Howard Stern interviews 5150 producer, Mick Jones

November 10, 2009 65 Comments

On today’s Howard Stern show, Howard asked music producer Mick Jones what it was like to produce Van Halen’s first album with Sammy Hagar, 5150.

Filed Under: Van Halen

Mister Crowley

5150 is the best Van Hagar record by far…although “Inside” sucked goats. Wish Mick stayed on board for a few more. Stern loves his Halen but for whatever reason is fascinated by the dysfunction which permeates VH history and loves to prod when he gets the chance. –oh yeah, we all do. (Eddie and Al were abused??)
chris.omeara

EDDIE- A CONTROL FREAK?!! Whoduh Thunk It?!!
ironhalen

When it comes to the VHND the more I learn…the less I want to know.All the info i’ve soaked in on here is like when Dorothy and Toto,and the Lion saw behind the curtain.”Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!”.That’s what Ed and Alex would be sayin! lmao.
Mark

I concur. I liked Van Halen a lot better before I learned so much about them!
bosox

I love Howards interviews. Ba ba boey to you all.
garysamuelroth

I don’t think we are learning anything from this “interview.” Stern is just getting Jones to say what he wants him to say. The moment he attempts to qualify a response, Stern interrupts to keep the crap flowing. He’s a shock jock – if he can’t sensationalize it, he won’t talk about it.
bennythejet

This album sold 5 million copies, half the number of 1984.What makes this album special?
Rich

It was their first number one, it was their first with a new singer…it may have sold half the copies but really, a 5x platinum album isn’t something that is just “meh” – how many bands put 10x platinum album after 10x platinum album? Even with DLR their follow up to 1984 would not have sold as many.

I can’t imagine them all arguing when recording 5150, the press releases around that time showed them as a very happy, energetic band.
stephan chartier

I think Howard Stern is a asshole 5150 was the best Cd Vh ever done with Sammy fighting i don’t think so it was a new band Sammy and Ed were very close in the start so what the hell i don’t think that is the truth at all
Pottsy

I totally agree with the previous post: I really need to stop reading about the goings-on within the band. I fear I already know too much.
JC

This is a great album. It’s hard to pull off a lead singer change and they did it.I have to admit I was skeptical. Mick Jones did a good job. I’m sure the majority of the fighting was between Eddie and Alex. Sammy was still just starting his honeymoon with the band and I don’t think Michael argued too much.

I really wonder deep down who Alex would prefer in the band; Sammy or Dave. My gut would tell me Sammy.
Jeff

Stern is a lousy interviewer…leading, provocative questions and he won’t shut up long enough to get a real answer. Garysamuelroth had it right on. It seems Stern’s real intent was to trash the band.
Brian

Sounds like Howard talks out of both sides of his mouth.Next time he has Eddie on he will be kissing his ass.
Keith

I agree too. to much info and making us all fight and get disenchanted with our favorite bands, musicians, and music.
Please VHND, SHUT DOWN THE COMMENTS SECTION. It serves absolutely NO PURPOSE.
Opusthe1

5150 should have been called 5050 cuz its 50% good and 50% bad. Eat em & Smile is the better initial post spilt disc.
Jim

Howard Stern is an excellent interviewer. Just because you don’t hear what you want to hear, doesn’t make him suck. He gets people to answer difficult questions. No one wants to hear some boring, long interview about an album from 20 years ago. He makes interviews interesting. You have to keep people moving sometimes or they will drone on all day.
By the way, I thought 5150 was a good album except for the sound mixing.
VHokie

I could really see Ed’s perfectionism clashing with Sammy early on. 5150 tour was my first VH live experience, and I thought the album was pretty good.

Also, 5150 (song) on ‘Live w/out a Net’ is amazing!
David Alexander Toluca Lake

If you read the interviews at the time of 5150, Mick said he was not very involved in the music production. He would just show up at 5150 from time to check up on things.

Im glad Mick is still honest that he mainly was involved in the vocal production on 5150 and not the music. In fact Mick, at the time, said VH essentially produced 5150.

And the sound of 5150 is more about the talent of the engineer Donn Landee than Mick.

Since Donn passed away Van Halen cd’s have not sounded as good. Maybe F.U.C.K., but nothing else.
David Alexander Toluca Lake

And their is talk about who VH would prefer; Dave or Sammy.

Dave would be their choice, but David has issues with his vocal range now.

The main issue with Dave is his inability to sing as he used to.

