Latest / DISGRACELAND / Van Halen Pt. 2: Pulling a Gun on Fred Durst, Racing Ferraris and Lambos, and Rock ‘n’ Roll’s Most Faithful Servant

Transcript

Van Halen Pt. 2: Pulling a Gun on Fred Durst, Racing Ferraris and Lambos, and Rock ‘n’ Roll’s Most Faithful Servant · DISGRACELAND

0:00
Speaker 1: Disgraceland is a production of Double Elvis. This is a
0:17
Speaker 1: story about a modern day warrior, a man with a code,
0:21
Speaker 1: a man out of time, a musician with a take
0:24
Speaker 1: no shit violent streak, a beretta to the head of
0:28
Speaker 1: Limp Biscuits, Fred Durst, a military assault vehicle tearing ass
0:33
Speaker 1: through the tony streets of Beverly Hills. It's about an Alex,
0:37
Speaker 1: a Michael, a Sammy, even a Dave. And of course
0:41
Speaker 1: it's about an Eddie. This is a story about Van
0:45
Speaker 1: Halen and one of the four guitarists who belongs on
0:48
Speaker 1: the Mount Rushmore of guitar playing. It's about a band
0:52
Speaker 1: who made great music. Unlike that music I played for
0:56
Speaker 1: you at the top of the show. That wasn't great music.
1:00
Speaker 1: That was a preset loop from my melotron called let
1:03
Speaker 1: me get some of that Podcake MK one. I played
1:07
Speaker 1: you that loop because I can't afford the rights to
1:10
Speaker 1: these dreams by Heart, And why would I play you
1:14
Speaker 1: that specific slice of authentic sibling cheese? Could I afford it?
1:19
Speaker 1: Because that was the number one song in America on
1:22
Speaker 1: March twenty fourth, nineteen eighty six, and that was the
1:26
Speaker 1: day the Van Halen released their seventh studio album, fifty
1:29
Speaker 1: one fifty, their first with new lead singer Sammy Hagar,
1:33
Speaker 1: an album that allowed the band to reach new commercial heights,
1:36
Speaker 1: while unresolved problems continued to bubble unseen beneath the surface.
1:42
Speaker 1: On this episode Anthemic Sibling Cheese a military assault vehicle,
1:48
Speaker 1: a baretta, a code and Van Halen, I'm Jake Brennan,
1:53
Speaker 1: and this is dis Graceland. Eddie Van Halen jammed his
2:23
Speaker 1: combat boot down on the gas pedal. The assault vehicle
2:27
Speaker 1: he recently bought at auction roared to life, tearing ass
2:30
Speaker 1: down the quiet streets of upscale Beverly Hills. There was
2:34
Speaker 1: no weapon in the machine gun mouth, but that didn't
2:37
Speaker 1: make the vehicle anymore street legal. This decommissioned slab of
2:41
Speaker 1: government steel was very much illegal, but Eddie didn't care,
2:46
Speaker 1: just like he didn't care about the gun he was holding.
2:49
Speaker 1: He was on a mission, and to carry out that
2:51
Speaker 1: mission he required a certain level of comfort. Beverly Hills
2:56
Speaker 1: made him uncomfortable, and that's not because he wasn't welcome.
3:00
Speaker 1: It was two thousand and one, after all, and Eddie
3:03
Speaker 1: Van Halen, the guitar player of his generation, the one
3:06
Speaker 1: in the same who just decades earlier, had reinvented the
3:09
Speaker 1: instrument and in many ways revitalized a genre, was very
3:13
Speaker 1: rich and very famous. It was the pretension that bugged him, though,
3:19
Speaker 1: the vulgar display of one's wealth, status, and power. Eddie
3:23
Speaker 1: didn't play that game. He wasn't a star. He's just
3:27
Speaker 1: a regular guy, a kid stuck in a grown man's
3:29
Speaker 1: body who liked to play guitar. But if you went
3:32
Speaker 1: and did something dumb like keep one of his guitars
3:35
Speaker 1: locked up in your fancy mansion and then did something
3:38
Speaker 1: equally dumb like not answer his phone calls to arrange
3:41
Speaker 1: a time for him to come pick up that guitar
3:43
Speaker 1: like a normal person, that kind of Beverly Hills bullshit
3:46
Speaker 1: lit a fire under Eddie van Halen's regular ass. So
3:50
Speaker 1: Eddie van Halen tore ass in his military assault vehicle
3:54
Speaker 1: through the nine two to one on a zip code
3:55
Speaker 1: with no shirt on. His tattered pants were being held
3:59
Speaker 1: up by a piece of rope while he drove, and
4:01
Speaker 1: the boots on his feet, the ones that were managing
4:04
Speaker 1: the gas pedal on the break at the moment, those
4:06
Speaker 1: were wrapped up in duct tape. And his long hair
4:09
Speaker 1: was up in a bun as a samurai in feudal
4:11
Speaker 1: Japan centuries ago would have worn it. And just like
4:14
Speaker 1: the samurais of old, Eddie van Halen sought enlightenment, believed
4:20
Speaker 1: in salvation, and lived by a code. Enlightenment came through
4:24
Speaker 1: his music, Salvation came from within, and his code was
4:29
Speaker 1: governed by three points honor, discipline, and morality. This was
4:34
Speaker 1: how he lived his life, or how he tried to
4:37
Speaker 1: at least. And God rewards those who seek him and
4:40
Speaker 1: all that. Eddie van Halen was a seeker, a searcher,
4:45
Speaker 1: just like that other iconic American, John Wayne, a man
4:48
Speaker 1: who made westerns about anti hero cowboys that often borrowed
4:52
Speaker 1: from Japanese samurai films, the same ones who wore their
