well, and thus allowing Eddie van Halen
12:19
Speaker 1: to focus on the things he wanted to do. Play
12:23
Speaker 1: innovat and grim ear to ear caught up in the
12:26
Speaker 1: chase searching for the sound. By the time van Halen
12:53
Speaker 1: had a security team big enough to run interference on
12:55
Speaker 1: merchandise bootleggers, they were sitting pretty in the catbirds see
13:00
Speaker 1: Cocky Ubiquitous Hair Tea's tall with sight set higher than
13:04
Speaker 1: a David Lee Roth split jump off Alex's drum riser,
13:08
Speaker 1: and to get that high diamond, Dave knew you had
13:11
Speaker 1: to put on a show.
13:13
Speaker 2: The greatest show on Earth.
13:17
Speaker 1: Dave was Tarzan and spandex p t Barnum reaching down
13:21
Speaker 1: between his legs to ease that seatback.
13:24
Speaker 2: This was his circus. These were his monkeys, and make
13:29
Speaker 2: no mistake about it.
13:30
Speaker 1: The pistons on the tour bus were popping, and the
13:33
Speaker 1: top of the big Top was down, and it was
13:36
Speaker 1: party time. April nineteen eighty, Cincinnati, five months after eleven
13:45
Speaker 1: fans were crushed to death during a concert by The Who.
13:48
Speaker 1: It happened at the Riverfront Coliseum, the same venue that
13:52
Speaker 1: Van Halen's circus was now pulling into for a stop
13:55
Speaker 1: on their World Invasion Tour, or is the band referred
13:58
Speaker 1: to it internally the Party Till You Die Tour. Not
14:02
Speaker 1: exactly in the best taste given the circumstances. The Riverfront
14:06
Speaker 1: Hood tragedy was still fresh. The press called it a stampede,
14:12
Speaker 1: people trampled underfoot, which was true. But the people who
14:16
Speaker 1: died they died standing up, squeezed together so tightly that
14:20
Speaker 1: their lungs couldn't expand strangled by the body.
14:23
Speaker 2: Standing next to them.
14:25
Speaker 1: And now tonight security was on high alert, enforcing the
14:30
Speaker 1: new safety measures put in place to ensure that no
14:32
Speaker 1: one would die at Riverfront again, including the rule that
14:36
Speaker 1: banned open flames of any kind, a rule that David
14:40
Speaker 1: Lee Roth didn't know about or didn't care about. All
14:43
Speaker 1: he saw were people having a good time, which is
14:46
Speaker 1: what Van Halen.
14:47
Speaker 2: Delivered a party.
14:50
Speaker 1: The crowd was wild, close to two hundred arrested for
14:54
Speaker 1: drugs and booze, another one hundred tossed for violating that
14:57
Speaker 1: open flame rule, and Diamond Dave in handcuffs, hauled off
15:01
Speaker 1: to a Cincinnati jail cell for playing the part of
15:03
Speaker 1: pied piper, not just a master of ceremonies, an inCider
15:08
Speaker 1: of riots, charged with encouraging the audience to violate the
15:12
Speaker 1: fire code. In his defense, Dave said he was merely
15:16
Speaker 1: caught up in the moment, repeating a line from their
15:18
Speaker 1: song Light Up the Sky, over and over. But when
15:22
Speaker 1: the crowd heard Dave chant light him up, they did
15:25
Speaker 1: as they were told. Smoked them if you got them.
15:28
Speaker 1: The cops did get Dave, but only for a few hours.
15:31
Speaker 1: Released on a five thousand dollars bond, back to the band,
15:34
Speaker 1: back to the party, more emboldened than ever to carry
15:37
Speaker 1: out his mission. People are going to walk out of
15:39
Speaker 1: a Van Halen show. They're going to feel like the
15:41
Speaker 1: building can fall on them, feel like a car hit him.
15:43
Speaker 1: Dave told the DJ later that summer. Again, not really
15:47
Speaker 1: in the best taste to talk about your bed as
15:49
Speaker 1: something that can kill a man, given the fact that
15:51
Speaker 1: the who tragedy wasn't all that far in the rear view.
