Ronnie Montrose: “What Made Eddie Van Halen Special Was His Youthful Irreverence For The Rules.”
Shortly before his death, the late, great Ronnie Montrose contributed to the upcoming hardcover photo book, Eddie Van Halen, by Neil Zlozower.
The Van Halen News Desk has the exclusive on the guitarist’s story of meeting Eddie Van Halen:
“The first tour I did with Van Halen, the bill was Journey, Ronnie Montrose, and Van Halen was opening. I was doing my instrumental music on that tour. Van Halen was a young, loud, and brash band, and I liked them. Eddie came up to me backstage at sound check and he called me Mr. Montrose. He shyly shook my hand and said, “Mr. Montrose, I’m Edward Van Halen, and I’m a big fan. We told Ted Templeman to get the Montrose sound when we did our record.” He also told me they used to play “Dancin’ Feet” from one of the Montrose albums at their yard parties in Pasadena.
“I really enjoyed Eddie’s playing. What made Eddie special was his youthful irreverence for the rules. That’s what impressed me. He’d developed his own style. I think Eddie started out on drums first, and there’s a very percussive nature about the way he plays. He plays very metered and percussive, and he’s very fluid in that style.”
-Ronnie Montrose
Legendary rock photographer Neil Zlozower’s second Van Halen hardcover coffee table photo book, Eddie Van Halen, is back in stock at Van Halen Store. It’s the definitive visual history of early Eddie Van Halen – jam packed with classic and never before published photos! A MUST HAVE for Van Halen fans and guitarists alike. Van Halen Store is the exclusive retailer of autographed copies, signed by the author himself, at no additional charge. Order now!
More Van Halen Summer Tour Dates Announced
Van Halen keeps adding dates to its highly successful 2012 North American tour in support of their latest album, “A Different Kind Of Truth”. Here’s a list of all the August and September concerts announced so far:
8/2/12 Columbus, OH Schottenstein Center
8/4/12 Knoxville, TN Thompson-Boiling Arena
8/6/12 Memphis, TN FedEX Forum
8/8/12 Birmingham, AL BJCC Arena
8/10/12 Greenville, SC BI-LO Center
8/12/12 Cincinnati, OH US Bank Arena
8/21/12 Spokane, WA Spokane Arena
8/23/12 Portland, OR Rose Garden
8/25/12 Sacramento, CA Power Balance Pavilion
8/28/12 Fresno, CA Save Mart Center
8/30/12 Reno, NV Reno Events Center
9/4/12 Salt Lake City, UT Energy Solutions Center
9/8/12 Albuquerque, NM Tingley Coliseum
9/11/12 El Paso, TX UTEP Don Haskins Center
9/13/12 Austin, TX Frank Erwin Center
9/15/12 Oklahoma City, OK Chesapeake Energy Arena
9/17/12 Wichita, KS INTRUST Bank Arena
9/21/12 Moline, IL Iwireless Center
9/25/12 Milwaukee, WI Bradley Center
For the complete list of all the remaining dates for 2012, visit our tour page.
Van Halen Interviews, Part 4 (Video)
This new video is the forth video interview from Van Halen which features the founding members of the band talking about what it was like before they skyrocketed onto the scene in 1978. Enjoy!
Old-School Throwdown
From Calgary Sun:
Maybe you can turn back the hands of time to 1984 — if only for a couple of hours.
Although Sammy Hagar is a good singer, so-so songwriter, solid frontman and expert tequila maker, Van Halen was never really Van Halen without David Lee Roth. It’s true.
At 57 years of age, the clown prince of rock ’n’ roll hijinx, shenanigans and tomfoolery was actually in fine form Wednesday night.
Unlike Hagar, Diamond Dave was never much of a singer, but for some reason or another … it’s never really mattered. And it didn’t Wednesday.