4:56
Speaker 1: hair like Eddie was now wearing his samurais Cowboys, John Wayne,
5:02
Speaker 1: Eddie van Halen. It was all connected. And now, at
5:06
Speaker 1: forty six years old, with the days of routinely putting
5:09
Speaker 1: up hits on the billboard charts seemingly behind him, Eddie
5:13
Speaker 1: van Halen's purpose was more elusive than ever. In a
5:15
Speaker 1: shifting landscape of grunge new metal in Britney, Spears Eddie
5:21
Speaker 1: sow more than just his signature tone. He was looking
5:25
Speaker 1: for yet another new singer for the band that bore
5:28
Speaker 1: his name van Halen, a band which had famously or
5:32
Speaker 1: infamously burned through three vocalists over the course of its
5:35
Speaker 1: story career. Now gets all that in a minute. And
5:38
Speaker 1: he was looking for meeting too, after recently separating from
5:42
Speaker 1: his wife of two decades, Valerie Burton Nellie, and he
5:45
Speaker 1: was looking for a cure for the cancer that was
5:48
Speaker 1: growing in his tongue. But at this very moment, what
5:52
Speaker 1: Eddie van Halen was really looking for was his guitar,
5:56
Speaker 1: and he knew just where it was held captive inside
6:00
Speaker 1: the Beverly Hills home of one Fred Durst, that backwards
6:04
Speaker 1: red hat enthusiast and lead vocalist of Limp Biscuit, the
6:08
Speaker 1: band which just two years earlier had incited a riot
6:11
Speaker 1: at Woodstock ninety nine with their macho fucko anthem break stuff. Today, however,
6:16
Speaker 1: it was Eddie who was doing the inciting. He drove
6:19
Speaker 1: his self vehicle onto Fred's well manicured front lawn put
6:22
Speaker 1: it in Parker. However, you get those things to stop
6:24
Speaker 1: and let it idle nice and loud, He jumped from
6:27
Speaker 1: the driver's seat, pulled the gun from his waistband and
6:30
Speaker 1: made a bee line for the front door of the house.
6:33
Speaker 1: He knocked. Red Hat answered, Eddie wasted no time. He
6:36
Speaker 1: put his gun to that stupid fucking lid sitting on
6:39
Speaker 1: top of Fred Durst's stupid fucking face, and said, Hey,
6:42
Speaker 1: where's my shit? Motherfucker. Twenty four hours earlier, the vibe
6:50
Speaker 1: was way different. Eddie was hanging out with Fred, the
6:54
Speaker 1: man he'd only just met, and he was hanging out
6:57
Speaker 1: with him inside of Fred's house, jamming with Limpiscus minus
7:00
Speaker 1: guitarist Wes Borland, who had recently left the group. Now,
7:04
Speaker 1: if you know anything about Eddie van Halen and about
7:06
Speaker 1: limp Biscuit, you're probably thinking what the fuck? And yeah,
7:10
Speaker 1: even Fred Durst himself, when a mutual friend suggested he
7:14
Speaker 1: audition Eddie for lymp Biscuit's new lead guitarist, said, and
7:17
Speaker 1: I quote that would be hilarious. The greatest guitar player
7:21
Speaker 1: ever jams with the worst band ever. Again, that's a
7:24
Speaker 1: Fred Durst quote, But also consider this, Eddie van Halen
7:28
Speaker 1: hadn't actually bought a new record since Peter Gabriel's album
7:32
Speaker 1: so which came out in nineteen eighty six. That's fifteen
7:36
Speaker 1: years before this scene that I'm describing to you took place.
7:40
Speaker 1: So it's entirely plausible that eddievan Halen had no idea
7:43
Speaker 1: what he was getting into when he agreed to jam
7:45
Speaker 1: with lymp Biscuit. Maybe in this vulnerable moment of searching
7:48
Speaker 1: for something new, maybe Eddie was just open to an opportunity,
7:52
Speaker 1: any opportunity, just like he and Van Halen were once
7:55
Speaker 1: upon a time open to crazy opportunities as well, like
7:59
Speaker 1: jamming with Joe Caer or Ozzy Osbourne and even Daryl
8:02
Speaker 1: Hall to fill their lead singer's empty shoes. No shit,
8:05
Speaker 1: look it up, but the insane pipe dream of Limp
8:09
Speaker 1: Biscuit with Eddie Van Halen on lead guitar was not
8:12
Speaker 1: meant to be. Eddie knew it as soon as he
8:14
Speaker 1: walked inside was hit by a cloud of marijuana smoke.
8:17
Speaker 1: Eddie didn't do weed, but when it came to Eddie's
8:19
Speaker 1: stimulant and depressant of choice, that'd be cocaine and alcohol,
8:24
Speaker 1: and there were tools to help him work, he thought,
8:26
Speaker 1: not something he used to unwind and party with the guys,
8:29
Speaker 1: Eddie told Fred thanks, but no thanks. He bounced fast,
8:33
Speaker 1: said he'd be back for his guitar and gear the
8:35
Speaker 1: next day. That next morning, he called Fred to schedule
8:38
Speaker 1: a time to go pick up his stuff, but Fred
8:41
Speaker 1: never answered, and Fred never called him back. Fred Durst
8:45
Speaker 1: gave Eddie van Halen the brush off, And now Fred
8:49
Speaker 1: Durst was regretting that decision, that in action, that lack
8:53
Speaker 1: of respect, or so Eddie van Halen would like to think,
8:57
Speaker 1: the greatest guitar player ever was standing on the lawn
8:59
Speaker 1: of the front man the worst band ever, still aiming
9:02
Speaker 1: his gun at that stupid fucking hat while some clowns
9:05
Speaker 1: on Fred's payroll load a gear into Eddie's assault vehicle.