15:54
Speaker 1: But that was Dave's party, party that worked best, and
15:57
Speaker 1: it was out of control when it had no bounds.
16:01
Speaker 1: Unlike Dave, Eddie didn't drink to party. He didn't do
16:05
Speaker 1: coke just to have a good time either. Cocaine kept
16:08
Speaker 1: him up all hours, hours he spent practicing getting a
16:12
Speaker 1: leg up on the competition.
16:14
Speaker 2: Alcohol, on the other hand, lowered.
16:16
Speaker 1: Eddie's inhibitions, allowing him to attempt things on the guitar
16:19
Speaker 1: that he wouldn't have tried sober. Eddie Van Halen did
16:22
Speaker 1: drugs and alcohol for work, and work is what the
16:26
Speaker 1: band needed to do a few years earlier, at the
16:30
Speaker 1: end of nineteen seventy eight, fresh off their first World tour,
16:34
Speaker 1: readying their second LP, Van Halen TiO for release in
16:37
Speaker 1: the spring of seventy nine. But what should have been
16:40
Speaker 1: a moment of celebration instead was one of frustration and confusion.
16:45
Speaker 1: They were stuck with a massive bill roughly one point
16:49
Speaker 1: two million dollars owed to their record label, despite their
16:53
Speaker 1: great success to Warner Brothers, it was just business to
16:57
Speaker 1: Van Halen, especially to Eddie and Alex, still living at
17:01
Speaker 1: home with their parents dead broke. It was motivation, motivation
17:05
Speaker 1: to work harder, sell more records, play bigger venues. Debt
17:11
Speaker 1: was just another bully on the playground. To be the
17:14
Speaker 1: biggest band on Earth meant putting on the greatest show
17:17
Speaker 1: on Earth, Dave's show.
17:19
Speaker 2: So everything got bigger.
17:21
Speaker 1: The horse when he said, Eddie coach from his frankenstrade,
17:25
Speaker 1: Dave's unhinged screams, Michael Anthony's pitch perfect backing vocals, thirty
17:30
Speaker 1: six tons of lighting and sound equipment one year, and
17:32
Speaker 1: one hundred and seventy five thousand tons the next, nearly
17:36
Speaker 1: five times more. A sound system that ran on ninety
17:39
Speaker 1: thousand watts, which, if you're curious, is enough power to
17:42
Speaker 1: supply the electrical demand of like seventy five houses. It
17:46
Speaker 1: literally took a village to make the Van Hammon machine go,
17:50
Speaker 1: and that machine went straight to their heads into their balls.
17:54
Speaker 2: Yeah, I made the ball so big that. Yeah.
17:56
Speaker 1: Their tour rider did infamously include a demand for back
18:00
Speaker 1: stavee bowls of M and M's with the brown ones
18:02
Speaker 1: picked out.
18:02
Speaker 2: That's a true story.
18:04
Speaker 1: And the bigger Van Halen gut, the more out of
18:06
Speaker 1: control the situation became. Soon it was more than fire
18:10
Speaker 1: codes that were being violated. And look, don't even get
18:14
Speaker 1: me started on shit like the homemade pornos shot in
18:16
Speaker 1: hotel rooms by Van Halen's sleeves bomb manager. Pornos at
18:20
Speaker 1: the same sleeves bamb manager later played for Warner Brothers
18:23
Speaker 1: secretaries women at Warner Brothers offices. Again, their manager shot
18:27
Speaker 1: pornos and then played the videotapes for secretaries at their
18:30
Speaker 1: record label. Which is behavior beyond the realm of the bodged.
18:34
Speaker 1: It's fucking predatory, it's harassment, it's gross. I warned you,
18:38
Speaker 1: thinks we're gonna get gross. This is the gross part.
18:41
Speaker 1: Some of the wildest, most unhitched behavior by.
18:43
Speaker 2: A rock band in the nineteen eighties and that's saying something.