The verticals of his patented flying scissor kicks aren’t quite what they used to be, but Roth brought the excited Calgary classic rock contingent to its collective feet as he first appeared on the massive minimalist stage and launched in the quick one-two punch of Unchained from 1981’s Fair Warning and Runnin’ With The Devil from the still outstanding self-titled 1978 debut.
Resplendent in black sequined jacket, pants and white scarf, Roth could barely contain himself.
“We’re off to a flying start tonight, Calgary!” he bellowed to raucous applause in front of the giant LED video screen.
Flanked by bassist Wolfgang Van Halen, Uncle Alex on drums and dear old dad, Eddie, on guitar, the tales of internal dysfunction and destruction seem to be a thing of the past.
Touring behind the first new Van Halen record in 14 years — and the first with Roth in 28 — the key players of Roth and Eddie Van Halen seem committed, fit, healthy, disease-free and even … happy.
For all of his mad genius guitar histrionics, flakiness and overall craziness, Eddie remains one of the great rock guitarists of all time. Some 35 years after forming the band in Pasadena, Calif., his style and techniques are still oft-imitated, but never duplicated.
He smiled brightly while finger-tapping his way through She’s The Woman, first single, Tattoo, from the new A Different Kind Of Truth album, Everybody Wants Some!! from Women and Children First and Somebody Get Me A Doctor from the second album. After all, it wasn’t like we were going to be hearing anything 5150 or OU812.
The interplay and chemistry between father and son was as effective as it was, er, heart-warming. The kid can play and the harmonies of Wolfgang and Eddie often overshadowed Diamond Dave. Is it live or is it Memorex? You be the judge. Unfortunately live sometimes just isn’t live anymore.
The band poured it on through Hear About It Later, the Roy Orbison nugget Oh, Pretty Woman, its second most famous cover of the Kinks’ You Really Got Me, and Dance The Night Away from Van Halen II. Indeed, these were the tunes everyone came to hear.
The crowd was far from ready to go home as the group pulled out Beautiful Girls, Ice Cream Man and Panama.
It wouldn’t be an old-school Van Halen throwdown without a 10-minute guitar solo, and EVH provided the flash and substance as only he can. Eruption — man, forget about it. This guy is still really something.
The show had yet to conclude at press time, but, not surprisingly, every show on the current tour has ended with Ain’t Talkin’ Bout Love and, of course, Jump.
Pearl Jam & Alice In Chains Attend Van Halen Show
Wolgang tweeted al picture of himself and Eddie with Eddie Vedder, Mike McCready, Jerry Cantrell, and Sean Kinney backstage at a Van Halen show in Tacoma, Washington from last weekend.
WolfVanHalen Wolfgang Van Halen:
New Van Halen “Biker Pin-Up” Shirt in Sizes Up To 4XL
Van Halen Store has a brand new shirt for 2012 featuring a classic pin-up girl on a vintage motorcycle. Printed on a 100% cotton sand colored tee and available in sizes Small – 4XL (Regular-Fit). Order the Biker Pin-Up Tee for just $24.95 here.
Due to countless requests, Van Halen Store now carries more shirts available in larger sizes.
View all 3XL (12 designs) or 4XL (4 designs).
 1982 Vintage Lion Shirt, Black $19.95 Small – 4XL Now in 3XL & 4XL! |
 Rock ‘N’ Roll Shirt $19.95 Small – 4XL Now in 3XL & 4XL! |
 1984 “Tour of the World” Shirt $19.95 Small – 4XL Now in 3XL & 4XL! |
Happy Birthday, Alex Van Halen!
Alexander Arthur Van Halen was born on May 8th, 1953, in Amsterdam, Netherlands. He was raised in Nijmegan, a town just otside Amsterdam. Luckily for millions of rock fans, the Van Halens moved to the U.S. when Alex was about 9.
While not much is known about the man himself, fans can deduce all they really need to know by listening to his music.
We wish Alex all the best, and we thank him and the band for a phenomenal new album and tour!