9:08
Speaker 1: And this was such a bad idea that Eddie thought
9:10
Speaker 1: to himself there was only one musician he was compatible with,
9:14
Speaker 1: and I mean compatible in the eternal mind mild kind
9:17
Speaker 1: of way, and that was his big brother, Alex van
9:20
Speaker 1: Halen's drummer. No other musical relationship ever lasted, not with
9:25
Speaker 1: David Lee Roth, van Halden's original lead singer, who, depending
9:28
Speaker 1: on who you ask, either quit or was fired from
9:30
Speaker 1: the band back in nineteen eighty five, and definitely not
9:32
Speaker 1: with Gary Charon, the guy from Extreme whose tenure as
9:35
Speaker 1: Van Halen's front man at the end of the nineties
9:37
Speaker 1: was as short as one of the cigarettes that burned
9:39
Speaker 1: down to the filter in the headstock of Eddie's guitar.
9:42
Speaker 1: Then there was the one they called the red Rocker,
9:45
Speaker 1: Sammy Hagar. He eventually went the way of Diamond Dave
9:48
Speaker 1: out on the skids after his initial winning dynamic with
9:51
Speaker 1: the Van Halen Brothers turned sour, but not before he
9:54
Speaker 1: helped take the band higher and higher. Straight up, they
9:57
Speaker 1: climbed higher than they had ever gone before or since.
10:01
Speaker 1: Eddie wanted to go there again, not for the money
10:04
Speaker 1: or the fame he had all that. He wanted relevance.
10:08
Speaker 1: He wanted to matter again. What had it been six
10:12
Speaker 1: years since Sammy left? Eddie wondered, if it was all
10:15
Speaker 1: just water out of the bridge, if you could go
10:18
Speaker 1: home again. And as he watched Fred Durrist's muscle load
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Speaker 1: his gear into his illegal assault vehicle, Eddie van Halen
10:25
Speaker 1: decided to do two things pronto. Number one, get the
10:30
Speaker 1: fuck out of Beverly Hills before he was handcuffed and
10:32
Speaker 1: tossed into the back of a police cruiser. And number two,
10:36
Speaker 1: wring up his old friend Sammy Hagar. Sixteen years earlier,
11:04
Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty five, Eddie van Halen was once again
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Speaker 1: behind the driver's seat. This time it wasn't an old
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Speaker 1: military vehicle, but instead his equally attention grabbing Lamborghini. He
11:16
Speaker 1: pumped the clutch with his left foot down, shifted, and
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Speaker 1: then let the Lambeau hug the steep curve of ahead.
11:23
Speaker 1: Then the road straightened out. This was the part Eddie loved,
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Speaker 1: clutch stick gas. The Lambo swooned like one of those
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Speaker 1: busty co eds riding a rail at the show, leaving
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Speaker 1: Malibu in the dust and setting its sights in the valley.
11:38
Speaker 1: Over the hill and the next lane over, a jet
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Speaker 1: black Ferrari suddenly appeared. Keeping pace. Eddie looked over at
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Speaker 1: Sammy Hagar, sitting behind the wheel of his five twelve BB.
11:51
Speaker 1: Eddie gave Sammy that world famous ear to ear granted,
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Speaker 1: the one typically reserved when he had a guitar in
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Speaker 1: his hands, and was blowing even his own mind. As
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Speaker 1: fast behind the wheel as he was on a fretboard,
12:02
Speaker 1: and almost as happy. The two cars shot up the
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Speaker 1: open road together eighty ninety one hundred miles an hour,
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Speaker 1: Eddie clearly with a new lease on life, and Sammy
12:13
Speaker 1: proving that the boast he'd made in his most recent
12:15
Speaker 1: hit single was one hundred percent authentic. He could not
12:19
Speaker 1: drive fifty five. Only now Sammy Hagar was no longer
12:23
Speaker 1: going the road alone as a solo artist, but as
12:26
Speaker 1: the new lead singer for one of the biggest bands
12:29
Speaker 1: in the world, Van Halen. Sammy could hardly believe it.
12:33
Speaker 1: For Eddie and Alex van Halen, it wasn't just believable
12:36
Speaker 1: after all the circus cheeseball bullshit that they'd endured with
12:39
Speaker 1: their original singer, David Lee Roth. It was absolutely necessary
12:44
Speaker 1: to quote Alex. At the time, we had a toothache
12:46
Speaker 1: for about eleven years, went to the dentist and had
12:49
Speaker 1: it extracted. Now we have a crown with a gold
12:51
Speaker 1: cap on him, and a gold cap crown is as
12:55
Speaker 1: a gold cap crown does so. Sammy Hagar bought a
12:59
Speaker 1: place near Eddie's second house in Malibu, and each afternoon
13:02
Speaker 1: the two would raise their fancy cars to Eddie's other
13:05
Speaker 1: house in studio in the San Fernando Valley, specifically Studio City.
13:10
Speaker 1: Work on the band's seventh studio album there first with
13:13
Speaker 1: Sammy on the mic, and then race each other home
13:15
Speaker 1: after dark and after Eddie was good and shift faced.