18:46
Speaker 1: Behavior that once put David Lee Roth in a strait
18:48
Speaker 1: jacket deemed fifty one to fifty by his own damn crewe,
18:51
Speaker 1: long before Eddie turned that section of the California Penal
18:54
Speaker 1: Code into the name of his home studio. Because no
18:57
Speaker 1: one partied as hard as van Halen, no one violated
19:01
Speaker 1: more rules, no one banged more groupies, no one hoovered
19:05
Speaker 1: up more lines. Van Halen were true to David Lee
19:09
Speaker 1: Roth's were his credo. Van Hamlon were a house falling
19:12
Speaker 1: on top of you, a car crashing into you, rendering
19:17
Speaker 1: you dumb struck, awestruck, sometimes even physically struck. Nineteen seventy eight, England.
19:31
Speaker 1: Van Halen's manager, No monk was panicking. No one told
19:35
Speaker 1: them managing a rock band meant he'd have to do this.
19:38
Speaker 1: Not hunting down merch boot layers. That came later, and
19:42
Speaker 1: that was easy compared to dealing with dudes like this.
19:44
Speaker 1: A dude who was both unlucky and pissed off a
19:47
Speaker 1: potentially lethal combination. His skull cracked open, a lump size
19:52
Speaker 1: of Van Halen soon to be enormous balls, forming blood
19:55
Speaker 1: pouring down his face. A victim of David Lee Roth's
19:59
Speaker 1: good time hit on the head with a full beer
20:02
Speaker 1: bottle that David thrown into the audience at the end
20:04
Speaker 1: of the show. The worst of it was the guy
20:07
Speaker 1: wasn't even a van Halen fan. He was Team Black Sabbath,
20:11
Speaker 1: the band that Van Halen had just opened for, and
20:13
Speaker 1: frankly blown off the stage. Ozzy Osbourne, like Western civilization
20:18
Speaker 1: was at this point and decline. Van Halen was in
20:21
Speaker 1: the ascendant. But now was no time to set your
20:24
Speaker 1: sights high. Now was time for horizontal motion. Time to
20:28
Speaker 1: leave the band. Did what Monk told him to do,
20:31
Speaker 1: Get the fuck out of the dressing room, go straight
20:33
Speaker 1: to the fucking bus, and don't ask any questions, and
20:35
Speaker 1: don't stop to talk to anyone.
20:37
Speaker 2: Monk was trying not to stare at the Sabbath.
20:40
Speaker 1: Fans gaping wound, trying not to say the wrong thing,
20:44
Speaker 1: the thing that would get them all killed. Dude wanted
20:46
Speaker 1: an eye for an eye, David le Roth's blood for
20:49
Speaker 1: his own, but Monk figured that cash would.
20:52
Speaker 2: Work just as well. If I gave you one thousand
20:55
Speaker 2: pounds so that make all this go away. Money talked.
20:59
Speaker 2: Dude with the head wound walked.
21:01
Speaker 1: But not before signing a disclaimer that monk hastily wrote
21:04
Speaker 1: up a classic case of covering your ass, which is
21:08
Speaker 1: what no monk was there to do. Cover van Halen's asses,
21:11
Speaker 1: protect them from the things threatening to tear them apart,
21:15
Speaker 1: which he did very well.
21:17
Speaker 2: He just couldn't protect them from each other. We'll be
21:24
Speaker 2: right back after this.
21:26
Speaker 1: We're, We're, We're. Michael Anthony, you just wanted to play.