Wolfgang Van Halen Is the Youngest Biggest Rock Star Alive
From Esquire.com:
And it’s not just the DNA. A conversation with twenty-one-year-old Wolfie — bass player, band leader, son of some other guy who apparently plays guitar (and chimes in from time to time).
By David Curcurito
(Part of the reporting for “Eddie Van Halen Alive,” from the May 2012 issue of Esquire, on sale now)
ESQUIRE: Did you actually have to decide at one moment that I’m going to be in this band? Or did you just feel like you were — I mean, there had to be a point where you’re like, Holy shit, they’re really planning this thing around me.
WOLFGANG VAN HALEN: I guess it really didn’t hit me until, like, the first night of the tour, in 2007. It just felt so normal, because we had already been rehearsing for two years. It just kind of fell into place, you know? I didn’t really have anything that I felt like I needed to do other than music. It’s the only thing I had, I think.
ESQ: So you joined when you were fifteen?
WVH: We started rehearsing when I was almost sixteen, like four months before I was sixteen. But then we rehearsed for, like, a year and a half, two years — it takes a really long time to get shit done — but by the end, we were all practiced up. It’s just so crazy. We’re playing while rehearsing. We started rehearsing and recording ourselves for the record right before I turned eighteen. So for about two and a half years, we’ve pretty much been rehearsing every single day — excluding Sundays, maybe, just the three of us, and it’s funny, it doesn’t feel like work at all. It just feels like something that we do.
EDDIE VAN HALEN: Not even close to work — we just kind of meet each other every day. “See you in the studio tomorrow!” “Okay!” “You wanna play?” “Yeah, okay, let’s play.”
WVH: We call each other at 10:30, like, “Hey, see you at 12.”
EVH: Sometimes we go, “You wanna play or not?”
WVH: Dad always goes, “Do we have to?” And I say, “Yes.”
EVH: No, but half the time it was because I was so tired of setting up mics and engineering.
ESQ: You don’t have some guy that does that for you?
EVH: No, because I know what I want. The shit I record sounds way better than the record.
WVH: The early demos of just the three of us sound fantastic. We had severe cases of demo-itis.
EVH: I’m the only one who knows how this band is supposed to sound. Drum-wise, it starts with the drums. If Al’s drum sound isn’t there, you know, forget it. I’m the only one who can get it.
WVH: The band has never sounded this good.
ESQ: So you enjoy playing sound checks? Are you really working kinks out, or do you just enjoy playing?
WVH: It’s kind of just a ritual, almost. We’ve been doing this new thing to mix it up — every single show we’ve played has been different — I want to keep it interesting. Since we’re on the second tour, I think we’ve earned the ability to play older songs, like “Hear About It Later.” Last night I was so happy we played that.
ESQ: Have you written an entire song for Van Halen?
WVH: Not yet. Just little parts. It’s a collaboration. Like, we go, “Hey, I came up with this idea,” kind of just all play. We jam it and kind of play around: “Hey, that works.” “No, no, no, this works.” “No, how about that?”
ESQ: A lot of people who are famous for something, their kids turn out to be assholes.
WV: Yeah. You kind of inherit the lifestyle without any of the skill that got them to where they were.
ESQ: Seems like you’re the new face of Van Halen. I saw this real kind of leadership quality in what you were doing, not only onstage, but when you’re backstage, you’re the guy saying, “We’re going to play this,” “Let’s rehearse this,” “Can we learn how to play this?”
WVH: I mean, I kind of come up with the set lists. When we’ve got a song that we haven’t done, it’s like, we should probably run through this before the show and figure out like the count of it. Because dad, for some reason, counts in odds. He’ll land on three instead of four.
ESQ: He’ll go “1,3,5,7″ instead of “1,2,3,4″?
WVH: Yeah, I have to look at him sometimes and go —
EVH: You making fun of me?