13:19
Speaker 1: Sometimes Sammy would take his Ejag or his Cobra. Today
13:22
Speaker 1: it was a sleek midnight machine, as sleek as the
13:25
Speaker 1: music he was now making with Eddie Alex and Michael Anthony,
13:28
Speaker 1: van Halen's long suffering bass player. And holy shit was
13:33
Speaker 1: the music sleek and huge sounding. Van Halen two point
13:39
Speaker 1: zero sounded just like that metallic sphere looked on the
13:41
Speaker 1: cover of their album fifty one to fifty, which is
13:43
Speaker 1: to say, polished, glossy, and yes heavy. Fifty one to
13:49
Speaker 1: fifty named after Eddie's home studio, which itself was named
13:53
Speaker 1: after a section of the California Penal Code that allowed
13:55
Speaker 1: for the detention of an adult suffering a mental health crisis.
13:58
Speaker 1: Fifty one to fifty was not by Van Halen's longtime
14:02
Speaker 1: collaborator Ted Templeton, but by foreigners Mick Jones, who you
14:05
Speaker 1: should know is also the stepfather of Mark Ronson, But
14:08
Speaker 1: that's beside the point. But back to the point. Mick
14:10
Speaker 1: Jones gave that record that Van Halen was making a
14:13
Speaker 1: modern sheen. When it hit shelves on March twenty fourth,
14:17
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty six, supported by Monster singles like why Can't
14:21
Speaker 1: This Be Love and Dreams fifty one fifty went gangbusters
14:26
Speaker 1: in the mid eighties, Van Halen mattered. The og metal Heads,
14:31
Speaker 1: on the other hand, begged to disagree. Van Halen could
14:34
Speaker 1: never be Van Halen without their beloved David le Ros
14:38
Speaker 1: call it a vocal minority because all that bitching and
14:40
Speaker 1: morning was taking place as fifty one to fifty race
14:42
Speaker 1: straight to the top and look, man, I don't care
14:45
Speaker 1: who you are, you have got to give it up
14:47
Speaker 1: for Sammy Hagar. Maybe you like the Day Years better.
14:51
Speaker 1: Hell I like the Day Years better. But maybe you
14:53
Speaker 1: go even further. Maybe you think they were more pure,
14:55
Speaker 1: or they had less power ballads and fewer keyboards, or
14:59
Speaker 1: maybe you condescend. He referred to Sammy's tenure as Van
15:01
Speaker 1: Hagar or whatever. But it doesn't matter. Sooner or later
15:05
Speaker 1: you're gonna come around to the Sammy Hagar version of
15:08
Speaker 1: Van Halen. Okay, it also doesn't matter that Sammy Hagar
15:11
Speaker 1: came from a press shirt kind of world, and Eddie
15:14
Speaker 1: and Alex were the equivalent of a beer soaked stale
15:16
Speaker 1: beer smelling dorm room. You know best at both worlds.
15:20
Speaker 1: But here are the facts. Van Halen with Sammy Hagar
15:23
Speaker 1: went to number one on the Billboard album chart, and
15:26
Speaker 1: not just in nineteen eighty six, but four times in
15:29
Speaker 1: a row over the next nine years, which is a
15:32
Speaker 1: feat that the band was never able to pull off
15:34
Speaker 1: with David Lee Ross. I love David Lee Ross, now
15:38
Speaker 1: this is no doubt. Dave was flashy as shit. He
15:40
Speaker 1: got your attention with those midair splits off the drum riser.
15:43
Speaker 1: He was goofy and schlocky showbiz to his core in
15:46
Speaker 1: the best kind of way, and he delighted in being
15:48
Speaker 1: Van Halen's mouthpiece. But David Lee Roth ran that mouth
15:52
Speaker 1: like a cocky sixteen year old, just as Eddie here
15:54
Speaker 1: was running his lambeau. Not that Eddie wasn't still a
15:56
Speaker 1: sixteen year old himself, because in many ways he most
15:59
Speaker 1: serve was. But unlike Dave, Eddie was a musical genius,
16:03
Speaker 1: faithfully serving his master like a samurai old. The thing
16:07
Speaker 1: was for Eddie, his master was his music, and music,
16:13
Speaker 1: to quote Eddie van Halen overpowers bullshit. That was the
16:18
Speaker 1: answer Eddie gave after he was asked if He felt
16:20
Speaker 1: vindicated when fifty one point fifty went to number one
16:23
Speaker 1: following the messy split with David Lee Roth, Eddie was
16:27
Speaker 1: in a great place. In Eddie's eyes. Sammy was not
16:30
Speaker 1: a peacock like Dave, but a true musician, and since
16:33
Speaker 1: Sammy played guitar, Eddie could stretch out in concert and
16:36
Speaker 1: play keyboards, which Dave always gave him shit about. But
16:40
Speaker 1: without Dave, the music continued to reward Eddie van Halen
16:44
Speaker 1: it's most humble servant. He didn't even need a samurai
16:47
Speaker 1: bu in his hair at this point to be the
16:49
Speaker 1: noble warrior that he was. But the music wasn't the
16:53
Speaker 1: only thing holding Van Halen the band together. Despite outward appearances,
16:59
Speaker 1: this was still fragile unit of four men. Every day
17:03
Speaker 1: something threatened to destroy it. All the boozing, the drugging,
17:07
Speaker 1: the non stop fucking it was taking place in puff
17:09
Speaker 1: tents beneath the stage. Yes, all four guys had their
17:13
Speaker 1: own tent in which they indulged in their wildest sexual fantasies,
17:17
Speaker 1: and those tents were set up beneath the stage at
17:20
Speaker 1: their concerts. Don't ask me how it just happened, so
17:23
Speaker 1: that they could act upon those sexual fantasies while the
17:26
Speaker 1: show went on.
17:28
Speaker 2: Eddie and l both addicts, were just as prodigious.