21:36
Speaker 1: He had the greatest job in the world, bass player
21:39
Speaker 1: for one of the biggest bands on the planet, also
21:42
Speaker 1: recognized by those in the know as the band's secret weapon,
21:46
Speaker 1: blessed with a voice that produced some of the most
21:49
Speaker 1: sublime backing vocals in hard rock. But don't tell that
21:52
Speaker 1: to David Lee. Roth best not to out Dave, Dave
21:57
Speaker 1: best to play it cool, and Michael Anthony was cooler
22:01
Speaker 1: than cool. Michael Anthony was Switzerland. Even as Dave tried
22:07
Speaker 1: to push the band further into sideshow cheese and Eddie
22:11
Speaker 1: fought back with more innovation. Now in nineteen eighty three,
22:14
Speaker 1: obsessed with not one but two instruments, the guitar, and
22:19
Speaker 1: since Dave thought Eddie's synthesizers were lame, girls didn't want
22:24
Speaker 1: to fuck a dude behind a keyboard, and Eddie didn't
22:26
Speaker 1: really care what Dave thought. Eddie had a girl. His wife,
22:30
Speaker 1: Valerie Bertinelli, had made him an honest man two years prior. Honest,
22:35
Speaker 1: of course being highly subjective in this situation, I know,
22:39
Speaker 1: but maybe Dave was jealous, playing the grade school bullycard
22:43
Speaker 1: that sent Eddie back to his room, back to the
22:45
Speaker 1: corner of his bed, where he pushed himself even further
22:49
Speaker 1: aid it as always, by more vodka and more cocaine.
22:53
Speaker 1: He was evolving as a player, maturing two words that
22:57
Speaker 1: David Lee Roth hated. Dave didn't want to make smart music.
23:01
Speaker 1: He wanted to keep it simple, but Eddie didn't do simple,
23:05
Speaker 1: so they met in the middle. One of the new
23:08
Speaker 1: songs that were working on, Hot for Teacher allowed for
23:11
Speaker 1: Dave's corny shtick, but wrapped it in some of the
23:14
Speaker 1: most complex guitar and drum work of Eddie and Alex's career.
23:19
Speaker 1: The creative tension made for great music, but it wasn't
23:22
Speaker 1: made to last. At least that's what Michael Anthony feared.
23:27
Speaker 1: Whatever was going on between Dave and Eddie was compromising
23:30
Speaker 1: This incredible band of Michael Anthony's incredible day job, a
23:34
Speaker 1: job he wanted to keep, so whatever it took to
23:38
Speaker 1: keep van Halen running was fine by him, even if
23:41
Speaker 1: sometimes that meant running with the devil. In nineteen eighty one,
23:46
Speaker 1: it took money. The album Fair Warning was undoubtedly Van
23:50
Speaker 1: Halen's best record to date, heavy, groovy, real, unchained, mean,
23:55
Speaker 1: street shit, but it wasn't selling. It was the only
23:59
Speaker 1: one of the band's first four albums that didn't immediately
24:01
Speaker 1: do better than its predecessor, and it looked like it
24:04
Speaker 1: would be their first to fall short of platinum sales too.
24:08
Speaker 1: That was a problem both for the band's bottom line
24:11
Speaker 1: and for their egos. The solution money two hundred grand
24:17
Speaker 1: greasing the palms of music directors at radio station's Coast
24:21
Speaker 1: to coast Radio got paid, so Fair Warning got played,
24:26
Speaker 1: and by the year's end it was a platinum cellar,
24:29
Speaker 1: just like every other Van Halen record. The crime of
24:32
Speaker 1: Paola paying a radio station to play your record.
24:36
Speaker 2: This was not a new concept. It had been around
24:38
Speaker 2: since the dawn of rock and roll. Money talked.
24:41
Speaker 1: Anything else was just a waste of breath unless it
24:45
Speaker 1: was Quincy Jones doing the talking. Q was money baby,
24:50
Speaker 1: legendary producer wanted Eddie to play a guitar solo on
24:52
Speaker 1: a new track by Michael Jackson. Remember this was the
24:56
Speaker 1: early eighties, genre lines were drawn hard. A Van Halen
25:01
Speaker 1: fan wouldn't be caught dead moonwalking to a Michael Jackson tune,
25:05
Speaker 1: or so the thinking.
25:06
Speaker 2: Went at the time.