I was surprised to see Dave had improved a bit vocally on the last tour.
Garrett

5150 is a forgettable, dated VH album…long live “Classic VH”
mjc

i’m surprised 5150 is not 10x yet.it’s a good disk,but all these years later i consider it the weakest of the hager era.
Aftershock

At the time of the 2004 reunion with Sammy, Sammy said that he’d been talking with a mutual friend of his and Van Halen, and that person convinced him he should give Alex a call. That subsequent call is what set that reunion in motion. At the time, it was rumored that Mick Jones was that mutual friend.

However, it wasn’t. I don’t know who it was, just that it wasn’t Mick.

Howard raises some interesting things — like the mood of Eddie and Alex after visits by their dad. Interesting, I have only heard and read fond things from Eddie and Alex about their dad over the years.

It did seem like Howard cut Mick off a couple times right when he was on the verge of saying something interesting or elaborating. Like when he asked about Wolfgang replacing Michael. He started to answer and then he got cut off and by the time Stern got back to him, the subject had changed.

Interesting interview, though.
lucky

I’m sometimes astounded on people’s taste in music. 5150 was the weakest Hagar album? I gage it to what i’ll still listen to. 5150 and Ou812 are the only discs that still find their way into my ears. Beyond that? nah. F.U.C.K sounds old and bloated, Balance even older and more bloated. There are some good songs here and there, but nothing that hits me like those first two did.

I prefer VH with Roth, always have, always will, but the first couple of Sammy albums were great.
mrC23

To be fair… Stern has some high praise for EVH earlier in the same show.
scott

Balance was a great record. And mature. They seemed like they had a blast that tour. Then that dickhead Ray Daniels took control and fucked everything up. And D.A.T.L…..you got it right my brutha.
J5150C

I think Stern was simply putting words into Mick’s mouth! Stern loves to bring out the worse in any situation. I really feel he needs to step back and let the interviewee answer the Q’s. What a bad interviewer he is. Now, do you really think Ed and Al had fist fights and really got along the way they did/do? Ed and Roth and Ed and Hagar never actually got to the fist fight thing, but they hated each other.
Jason

If Van Halen was so prideful and didn’t want to admit that someone had come in and helped them to sell a record, why would they ask Ted Templeman to come back? They wanted him for 5150 but he decided to work with David Lee Roth instead. And by the way, 5150 was not their most successful album. Just my 2 cents.
Gee Lopz

To me, sounds like a warning:

If Van Halen do a new record, they got to do it with Ted Templeman or/and Andy Johns (F.U.CK).

As a producer, i got to admitt, Eddie sucks!

To Produce the new record: No Eddie Van Halen, No Mick Jones, No Mike Post (VH III – Oh My God!), No Donn Landee and No Bruce Fairbarn…!!!!!!!!!!!
sammyvanroth

i could care less about commercial success. 1984 sold great but i’d take fair warning over 1984 anyday! 5150 was a great album especially for changing lead singers.
bosox

Howard is a great at the interview period. I actually learned something new.
How I rate the Sammy albums:
1. 5150, a very big accomplishment and good album.
2. Balance I thought the band was re-engerized with this one. Kinda of a refreshing album toward at the end of the grunge era.
3. Fuck Not that great of an album, I felt it was bloated. 4. ou812 no bass at all. Way to much pop, I hate and I mean it hate the song Feel so good!
5. Live Album, wished they released it with DLR.
6. That shit best of album with those 3 shitty tunes.
Let the angry VHND people at me…..come on because I’ve got Jack Johnson and Tom O’Leary waiting for ya, right here
Steve

Don’t believe a word of it. Mick is just mad because they didn’t want to work with him further. Every member of Van Halen has confirmed that they got along great and making the record was just a fantastic time and party. This is all just a bunch of hog wash.
RA 8 1 2

1984 was an awesome album yes, but the main reason it sold 10 mil is due to the number one single jump. Shit..house wives who could give a shit about vah halen were buying the album due to the song. It was a global hit. they still play it in clubs!
http://None Scrap49

The further we get from the Hagar/VH albums the less I like them. 5150 had a very inspired sound to it but the follow-ups seem over-produced and conservative. Fair Warning is my vote for best VH album and one of the true great rock albums of all time…not a weak track on it. Although, I think the originals on Diver Down are very under-rated…too bad half the record was cover tunes.
andy

An abusive relationsship? Yeah right! I’m definately not a psychologist, but the times I can recall Ed mentioning his dad it’s nothing but bigtime love&fun&respect; hardly the sign of an abusive relationship. This has *got* to be BS…
MICAL VEE

I’m a huge VH fan with the dave years,i thought they were cool with hagar but i have to admit,5150 was their best album with sammy.
Patrick

5150 was a good record overall. The song 5150 has one of Ed’s best solos.