17:30
Speaker 1: When it came to hand to hand sibling combat as
17:33
Speaker 1: it did to musical telepathy. Sammy meanwhile, had girl problems.
17:37
Speaker 1: All is sleeping around on the slide got him at
17:39
Speaker 1: least one extortion attempt from a former playboy buddy he
17:42
Speaker 1: said she was carrying his child, all while his wife's
17:45
Speaker 1: panic attacks caused it to nearly jump from a plane.
17:49
Speaker 1: Bassist Michael Anthony meanwhile was once again getting the shaft
17:53
Speaker 1: when it came to money, watching his share the music
17:55
Speaker 1: publishing shrank down to a measly ten percent. These tensions
18:00
Speaker 1: were enough to break up any band, but add to
18:03
Speaker 1: it Eddie and Alyx's increasing belief that Sammy wasn't working
18:06
Speaker 1: as hard as they were, a suspicion that they'd previously
18:08
Speaker 1: experienced with Dave. And it's crazy that things didn't fall
18:11
Speaker 1: apart sooner than they did. And the reason things didn't
18:15
Speaker 1: all fall apart wasn't because of the music. It was
18:19
Speaker 1: because of Ed Leffler. Ed Leffler was more than just
18:25
Speaker 1: a rock and roll manager. He was a father who
18:28
Speaker 1: wanted to make all of his children happy when he
18:31
Speaker 1: was brought on board along with Sammy. Leffler's first order
18:34
Speaker 1: of business was to make sure that relations between the
18:36
Speaker 1: van Halen brothers and Sammy didn't go the way they
18:39
Speaker 1: went with Dave. Ed Leffler ran interference. Ed Leffler maintained
18:44
Speaker 1: a proper balance of power. Ed Leffler would take a
18:47
Speaker 1: bullet for his clients. In fact, he took a fist
18:50
Speaker 1: to the face over and over and over, trapped inside
18:53
Speaker 1: an elevator at a show in Dallas, where an unknown
18:56
Speaker 1: assailant beat the living piss out of him and put
18:58
Speaker 1: him in a hospital. The guys never had to worry
19:02
Speaker 1: about ed Leffler's loyalty, but they did worry about his health.
19:06
Speaker 1: First there was that assault in Dallas, and soon after
19:10
Speaker 1: there was his cancer diagnosis, and it looked bad. As
19:14
Speaker 1: bad as the scene, Eddie was now witnessing outside the
19:16
Speaker 1: window of his studio City House every night, some crepe
19:20
Speaker 1: parking a van across the street, watching him, watching his wife, Valerie,
19:24
Speaker 1: and their newborn son, Wolfgang. No one ever got out
19:27
Speaker 1: of the van, It just sat there. And the cops
19:30
Speaker 1: could only do so much, and Eddie called them and
19:33
Speaker 1: they came and made the van move, and the van left,
19:35
Speaker 1: and then the van came back. Eddie wasn't about to
19:38
Speaker 1: sit idly by like an idiot, only to find out
19:41
Speaker 1: the hard way that the person inside was a demented psycho.
19:45
Speaker 2: So just as it was.
19:46
Speaker 1: Once his job to protect his musical innovations, to protect
19:49
Speaker 1: his brand and his legacy from companies making money illegally
19:52
Speaker 1: off of those innovations, it was now his job to
19:55
Speaker 1: protect his young family, which is how in the early
19:59
Speaker 1: nineteen nineties, an anxious Eddie van Halen became the owner
20:03
Speaker 1: of a twenty five caliber Bretta.
20:08
Speaker 2: We'll be right back after this.
20:10
Speaker 1: We're We're, We're. Dude, Eddie van Halen is a fucking legend.
20:25
Speaker 1: Did you see him play his guitar in that new
20:28
Speaker 1: video with a power drill? And dude, dude, get this
20:34
Speaker 1: van Halen's new record.
20:37
Speaker 3: For a lawful carnal Knowledge, Dude, check it out for
20:42
Speaker 3: unlawful carnal knowledge. F Uck fuck they named their new
20:48
Speaker 3: record fuck.
20:53
Speaker 1: If you were high in high school in nineteen ninety one,
20:56
Speaker 1: you'll remember this sort of thing being said pretty much
20:59
Speaker 1: verbatim by a kid in a jean jacket with a
21:01
Speaker 1: peach fuzz Stash leaning up against the hood of his
21:03
Speaker 1: car out in the parking lot next to yours, just
21:06
Speaker 1: moments before he dipped into the pocket of his flannel
21:08
Speaker 1: shirt to pull out a camel light to rip after
21:11
Speaker 1: just toking that joint. Maybe that kid was you, and
21:14
Speaker 1: if so, I salute you. Who cared about led Zeppelin's
21:17
Speaker 1: Jimmy Page playing his guitar with a violinbo anymore? Old
21:20
Speaker 1: fucking news Man Jimmy's little trick couldn't hold a candle
21:23
Speaker 1: to Eddie's makita as it revved up the strings of
21:25
Speaker 1: his brand new Ernie Ball music Man guitar in the
21:28
Speaker 1: video for Poundcake, the lead single from Van Halen's ninth
21:32
Speaker 1: studio album, third with Sammy, titled for Unlawful Kernel Knowledge, which, yes,
21:38
Speaker 1: was named that way on purpose for the juvenile acronym,
21:43
Speaker 1: but calling the album for Unlawful Kernel Knowledge saved it
21:46
Speaker 1: from being slapped with the dreaded parental advisory sticker that
21:50
Speaker 1: was cropping up on other notable albums released in nineteen
21:53
Speaker 1: ninety one, such as The Red Hot Chili, Pepper's Blood Sugar, Sex,
21:56
Speaker 1: Magic Weens, The Pod, and The Guns N' Roses. Double
21:59
Speaker 1: album Music Illusion one and two. And though Van Halen's
22:02
Speaker 1: new album was hailed by many as a return to
22:05
Speaker 1: form a capital R rock record, such praise by Van
22:09
Speaker 1: Halen's fan base couldn't save them from a two out
22:11
Speaker 1: of five stars review in Rolling Stone magazine. Only months later.