25:07
Speaker 1: And though the group did have an understanding that they
25:09
Speaker 1: would consult one another before doing anything outside of Van Halen,
25:13
Speaker 1: Dave was currently off doing his Tarzan thing in the
25:16
Speaker 1: Amazon rainforest or something, so Eddie wasn't about to.
25:19
Speaker 2: Track him down to ask for permission. He didn't even
25:22
Speaker 2: ask Quincy to pay him.
25:24
Speaker 1: But Michael Anthony, for one, didn't care that Eddie played
25:27
Speaker 1: on Michael Jackson's beat it He wasn't about to hold
25:30
Speaker 1: a grudge. The only thing he wanted to hold was
25:33
Speaker 1: his base, and maybe this new record Van Halen were
25:36
Speaker 1: about to release would hold the band together. It was
25:39
Speaker 1: poised to be their shining moment. The songs were anathemic
25:44
Speaker 1: jump Panama, I'll Wait, a juggernaut of synthpop and hard
25:49
Speaker 1: rock that seemed to capture a moment in time the seventies,
25:53
Speaker 1: hard rock finding its place in the emerging digital age,
25:56
Speaker 1: of the eighties, the dawn of a new era. The
26:00
Speaker 1: album's title reflected this moment, like a time capsule for posterity.
26:04
Speaker 1: They called it nineteen eighty four. But unlike the eight
26:10
Speaker 1: bar guitar solo he gave away for free, Eddie van
26:13
Speaker 1: Halen was protective of what nineteen eighty four sounded like,
26:18
Speaker 1: just like he was protective of the guitars he built,
26:20
Speaker 1: the style he innovated, all the way down to the
26:22
Speaker 1: merch he sold. No one was going to compromise his sound,
26:27
Speaker 1: not even Ted Templeman, van Halen's producer since the beginning,
26:31
Speaker 1: clearly now on Diamond Dave's side of the group's growing divide.
26:35
Speaker 1: Eddie and his longtime engineer Don Laandie worried the Templeman
26:39
Speaker 1: would steal the master tapes from Eddie's studio fifty one
26:42
Speaker 1: to fifty, the one he built at his home in
26:44
Speaker 1: Studio City, not to burn them, but to mix the
26:47
Speaker 1: record the way he heard it, which is to say,
26:49
Speaker 1: the way David Lee Roth heard it.
26:51
Speaker 2: A simple way. Eddie did what he'd done since he
26:54
Speaker 2: was a kid.
26:55
Speaker 1: He protected what was his The phone rang inside fifty
27:00
Speaker 1: one fifty. It was templement down at the front gate
27:04
Speaker 1: on the street. Eddie buzzed him up. Don meanwhile grabbed
27:09
Speaker 1: the master tapes and hopped in his car the one
27:11
Speaker 1: park next to Eddie's black Ferrari. He drove the driveways,
27:15
Speaker 1: loop around the back of the house down to the
27:16
Speaker 1: back gate, hiding the plain sight. Templeman rolled up, none
27:20
Speaker 1: the wiser. Where are the tapes? Where's Don? Eddie played,
27:25
Speaker 1: dumb gad, I don't know. The Templeman left confused, suspicious, Irritated.
27:34
Speaker 1: Don returned to the studio with the tapes and he
27:37
Speaker 1: and Eddie got back to working on their mix. The
27:40
Speaker 1: next day, the studio phone rang again, fucking Templament. Don
27:44
Speaker 1: got to work, taking the tapes off the two track
27:46
Speaker 1: and putting them in their boxes, and he jumped in
27:48
Speaker 1: his car and he drove around to the back gate
27:50
Speaker 1: as Eddie buzzed Templament up, and once again Eddie and
27:52
Speaker 1: Templeman had the same conversation, where are the tapes? Where's Don?
27:57
Speaker 1: Gittaed I don't know? And this went on for two
28:00
Speaker 1: whole weeks, This little game enough time for Eddie and
28:03
Speaker 1: Don to get nineteen eighty four where they wanted it,
28:06
Speaker 1: to get the mix they wanted When the album finally
28:09
Speaker 1: dropped on January ninth of the new year, it was massive,
28:14
Speaker 1: as was the supporting tour, which began immediately.
