With a consummate showman, the guitarist of a generation and some classic tracks, they revolutionized hard rock.
If ever a rock band epitomized the American Dream, it’s Van Halen.
Formed in Pasadena, California in 1974 by four teenage kids from families that had migrated across the Atlantic in the pursuit of a better life, Van Halen were loud, brash, shamelessly ambitious, larger-than-life: classically all-American. And so was their pioneering spirit.
Van Halen revolutionized hard rock music. When the band’s debut album was released in 1978, punk had unsettled rock’s old order; giants such as Zeppelin and Sabbath were on their last legs. But VH had seen the future. “This is the 1980s!” declared singer David Lee Roth, boldly if prematurely. “And this is the new sound – it’s hyper, it’s energy, it’s urgent.”
The key to that new sound was Eddie Van Halen, whose innovative two-handed ‘tapping’ technique made him the most influential guitarist since Jimi Hendrix. But VH wasn’t a one-man show. Eddie’s brother Alex went at his drum kit like a prizefighter. Bassist Michael Anthony underpinned Eddie’s histrionics and provided killer backing vocals that had him rightly described as the band’s “secret weapon”. And then, of course, there was ‘Diamond Dave’, a wisecracking, split-jumping, super-toned blond Adonis, son of second-generation Jewish immigrants, and hard rock’s greatest showman. As Roth stated: “I once heard somebody say to the Van Halens: ‘You guys play the music, the Jew sells it.’ Well, you’re fucking right!”
With Roth as cheerleader, Van Halen were America’s favourite party band, their high-octane turbo-pop songs the soundtrack to the ‘me’ decade. But when Roth left the band in 1985 amid mutual hostility, much of the magic went with him, even if his replacement, Sammy Hagar, was a better singer.
Nevertheless, the new-look ‘Van Hagar’ proved just as successful as the former model, while Roth’s solo career stalled in the 90s.
Hagar lasted 10 years. His successor, former Extreme vocalist Gary Cherone, was out after one album. Hagar returned for a chaotic reunion tour in 2004, and two years later came the announcement that Roth was rejoining the band with, shockingly, Eddie’s 15-year-old son Wolfgang replacing Michael Anthony.
Whatever happens next, Van Halen’s place in the pantheon of classic rock acts is secure. With 56 million albums sold, they are 19th on the list of biggest-selling acts in the US. And at their best (with Roth) Van Halen ruled.
ESSENTIAL: CLASSICS
VAN HALEN
Warner Brothers, 1978
As one of the classic debut albums, this 10-million seller is up there with Zeppelin’s and Sabbath’s and Appetite For Destruction. Van Halen was like a bomb going off. With its short, punchy songs, technical flash, testosterone-charged swagger and sense of daring, it kick-started the 80s two years early. “We were not afraid of defying convention,” said DLR. “Everybody was ascending.”
Eruption was Eddie’s volcanic showpiece. And the orthodox songs were equally explosive, from Runnin’ With The Devil through to frenetic closer On Fire. Classic Rock’s Geoff Barton, then reviewing for Sounds, called the album “senses-shattering”. Van Halen had arrived – with an almighty bang.
1984
Warner Brothers, 1984
The last of the definitive Roth-era albums was also the one that made Van Halen a household name on this side of the Atlantic when its lead single, Jump, hit No.7 on the UK chart. In playing this simple rock song on a keyboard, guitar hero Eddie beat all those airy-fairy synth-pop acts at their own game.
I’ll Wait, the album’s other big pop crossover hit, was also powered by a keyboard riff, but the hard rock crunch of Panama and Hot For Teacher ensured that the band’s hairy fan base wasn’t alienated.
On 1984, Van Halen could do no wrong… But by 1985 Roth was gone, and the band, in whatever guise, would never be as great again.
SUPERIOR: THE ONES THAT HELPED CEMENT THEIR REPUTATION
VAN HALEN II
Warner Brothers, 1979
How do you follow a belter of a debut album? Many have dropped the ball, from Montrose to The Darkness. But Van Halen walked it, banging out their brilliant second album in just six days. It sounds like it, too: fresh, a little loose, fizzing with energy, its air of beer-fuelled spontaneity encapsulated in Roth’s fumbled lyric and giggles on Bottoms Up!
Shrewdly, Van Halen didn’t try to top the fire-power of Van Halen, opting instead for a lighter, more playful vibe, running from the jammed intro to You’re No Good (such chutzpah!) to Roth’s farewell kiss on the closing Beautiful Girls. And in Dance The Night Away they delivered the perfect pop-metal song.
DIVER DOWN
Warner Brothers, 1982
Possibly the laziest album ever made. There are just 18 minutes of original material on Diver Down. But no matter: despite the whiff of contractual obligation, the album is a blast.