22:16
Speaker 1: That same publication would give Nirvana's never Mind only one
22:19
Speaker 1: star higher than that. So what the fuck did Rolling
22:22
Speaker 1: Stone know? Anyways? When Pepsi came calling, they use Right Now,
22:27
Speaker 1: the album's socially conscious third single for a commercial marketing
22:31
Speaker 1: their brand new crystal Pepsi Eddie. The band and their
22:34
Speaker 1: manager Ed Leffler were making the kind of money Rolling
22:37
Speaker 1: Stone could only dream of. Ed Lefler, for one, used
22:41
Speaker 1: his steady hand to guide Van Halen through their most
22:43
Speaker 1: commercially viable years. He was a fixer at heart. The
22:47
Speaker 1: only thing it seemed he couldn't fix was the cancer
22:50
Speaker 1: and his thyroid, and by nineteen ninety three, Ed Leffler
22:54
Speaker 1: needed more than crystal pepsi money. He needed a miracle,
22:58
Speaker 1: So Sammy Hagar went looking for one. Sammy knew that
23:01
Speaker 1: whether or not he ended up just another blip on
23:03
Speaker 1: the Van Halen radar, was in large park due to
23:05
Speaker 1: Leffler's influence. Sammy went above and beyond, and then he
23:10
Speaker 1: went under the table that is below the border, all
23:14
Speaker 1: the way to Mexico, where samples of ed Leffler's urine
23:17
Speaker 1: were sent. Neurotransmitters were extracted from that urine and then
23:22
Speaker 1: sent back in tiny vials. The idea was that you'd
23:25
Speaker 1: shoot up those tiny miracle vials directly into your muscles
23:28
Speaker 1: and the healing would begin, which, according to Sammy, is
23:32
Speaker 1: what Leffler did. Sammy even did it along with him whackado.
23:38
Speaker 1: I don't know, but desperate times, you know. Ultimately, however,
23:43
Speaker 1: neurotransmitter extracted urine was no match for the Big Sea.
23:48
Speaker 1: In the fall of ninety three, ed Leffler was dead. Suddenly,
23:52
Speaker 1: the layer of protection that Leffler once provided, both internally
23:55
Speaker 1: amongst band members and from the external forces beating down
23:59
Speaker 1: on them was gone. The wheels slowly began to come off,
24:04
Speaker 1: but not before Eddie van Halen's hair came off first.
24:08
Speaker 1: Eddie was sad about ed Leffler's death. He was pissed,
24:12
Speaker 1: and he was frustrated too. He was overwhelmed by everyone
24:15
Speaker 1: who wanted a piece, and offended by the human behavior
24:17
Speaker 1: that his dead manager had so fiercely shielded him from.
24:21
Speaker 1: The wine bottle in his hand was just about empty,
24:23
Speaker 1: and he brought it to his lips and put the
24:25
Speaker 1: thing out of its misery. His own misery was just beginning.
24:29
Speaker 1: He walked into the bathroom, grabbed an electric razor, and
24:32
Speaker 1: shaved his head till every strand of his trademark long
24:35
Speaker 1: hair was on the floor. He stared at himself and
24:38
Speaker 1: tried to understand. He didn't know why he'd just done that,
24:43
Speaker 1: but the more he looked at himself, the more he
24:45
Speaker 1: saw his bald head as a clean slate, a fresh start.
24:49
Speaker 1: He quit drinking, just like his brother Alex had done
24:52
Speaker 1: some years earlier, with the help of rehab. Eddie didn't
24:56
Speaker 1: do it that way. He just put his mind to it.
24:59
Speaker 1: Some zenboos, this type stuff, salvation coming from within, and
25:02
Speaker 1: all that being sober as a total mind fuck. He
25:06
Speaker 1: had relied on alcohol for so long as part of
25:08
Speaker 1: his playing, as part of his work of how he
25:11
Speaker 1: served his Lord. The music booze lowered his inhibitions, which
25:15
Speaker 1: in his mind allowed him to attempt things he never
25:17
Speaker 1: would have attempted had he been straight. Now he no
25:21
Speaker 1: longer felt comfortable in his own skin. In fact, he
25:25
Speaker 1: was noticing just how much he hurt. His hips were
25:28
Speaker 1: killing him and Van Halen called their nineteen ninety five
25:32
Speaker 1: tour behind their tenth album Balance the Ambulance Tour, because
25:36
Speaker 1: Eddie was getting around with a cane and Alex was
25:39
Speaker 1: wearing a neck brace so that he could play through
25:41
Speaker 1: three ruptured discs in his vertebrae. It was on this tour,
25:45
Speaker 1: in April of nineteen ninety five that Eddie van Halen
25:48
Speaker 1: found himself racing through the Burbank Airport to catch a
25:51
Speaker 1: flight down to a show in San Diego. The carry
25:54
Speaker 1: on bag was gripped tight in his hand. He habbled
25:57
Speaker 1: his way to security, those bad hips screaming at him,
26:01
Speaker 1: just burning it. Wasn't accustomed to running from terminal to
26:04
Speaker 1: terminal on his own like this. He was used to
26:07
Speaker 1: a charmed life of private jets, even if he claimed
26:10
Speaker 1: to reject all that rockstar bullshit that came along with it,
26:13
Speaker 1: that he was no rock star. He was just a
26:15
Speaker 1: regular rold guitar player and this is just a regular
26:18
Speaker 1: role commercial flight that he was about to board. So
26:21
Speaker 1: he handed that regular carry on bag to an airport's
26:24
Speaker 1: security officer, and the officer on zipped it and looked inside.