28:17
Speaker 2: It stretched on for nine months.
28:20
Speaker 1: Nineteen eighty four was Van Halen's biggest year to date
28:24
Speaker 1: and Van Halen's biggest record to date as well. But
28:27
Speaker 1: despite this, the album nineteen eighty four only made it
28:30
Speaker 1: to number two on the album chart. Why because Michael
28:34
Speaker 1: Jackson's Thriller.
28:35
Speaker 2: That's why.
28:37
Speaker 1: The album and cultural juggernaut that just so happened to
28:40
Speaker 1: feature the smash hit beat It, a song that crossed
28:44
Speaker 1: genre lines, a song that featured an unmistakable Eddie van
28:48
Speaker 1: Hanlin guitar solo, a solo he did not get paid for.
28:53
Speaker 1: Thriller was not only the biggest selling record of nineteen
28:55
Speaker 1: eighty four, it was the biggest selling record of nineteen
28:58
Speaker 1: eighty three. Both then and now have heard Eddie van
29:02
Speaker 1: Halen play on beat It than on any of his
29:05
Speaker 1: own bands songs. The irony was not lost on Eddie
29:12
Speaker 1: and the rest of the group Todave. It wasn't just ironic,
29:16
Speaker 1: it was disloyal, weak shit, as lame as the synthesizer's
29:20
Speaker 1: on Junk. Not that Dave wasn't being disloyal himself, dicking
29:24
Speaker 1: around on a not so secret solo project. Eddie once
29:28
Speaker 1: again didn't pay Dave much mind. He was focused on protection,
29:32
Speaker 1: this time protecting his vices cocaine and alcohol, two things
29:37
Speaker 1: that once allowed him to innovate habits now is out
29:41
Speaker 1: of control as David Lee Roth's never ending party, and
29:44
Speaker 1: Eddie now had a personal dealer on the payroll and
29:47
Speaker 1: on call twenty four to seven, some top Jimmy who
29:50
Speaker 1: has flown around the world to procure the finest Peruvian
29:53
Speaker 1: cook at any time of day or night, and that
29:56
Speaker 1: ain't cheap. To satisfy his habit, Eddie was forced to
29:59
Speaker 1: advance some self cash from the group's coffers. Money came
30:03
Speaker 1: in and money went out. Whatever it took to keep
30:06
Speaker 1: the whole operation moving forward, whatever it took to keep
30:10
Speaker 1: Eddie's search active and inspired, whatever it took to feel protected.
30:39
Speaker 1: Van Halen's luxury tour bus rumbled through the Black Forest
30:43
Speaker 1: n route to Paris, where a private plane waited to
30:46
Speaker 1: take them back to America. The tour supporting their album
30:50
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty four was at its end.
30:52
Speaker 2: And the writing was on the wall.
30:54
Speaker 1: Van Halen was bigger than ever, but the creative tension
30:57
Speaker 1: between Eddie and Dave had reached a fever pitch, as
31:01
Speaker 1: feverish as the fights that were now commonplace, Alex yelling
31:06
Speaker 1: at Dave and Dave yelling at Alex, and Alex yelling
31:08
Speaker 1: at Eddie and Eddie icing out Dave, all while Michael
31:11
Speaker 1: tried not to rock the boat.
31:13
Speaker 2: Right now, the boat was not rocking, and the tour
31:15
Speaker 2: bus was.
31:16
Speaker 1: Rolling at a steady clip, and no one was fighting.
31:21
Speaker 2: Right now.