Back in the mid-70s, when they were still a bar band named Mammoth, the boys had a repertoire of 300 cover tunes. Diver Down recalls that era with a stinging rendition of The Kinks’ Where Have All The Good Times Gone!, plus covers of Roy Orbison’s (Oh) Pretty Woman, the Tamla Motown classic Dancing In The Street and a jazz number featuring dad Jan Van Halen on clarinet.
The original songs on the album are all great too, especially Secrets, the sweetest thing Van Halen ever recorded.
FAIR WARNING
Warner Brothers, 1981
The cover illustration – details from Canadian artist William Kurelek’s The Maze, portraying scenes of urban madness and violence – was befitting of the most left-field VH album.
Fair Warning is tough, edgy, dark, and in places plain weird. ZZ Top aside, no other mainstream, multi-platinum hard rock band would have dared to record such bizarre tracks as Dirty Movies (a funky porno satire), Sunday Afternoon In The Park (a sinister, new wave-inspired instrumental), and One Foot Out The Door (a punky, half-finished throwaway).
However, the meat of the album lies in two straight-up rock songs: the bruising Mean Street, and Unchained, featuring Eddie’s chunkiest riff.
WOMEN AND CHILDREN FIRST
Warner Brothers, 1980
Van Halen’s third album included a poster of Roth in classic beefcake pose, photographed by the legendary Helmut Newton. Roth was rock’s leading pin-up boy, but VH hadn’t gone soft. The album is a hard rock tour de force, typified by Tora! Tora!.
And The Cradle Will Rock…, is Roth’s homage to teenage drop-outs. Fools and Everybody Wants Some!! are fluid jams built around crushing riffs. Romeo Delight threatens to run right off the rails. The only light relief comes with the drunken sea shanty Could This Be Magic?
Women And Children First is Van Halen’s true cult classic album. In Roth parlance: “Pure fuckin’ rock.”
GOOD: WORTH EXPLORING
5150
Warner Brothers, 1986
For many people, Van Halen just wasn’t Van Halen without Diamond Dave. Eddie saw it differently. “We lost a frontman,” he said, “but we gained a singer.” And with Sammy Hagar on board, the band’s career arc continued upwards.
5150, the first ‘Van Hagar’ album, was also the band’s first US No.1. With trusted producer Ted Templeman having defected to the now solo Roth camp, VH enlisted Foreigner’s Mick Jones to put a fine gloss on what became the album’s three keyboard-driven hit singles: Why Can’t This Be Love, Dreams and Love Walks In.
And yes, Sammy was a better singer than Dave. But 5150 didn’t have the spark of classic VH. And we all knew why.
FOR UNLAWFUL CARNAL KNOWLEDGE
Warner Brothers, 1991
All four studio albums that Van Halen recorded with Sammy Hagar topped the US chart, although the third of them might not have sold so well if it had been titled according to the singer’s wishes. “I wanted to name the album just Fuck,” Hagar said. Instead, they chose something more oblique.
The album – co-produced by an exonerated Ted Templeman – is patchy, but it has three songs as good as any from the Hagar era: Poundcake – heavy, grungy, with Eddie applying an electric drill to his fretboard; Top Of The World – vintage feelgood VH; and the piano-led Right Now – and arguably the best song the band have ever written.
OU812
Warner Brothers, 1988
Having proved with 5150 that there was life after Dave, Van Halen couldn’t resist a little dig at their former singer with the title of their eighth album, a cheeky reference to Roth’s Eat ‘Em And Smile.
OU812 did good business (current US sales: four million), but it’s a hit-and-miss affair. Lacking Dave’s levity, the heavier tracks are all bluster, but a lighter touch on the three hit singles works beautifully. Black And Blue is a funky boogie lit up by Michael Anthony’s doo-wop-influenced vocal harmonies, When It’s Love is a deluxe rock ballad, Finish What Ya Started is a genuine surprise, with Eddie twanging country-funk guitar licks and Hagar croaking soulfully.
AVOID
VAN HALEN III
Warner Brothers, 1998
Even the most partisan of Roth loyalists had to admit that Hagar could sing. What’s more, Hagar had starred on one of the greatest rock records of all time: Montrose’s legendary self-titled debut. But the same could not be said of Sammy’s replacement. Gary Cherone was the wuss who sang in Extreme – wearing a leotard.
Van Halen and Cherone was a disastrous mismatch, and produced just one album – that sold only 500,000 copies, when every other VH album had shifted at least two million. The reason is that Van Halen III stinks like a wet dog. Every song sucks, and Cherone sings them like a drowning man. It’s an album so bad, in fact, that Van Halen have never made another since.