26:28
Speaker 1: His eyes went wide, like there's something very very wrong
26:32
Speaker 1: here wide. He turned his gaze from the open bag
26:35
Speaker 1: to Eddie and then back again, and this gave Eddie pause.
26:39
Speaker 1: Eddie began to freak. His stomach was in his throat,
26:42
Speaker 1: and the officer stuck his hand inside the bag and then,
26:45
Speaker 1: very slowly, very carefully, he pulled out Eddie van Halen's
26:49
Speaker 1: loaded BURRETTA. One week later, Eddie stood before Judge, rocking
26:57
Speaker 1: that regular guy charm, explaining how the twenty five caliber
27:00
Speaker 1: gun was something he'd initially bought for protection. You get
27:04
Speaker 1: it right, judge, You've got a family right. A judge
27:07
Speaker 1: has got to understand better than most that the world
27:10
Speaker 1: is full of freaks and weirdos, all of them moving
27:12
Speaker 1: in ways the rest of us can't comprehend. And when
27:15
Speaker 1: Eddie van Halen is moving, moving through space and time
27:18
Speaker 1: from one town to the next on tour, he regularly
27:21
Speaker 1: brings that same piece of protection with him. The beretta
27:24
Speaker 1: is second nature, just like one of his guitars. The
27:27
Speaker 1: thing is, he normally travels on private flights where he
27:31
Speaker 1: gets to make the rules.
27:33
Speaker 2: This whole thing is just a.
27:34
Speaker 1: Simple, stupid mistake. Eddie copped the plea a thousand dollars fine,
27:40
Speaker 1: one year probation, barely a crime. The bigger crime, in
27:45
Speaker 1: Eddie's eyes was whatever Sammy was trying to pull. And
27:49
Speaker 1: I'm not talking about that messed down in Mexico and
27:51
Speaker 1: Kabo Wabo, the club Sammy had built with the investment
27:53
Speaker 1: help of his Van Hallen bandmates, the one that got
27:56
Speaker 1: them a ton of MTV airtime but was starting to
27:58
Speaker 1: feel like an albatross around their necks. I'm talking about
28:01
Speaker 1: the Greatest Hits album Sammy was assembling in order to
28:04
Speaker 1: pay for his divorce, a collection of solo greatest hits,
28:08
Speaker 1: which whatever you do, you Sammy, But he was tacking
28:11
Speaker 1: on two brand new songs to squeeze Moss to narrow
28:14
Speaker 1: from the record company, and not just any two songs,
28:17
Speaker 1: but two songs he had workshopped with Van Halen. The
28:20
Speaker 1: fuck was up with that, Sammy, Hagar, Eddie and Alex
28:25
Speaker 1: were operating songs booze, But they were also operating without
28:28
Speaker 1: the usual smoke screen of Ed Leffler. So instead of
28:31
Speaker 1: this whole thing being a simple means to an end,
28:34
Speaker 1: a project which frankly the less ed he knew about
28:36
Speaker 1: the better instead all that it looked to Eddie and
28:39
Speaker 1: Alex like Sammy was about to big time them the
28:42
Speaker 1: way they thought David Lee Roth once had Sammy prioritizing
28:45
Speaker 1: his solo career and not giving his all to the band.
28:48
Speaker 1: The band was the thing, The band was it, The
28:52
Speaker 1: band was family. In the eyes of Eddie van Halen,
28:56
Speaker 1: Sammy Hagar was clearly going against that family, against that code,
29:00
Speaker 1: the code of honor, discipline, the morality. And if a
29:04
Speaker 1: man doesn't have a family, doesn't have a code, then
29:07
Speaker 1: what does he even have. In the eighteen seventies, the
29:34
Speaker 1: modern era had arrived in Japan, and the samurai suddenly
29:37
Speaker 1: found themselves obsolete. By eighteen seventy six, even carrying a
29:43
Speaker 1: sword was illegal. Some of the country's most respected warriors
29:47
Speaker 1: became beggars. Others assimilated into modern society and found callings
29:51
Speaker 1: as merchants or farmers. Well over one hundred years later,
29:56
Speaker 1: across the Pacific, in California, the modern era found Van
30:00
Speaker 1: Halen trying to make sense of his place inside of it.
30:03
Speaker 1: His Samurai von hairstyle echoed into the distant past as
30:07
Speaker 1: he rode upon his faithful steed, an old military assault vehicle,
30:11
Speaker 1: leaving Beverly Hills in the house of Fred Durst for
30:13
Speaker 1: more regular guy pastures back in the valley, back to
30:17
Speaker 1: where he belonged. Reunited with his gear, he then reunited
30:21
Speaker 1: the band with Sammy Hagar, which didn't last, just as
30:25
Speaker 1: the two reunions with David Lee Roth didn't last. The
30:28
Speaker 1: Van Halen timeline, perhaps more than that of any other
30:32
Speaker 1: rock band in history, is full of this kind of
30:34
Speaker 1: confounding musical chairs. Even Eddie's sun Wolfgame eventually replaced Michael
30:39
Speaker 1: Anthony on bass. Keeping it all straight is beside the point. Besides,
30:44
Speaker 1: Eddie van Halen didn't do timelines. Maybe it was two
30:47
Speaker 1: thousand and one, but to Eddie he was still nineteen
30:49
Speaker 1: seventy eight in his heart, in nineteen eighty six in
30:51
Speaker 1: his mind. Who knows if the year twenty twenty actually
30:55
Speaker 1: felt like twenty twenty. To Eddie Van Halen, he was
30:59
Speaker 1: sixty five, no longer wearing his hair like the samurai,
31:03
Speaker 1: but his fate remained tied to those warriors of old.