31:21
Speaker 1: Dave was on his knees in the bus's tiny bathroom,
31:24
Speaker 1: puking his guts up, the booze, weed and coke spilling
31:28
Speaker 1: out of his head and into the bowl the toilet,
31:31
Speaker 1: a toilet that had already overflowed numerous times, a cauldron
31:35
Speaker 1: of shit and hiss, a ransom concoction of the most vile,
31:39
Speaker 1: smelling human waste that David lee Roth was now adding
31:42
Speaker 1: to with pints of his own vomit. Even at their highest,
31:46
Speaker 1: van Halen were at their lowest, Even at their best,
31:49
Speaker 1: they were at their worst, And even with a sound
31:52
Speaker 1: unlike anyone else's, Eddie van Halen was still on the chase,
31:57
Speaker 1: still making adjustments to his rig and adjustments to tone,
32:01
Speaker 1: first trading in the Whammi bar tailpiece on his Frankenstrat
32:04
Speaker 1: for a cutting edge Floyd Rose locking model that would
32:07
Speaker 1: ensure he didn't fall out of tune, then trading in
32:10
Speaker 1: the Frankenstrat entirely for a custom Bill Kramer.
32:14
Speaker 2: He was still a.
32:15
Speaker 1: Kid in many ways, gobsmacked by the sounds he managed
32:18
Speaker 1: to get when he played, obsessed with finding scraps and
32:21
Speaker 1: making something interesting out of them forever in that garage
32:24
Speaker 1: culture state of mind. And just like he gouged out
32:28
Speaker 1: the ash body of that original Frankenstrat, Eddie took the
32:31
Speaker 1: gouging away at his own band. David Lee Roth's fate
32:35
Speaker 1: was inevitable. Lead singers, like guitars, were replaceable. Michael Anthony
32:41
Speaker 1: tried to stay cool, but even mister Switzerland found himself
32:44
Speaker 1: under the microscope. Michael just wanted to play, and that
32:48
Speaker 1: was exactly the issue, at least to the rest of
32:50
Speaker 1: the band. Michael didn't write music or lyrics. He didn't
32:54
Speaker 1: contribute to the creative.
32:55
Speaker 2: Process, according to them.
32:57
Speaker 1: Eddie, meanwhile, was obsessed with being created, evolve or die,
33:02
Speaker 1: innovate and protect bullies, bootleggers. Guitar manufacturers, record producers, Sabbath
33:09
Speaker 1: fans with busted heads. Every single one wanted a piece,
33:13
Speaker 1: and they got fuck all, just like Van Halen's bass player.
33:17
Speaker 1: Eddie talked to Noel Monk, van Halen's manager, and Van
33:21
Speaker 1: Halen's manager. Noel Monk talked to the band's attorney, who
33:24
Speaker 1: put a document in front of Michael one which Michael
33:27
Speaker 1: willingly signed as it was the only way he was
33:30
Speaker 1: going to keep on playing. And when the ink dried,
33:33
Speaker 1: Michael Anthony no longer collected songwriting royalties alongside his three bandmates.
33:39
Speaker 1: David Lee Roth then packed up a shit a side
33:42
Speaker 1: showed Jigglow, looking for the next place to set up
33:44
Speaker 1: his tent. Eddie meanwhile, took his Jeff Black Ferrari out
33:49
Speaker 1: into the warm California's sun and opened it up. The
33:53
Speaker 1: car was as sleek as his signature guitar tone. Fast
33:57
Speaker 1: like the instructions his brain sent to his fingers, he
34:00
Speaker 1: downshifted and rolled into a local garage. His guy, Claudio
34:05
Speaker 1: Genius Mechanic, a guy who would later create a badass
34:08
Speaker 1: Italian race card with none other than Giorgio Moroder. But
34:11
Speaker 1: I digress. Claudio tinkered away on another Ferrari five twelve model, modern, sophisticated,
34:19
Speaker 1: slick as hell. Eddie perked up Claudio who owns this beauty?
34:25
Speaker 1: The question was kiss me that car? That car belongs
34:29
Speaker 1: to Sammy Hagar. Claudio set you want his number. I'm
34:35
Speaker 1: Jake Brennan in This is Disgraceland. Disgraceland was created by
34:53
Speaker 1: Yours Truly and is produced in partnership with Double Elvis.
34:56
Speaker 1: Credits for this episode can be found on the show
34:59
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35:02
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