However, Ed’s tone during 5150 & OU812 was his worst.

Far too much Eventide Harmonizer & chorus.

Balance was the best Van Hagar album. Ed’ playing was at his peak since he was on the wagon for a couple of years and the songs were far less poppy than Love Walks In, When It’s Love & Why Cant This Be Love.

Straight forward, ass kicking rock.
SirFrankenberry

Scrap49.. I agree with you 100% on your post.
Fair Warning is the best. Diver did have some good original
material.
As far as the Hagar era:
VH has been on a creative downward spiral for the last
25 years.
I think majority(NOT ALL) of the critics and fans agree that each record has sucked more than the previous one since 5150.
Adrian

this guys full of shit man ed and sammy and all them were totally enjoying eacother at this point their comradeship literally bleeds out the tv screen on live without a net…
Adrian

Plus Howard Stern is such a plebe. He is obviously oblivious about this subject and just trying to milk the whole ooo van halen fights relationship! He doesn’t give a shit he basically a talking tabloid. Eddie should this mofo
Canes_fan5150

Diver Down is a really Underrated album. Dancing in the streets is crap and same with pretty woman. Secrets is one of my favs along with Hang em high. The full Bug, Good times and Big bad bill are good tunes also. Cathedral never fails to put a dot on my underwear too.
chris.omeara

I like that song from “Twister” the best; I hope they do some more tunes like that…

Not really… Fair Warning, or anything before it. How you can go from “One Foot Out The Door” to “Love Walks In” is beyond comprehension…

Val must’ve left out the part in her book where she cut EVH’s balls off after their wedding…
Patrick

Are you referring to Humans Being or Respect The Wind, chris.omeara?

Both are amazing tunes.
Canes_fan5150

I forgot about Little Guitars. Thats my favorite song on the album. That and feel your love tonight are two hidden gems in the VH collection.
BTD

We know Ed’s a miserable bastard…..Next!
http://none Dirty Duck

Believe it or not I always liked 5150.

I first heard it back in the summer of 86′ when “eat em and smile” was rockin’. Being a young kid I didnt have an “ear” for music yet so I thought dave was singing on 5150 too. And it would be years into the future that I would be the “dave or the grave” type of guy…
My friends older brother rich (he introduced me to VH)explained the difference. I’m obviously a lot older now and I still think the album is damn good. “Good Enough” “Get up” , “Summer Nights” and “5150″ were always cool songs to rock out to. “Summer Nights” alone will always be a staple of my youth. I can still close my eyes and hear that song in the background while playing stickball in the street! Good times, good times! They should have kept mick as the producer. He did a great job with one helluva change!
Stoped listening after that…but intrest was sparked again years later with the F.U.C.K album…to me the HARDEST sammy ever rocked with VH….
TheTruthHurts

chris.omeara says:
“How you can go from ‘One Foot Out The Door’ to Love Walks In’ is beyond comprehension”

They didn’t; they went from “One Foot Out the Door” to “I’ll Wait,” and “Big Bad Bill,” “Dancing In the Street” & “Happy Trails” before that.
VHIII_1998_

Mick Jones wasn’t even there the whole time. He was like a puppet so warner bro’s could say they had someone there to supervise the production. Warner bro’s shot down the Idea of Eddie producing the album so they brought in Mick Jones to oversee everything, he was more a consultant than a producer. If you dont believe me check my source it was a reprint of a guitar world interview from 1986 it was re-released with a Vanhalen special issue in 2004 that had 6 or 7 different interveiws.
bosox

I wish Ed would have not changed the solo on the song “5150″ on “Live Without a Net”. That guitar solo on the 5150 album is in Eddies top 3 solos for the Sammy years.

I hear from guitar players that “I cant stop loving you” solo is pretty nasty, be it short in duration.
http://none Dirty Duck

VIII_1998_

I see where you’re coming from but he must have had some impact. None of the other sam era albums had that sound…or feel.
VHIII_1998_

Indeed Duck, Foriegner was a good band in their own right. I believe there was a reason to have him apart of the project, but what Ed said in the interview I read, he didn’t have much involvement as what he claimed on Howard Stern. 5150 was an alright album but I think For unlawful carnal knowledge was their best with Sam. OU812 had alot of success as well, especially with songs on the air. All of Van Hagar era albums Had Much Success. Roth era was like underground scene up until 1984. i am a fan of all era’s of VH so don’t get the wrong impression, If I could have my way Sam and Dave would be on tour with VH along with Mike and Wolf.