31:06
Speaker 1: Eddie's kind was now the antiquated one, the innovator, who
31:10
Speaker 1: did what he had to because he had no other choice,
31:13
Speaker 1: no means, only an unquenchable creative drive. Now in twenty twenty,
31:19
Speaker 1: there was nothing but choices, cheat guitars, kind of decent
31:23
Speaker 1: I guess available at the click of a button, free
31:26
Speaker 1: apps on which you could record your own songs, the
31:29
Speaker 1: world's music library from all of human existence on your phone.
31:33
Speaker 1: There was even a video game which you held a
31:35
Speaker 1: piece of plastic in your hands and you were the
31:38
Speaker 1: guitar hero. Eddie van Halen was a dying breed, and dying,
31:44
Speaker 1: by the way, was part of the whole deal. You
31:47
Speaker 1: live by your code, you serve your lord, which for
31:51
Speaker 1: Eddie was the music, even if it kills you. And
31:55
Speaker 1: death was coming for him first to try to strike
32:00
Speaker 1: him in his tongue, part of which was removed to
32:03
Speaker 1: cut out the cancer. Eddie went into experimental mode. Just
32:07
Speaker 1: like years ago. He experimented on the edge of his
32:09
Speaker 1: bed with his Frankenstrat and a six pack of Schlitz Talls,
32:13
Speaker 1: Only this time the experiments were medical. In a two
32:16
Speaker 1: thousand and six interview with Howard Stern, Eddie revealed that
32:19
Speaker 1: he'd secretly started a pathology lab in Long Island with
32:22
Speaker 1: a doctor, then that through that lab he'd beaten his
32:24
Speaker 1: tongue cancer, but that he couldn't reveal exactly how he'd
32:27
Speaker 1: beat it because by doing so, he'd piss off Big
32:30
Speaker 1: Pharma and maybe go to jail. Which sounds crazy to
32:35
Speaker 1: some of you, I know, But a few years later,
32:36
Speaker 1: Sammy Hagar and his memoir wrote that what Eddie had
32:39
Speaker 1: done was to take a piece of his tongue, a
32:41
Speaker 1: healthy piece, liquefy it, and then inject it back into
32:45
Speaker 1: his body. If this sounds like the failed ed Leffler
32:48
Speaker 1: fix all over again, you're not wrong. But did Eddie
32:52
Speaker 1: van Halen's fix actually work? Eddie thought so, at least
32:56
Speaker 1: for the moment, at least until the cancer came back
32:59
Speaker 1: later strong, in this time fatal, despite the chemo he received,
33:04
Speaker 1: and also despite the fact that he was using again
33:07
Speaker 1: not just alcohol but drugs. He was also convinced that
33:11
Speaker 1: the cancer came not from the enormous amount of cigarettes
33:13
Speaker 1: he smoked throughout his life, but from the metal guitar
33:16
Speaker 1: picks he would hold in his mouth whenever he needed
33:18
Speaker 1: both hands free to exhibit his two handed tapping technique.
33:22
Speaker 1: I'm not saying that Eddie van Halen thought he was superhuman,
33:25
Speaker 1: though to many of us he certainly seemed so. But
33:28
Speaker 1: from a very young age he pursued alternative methods when
33:31
Speaker 1: it came to overcoming obstacles. A guy who has to
33:35
Speaker 1: create his own guitar, create his own style is going
33:38
Speaker 1: to be the same guy who creates his own cure
33:40
Speaker 1: when he's staring down a fatal disease. But Eddie van
33:44
Speaker 1: Halen was no doctor. He was a guitar player who
33:48
Speaker 1: was incapable of any other profession, Just a regular guy
33:52
Speaker 1: trying to stay in music's good graces. Tom Jake Brennan
33:57
Speaker 1: in this is Disgraceland.
34:13
Speaker 2: All right, hope you dug this episode.
34:15
Speaker 1: Apple podcast listeners, make sure you have auto downloads turned
34:18
Speaker 1: on so you never miss an episode of Disgraceland. This
34:20
Speaker 1: week's question of the week is not easy. Which four
34:24
Speaker 1: guitar players belong on the Mount rushmore of guitar playing.
34:28
Speaker 1: It's Eddie van Halen, that's for sure?
34:30
Speaker 2: Is it?
34:30
Speaker 1: All? Dudes? Are there? Any women? Does clap to make
34:32
Speaker 1: the cut? All I know is Eddie is on it.
34:35
Speaker 1: Hit me up voicemail Tech six one seven nine oh
34:37
Speaker 1: six six sixty three eight and let me know. I
34:39
Speaker 1: can also be reached on Instagram, Facebook, and x at
34:42
Speaker 1: disgracelam pod and disgrace lampod at gmail dot com. If
34:45
Speaker 1: want to send me an email, leave a review for
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Speaker 1: free merch All right, here comes some credits. Disgraceland was
34:54
Speaker 1: created by Yours Truly and is produced in partnership with
34:57
Speaker 1: Double Elvis. Credits for this episode can be found on
35:00
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35:04
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Speaker 3: Here then