WVH: He still, to this day, does not know the lyrics to “Beautiful Girls.” You know how we go, “top of the world, beautiful girls”? He has it written down on his pedal board. On the last tour I used to have to go [mouths lyrics]. You were at sound check yesterday when we were practicing “Full Bug” and he was like, “I don’t know when to stop!” So I had to go over there and was just like, “Now!”
ESQ: This music was written well before you were even born. And you enjoy it?
WV: Oh, yeah, I love it.
ESQ: The whole sound sounds much meaner. I mean, it is just thunderous. To hear all those old Van Halen songs with your bass, it’s like, bass-plus. It’s like turbocharged Van Halen.
EVH: The bass sounded a lot meaner at home when we recorded it ourselves.
ESQ: Well shit, man. How the heck are we going to hear that stuff?
EVH: Eh, we’ll leak it out. The demos of the demos.
ESQ: Are you writing music on the road?
WVH: Not much. I mean, we have a lot of ideas that we wrote that never made it to the record that were so awesome I wish they had made it. But we kind of held it off to another record, possibly.
ESQ: Because there’s just so much material?
WVH: Yeah, there’s so much. And there’s so much material that dad wrote such a long time ago that has never seen the light of day, either.
ESQ: But when your father is retired, okay —
WVH: That’s going to be a while.
ESQ: I know, but when his arms fall off… okay, when his arms fall off and his ears fall off, you’re going to carry on this band.
WVH: Yeah, it kind of falls on my shoulders. I thought it would be really fun if dad and I just sat down and started jamming and see if we came up with something together, instead of him writing something and me putting my spin on it.
EVH: In previous incarnations of the band, I wrote a lot of melodies, too. I just thought of something, Wolf, you’re younger than I was when we made our first record.
WVH: Really?
EVH: Yeah.
WVH: How old were you, 22?
EVH: 21.
ESQ: Your father says you’re a good guy — is he keeping an eye on you? Who’s keeping an eye on you on tour at this point? You’re 21 years old. You’re good on your own?
WVH: Yeah, for the most part.
EVH: Hey, hey, hey, I check up on you.
ESQ: But not like last time.
WVH: No. Last time my mom had so many spies staring at me, you know. I mean, it was just everybody on the crew.
EVH: Inspecting rooms and everything.
WVH: This time around I was like, “Okay, I know what went on last time. You guys don’t have to do that anymore.”
EVH: Yeah, but I still go, “Text me when you get there, text me when you stop.”
ESQ: I would imagine that you know when you’re leaving tomorrow, you know what time the bus is leaving tomorrow. I don’t know if your dad does.
EVH: I can take it. I can take it from him. I can take it from you.
Caption This Photo, #5
Here’s a photo from 1981. Write your own caption/punchline in our Comments section.
Van Halen: A Howlin’ Escape
From The News Tribune:
By Sean Robinson; Staff Writer
The year was 1982. I was 18, and a couple of younger guys had asked me to sing in their band.
Their idea of a lead singer was Roth, the bad-ass blond howler from Van Halen.
I loved Van Halen, but I could not scream like David Lee Roth. I tried – it felt like swallowing an exploding cigar.
About the same time in Minnesota, before she knew me, my future wife, Metalgirl, frizzed her blonde hair into a massive chemical heap. She donned boots fringed with goat fur, flipped off pimply teen geeks and turned up the Van Halen cassette in her white Camaro.
She was a headbanger. She loved Van Halen. She and her best friend, Metalchild, went to all the concerts. They saw the band live, at its sweaty, silly MTV peak.
And they loved Roth. They were card-carrying Dave Slaves – the fangirl phrase of the time.
Cue the present, 30 years on: Metalgirl and Metalchild are about to take over our house for a grand reunion. They give orders. They demand food and wine. I’ve added extra insulation, installed caution tape and alerted the neighbors.
Metalchild is flying in from Minnesota and we are going to see Van Halen play the Tacoma Dome this weekend. We will drive to the Dome in the Soccer Taxi – the minivan with the dog kennels in back. We are rebels.
