Interview: Engineer Behind 5150 studios, George Saer

This guy is almost brought to tears by minute 34 after having spoken about Ed’s genius, his craft, his kindness, his heart and soul for about seventeen minutes. I almost teared up. Then, I thought about Sammy making fun of Ed for having matresses up against wall in his house for sound proofing and chords running from 5150 to the house and I realized…I really hate Sammy Hagar.

Choke on that Carnal Knowledge.

@jungleland2…Great observation! It’s up to the artist and engineer/producer how much “correction” should be done. I absolutely agree that almost all music nowadays is pitch-corrected. I guess it’s whatever sells the best!

@Sparks in ’11
Well said. When you are in a rough patch you find out real quick who your real friends are.

Leaps…

That is the first post that I have read of yours where you trash Eddie just a bit. Finally!!

Now you are finally understanding why so many of us called for the return of “Teddy T” for this LP.

Too much Eddie means a return of VHIII. I liked the album but too many did not and it’s not the music for Dave’s talent.

This one is going to interesting on many levels.

The Nation Waits

@ Let’s Rock —-

I’ve always been critical of Eddie in the way he disrespects the fans and his lead singers. However, I give him more of a pass on things because he created the Mighty VH along with Dave, and without him there would be no Halen. I blast Sammy the most because he was just a replacement singer who came in at the right time, but yet thinks he’s better than Dave and foists a lot of lies and revisionist history on the public.

@ Panama Red —-

I agree with you that Eddie is way too involved in the producing side these days, and I dont think that is a good thing. It’s well known he was more heavily involved in producing “VH 3″ than any other VH album and that doesn’t bode well for this new project. Eddie’s obsessive-compulsive nature works well when it comes to playing guitar, but it’s a detriment on the post-production side. I hope he proves me wrong and this new album sounds like vintage VH, but I’m starting to have my doubts.

Even if the album is a good one, I will still be pissed at Ed if he muzzles Dave like he did on the reunion tour. To me, a big appeal of a new VH album is letting Dave do a lot of radio interviews because he has the gift of gab and can get the fans really stoked for the tour. It frustrates me why Eddie doesn’t want the ultimate PR machine like Dave to work his magic like he’s done so well in the past. Eddie is taking all the fun out of Van Halen!

CK. Hate is a strong word I don’t often use and was a bit much. It was late and I has a few drinks. Is it too late to change that to really really really sick of that guy based on the nonsense he’s said and written over the past 5 years or so? A thousand (well, a couple) apologies. Hey, atleast I didn’t call him a Nazi, right?

Finally watched the whole thing..

My simple takeaways:

Ted and Don drove the bus for the first VH LP’s..

The VH musicians are great, all of them..

George came into 5150 in 1998 for VHIII..

Studio Engineers need to help the musicians but for the most part, stay out of Eddie’s way..

OK

This is even more evidence of what the new VH LP will sound like. It will be great because I liked VHIII but as Eddie has said before, “We ain’t goin’ back”…

The only hope for those who want a CVH LP, Dave nuts up!!

Than gets sacked!

The Nation Waits

@Panama Red
You make a lot of valid points until…you bring up one of Sammy’s claims from his book. Gotta take anything he writes with a grain of salt. Remember, according to him VOA was just as big as 1984 and on and on and on…blah blah blah.

as said, very nice video.. even if VH III wasn’t really a good record… I mean, it wasn’t truly appreciated by VH-Fans worldwide…

even if Without You is a very good grrovy song

Most of the genius in the history wasn’t good when it came to the social part, Ed is like that, he said in many interviews that he hated doing interviews and he rather sit home and play guitar, writing music, coming up with riffs and stuff. And he had problem with alcohol.

Now this is my theory, it’s my thaughts, and this is why alot got screwed up in the reunion with sammy and the reason he wrote alot of bad stuff in his book.

Anyway it’s great that Ed got his life back together and stopped with drugs and that stuff, new music soon too, yeah Ed you are the best guitarist and songwriter ever, now get in touch with Dave and release a single or something

In a day when any band could walk into a Guitar Center and record and mix an album in a couple days, I’m not sure what holds up the bus. There are so many great recording tools as compared to what VH had back in the late 80′s. The mixing process is 1000 times better than what it was back in the early VH days.

Look at Chickenfoot…they went through the creative process, recording, and mixing in a matter of weeks. Kinda like what VH used to do. Mind you, these are guys that aren’t on the road together writing music. They came together and got it all done in a very short period of time.

Ed started second guessing himself after VH3. He cost Gary (his brother) his job and got real tentative. Then Ed became frustrated with the music biz, Pro Tools and illegal downloads, etc. Can you imagine if Ed would have had these tools back in the 70′s or 80′s? Or Led Zepplin? Being able to archive everything digitally and push record when you feel inspired on the road. Man…the technology is so good that many musicians have benefited from it.