We’re taking Guitar Kid, the teen prodigy and heir to Metalgirl’s prized possession, her Precious: a souvenir Eddie Van Halen guitar pick, acquired three decades ago and preserved in a temperature-controlled chamber beneath our home.
The metal women saw Van Halen at the pinnacle of the Roth era. They brag that one on me. I never saw the band in the old days – I just listened.
But Van Halen saved my sanity in Alaska. While Metalgirl and Metalchild were dolling up and going to concerts, I was working summers at a salmon cannery in Bristol Bay.
The job was terrible: picture wet, ancient assembly lines pumping out cans of salmon by the acre, workers standing 14 hours at a stretch in soggy rubber raingear, and everything stinking of fish guts. The town wasn’t much better. No paved roads, one convenience store selling suspicious fried chicken, and a whole lot of rain, mud and tundra.
Workers lived in a barracks at the cannery. You worked, ate, collapsed into a crummy bed, got up and did it all over again. The cafeteria specialized in salmon.
Music was the only escape. I owned a Sony Walkman, the iPod ancestor. (Portable! Headphones!)
The creepy convenience store carried cassette tapes, including Van Halen’s first album. I bought it for one song: “Jamie’s Cryin’, ” a lumbering pounder with a good hook. I didn’t know any other songs. From the first notes of the first cut, the tape blew my head off. I’d heard big guitars before, but this one sounded 20 feet tall. Eddie Van Halen played so fast, impossibly fast – yet it was still music. His guitar cackled. It laughed.
I played “Eruption” for my dad when I got back from Alaska – the hall-of-fame solo that made Eddie’s name, a series of lightning-quick runs, explosions and skyrockets. Dad scoffed and told me to listen to Al DiMeola.
Over the top of the band, Roth ran his mouth, belting demented macho lyrics punctuated by ridiculous patter, a running stand-up routine. An interviewer once told him most critics preferred Elvis Costello. He shot back: Most critics looked like Elvis Costello.
The band was funny. They didn’t bother with demonic poses. They were anything but serious. They were beach boys, but bigger and louder. A song packed with giant guitar riffs could stop for 30 seconds of genuine singing.
They could slide into metal-injected punk (“You Really Got Me”), then shift into pure pop (“Dance the Night Away”). Every album came with an Eddie solo, a little piece of virtuoso picking. I played one of them (“Cathedral”) over and over, learned it note for note on piano. Eddie made the guitar sound like an organ.
The typical hair-band lead singers sounded like they’d inhaled helium. Roth was different. He growled. He screamed like a coyote. Plus, the girls liked him – very useful knowledge for a teenager.
The geeks among us – the Rush fans – couldn’t understand why girls weren’t interested in them. Metalgirl explained the pecking order to me years later. The milky guys in Rush T-shirts were automatically rejected. You couldn’t dance to Rush.
By the time I met Metalgirl, Roth and Eddie Van Halen had split. We played the old songs and ignored the new lead singer. His name was forbidden in our household.
We waited long years for the reunion, for the good stuff. Metalgirl snagged tickets for Saturday’s T-Dome show within hours of the tour announcement. She spotted the new line of tour T-shirts, and sent me a pointed email that identified her selection.
Guitar Kid knows about Eddie Van Halen. I’ve played him the best cuts. He flicks his fingers around the quick runs of “Eruption.” Not bad, he admits, though he sniffs a little. It’s old, nothing special. Guitar Kid is sophisticated. He likes Joe Satriani and Jesse Cook. In rebellious moods, he’ll opt for Kurt Cobain. He’ll attend the concert for educational purposes, but he vows to be unimpressed.
After years of trying, I figured out some of the Roth screams. You start by imitating a cougar, then add wolf. It still makes me hack. Eventually, I found an alternative: imitate Ethel Merman. This actually works.