Ed needs to sit down with Dave Grohl and remember why he’s doing this. I think most of Dave’s stuff is recorded in his garage or in the basement. Look at what they’ve done recently.

@ Wilkster5150 – I know a lot of vhnd posters have had major issues with Sammy’s descriptions and recollections in his book. Honestly when I read it, I thought it was entertaining and interesting. It’s Hagar’s personal point of view of how things happened in his life. If everyone else in Sammy’s life wrote about those same incidents I’m sure their recounting of those occurrences would vary some and all be somewhat different. That’s how it goes.
After I finished the book, I thought to myself it was a pretty good read and that was that. I may read it again since some time has passed, it may be interesting to read it again after reading all of the stuff people have commented on about it. I read the book very quickly and didn’t really dwell on any one specific thing about it. But anyway, I never got pissed or anything when reading it, it never occurred to me that Sammy might be deliberately distorting the truth and I still don’t think he intentionally was untruthful about anything. But that doesn’t mean there can’t be some inaccuracies when someone is remembering and talking about experiences in the past through their own point of view.

Anyway, I don’t mean to rehash all the stuff about Hagar’s book. Those are just my thoughts on the matter. Like I said, I will probably reread it sometime and see if I feel any differently about it the second time around. One of my thoughts about it after reading it was I remember thinking that I wished there had been more good, fun stories about Ed, Mike, and Al. Especially Ed. I really wish it would have been longer and Sammy could have elaborated on some topics he touched on. And I’m sure there were a lot of interesting things that were left out of the book completely.
But as far as Sammy talking about the Live album that I brought up in my last post that you questioned or were doubtful of, well I don’t think that was an issue with Sammy’s point of view, memory, anger or ego. I think it most likely really happened the way Sammy said it did. Why would he or anyone make that story up? Hypothetically speaking, even if he did make up that story it could very easily be disproven or discredited by anyone who was part of the VH camp back then, Ed, Al, Mike, the manager, engineer, producer, etc.
Here is an excerpt from Hagar’s book regarding the “Right Here, Right Now” debacle:

“The problem was they’d rerecorded almost the entire live album. Because Eddie was out of tune, or Al had sped up or slowed down, they’re fixing things. They fixed everything. Only now that Eddie was playing in tune, my singing’s off-key. And where Al sped up in ‘Runaround,’ now I’m singing ahead of the beat. Now I had to go back in the studio and redo all my vocals. I wanted to kill those guys.
Kari and I flew back to Los Angeles from Hawaii. I told Eddie to stay to stay the hell out of there. They put me in a room with the video of the concert, gave me my microphone, and I stood there and sang the whole fucking concert one time through. Just like it was a live performance. I barely went back to fix anything. It took me three hours and then I went to dinner.
The brothers were pissed. They took out the microscope, trying to find places that weren’t reasonable, that I needed to fix again. When they found something, I went out and fixed it. Fuck You.”

It’s pretty obvious that Sammy still has some issues and anger with the way some of the things went down in VH but I am convinced that this really happened the way Sammy said it did. I don’t see how this incident could get muddled up in Sammy’s memory. And I don’t see how he could get away with being untruthful about this without someone else speaking out about it and discrediting Sammy’s recounting of how this happened. Anyway, that’s some crazy shit. And it goes back to what some of us here were saying about Eddie’s obsessive behavior and tweaking the shit out of everything.
Live albums should be LIVE. This is Van Halen we’re talking about, not KISS!

I`ll be glad when the album comes out so i won`t have to see that stupid “the nation waits” comment ever again.

It’s funny. I have an old book I photocopied many years ago called “positively Van Halen” and here’s an excerpt:

Are you learning new things on the guitar all the time?

“Yeah. Like if I sit down and play by myself. I play completely different than I would with the band.I just go for feeling in my playing. All our albums have mistakes – big deal, we’re human.But they reek of feeling, and that to me, is what music is all about. It’s not like Fleetwood Mac. You know, they spend so much time and money on their albums. I think that if something is too perfect, it won’t faze you. It’ll go in one ear and out the other because it’s so perfect. Like our stuff, to me, keeps you on the edge of your seat. It builds tension whether you like it or not. It slaps you in the face.”

Interesting how things change!!

I really wish he kept the “brown sound” of their earlier work. I can’t say I like his over chorused sound. The sound from “runnin’ with the devil” and “Atomic Punk” made the stereo fear for it’s life. Raw and aggressive. Praying for some classic VH in this new album, but now holding my breath……and I say this as EVH being my all-time guitar hero.

FrankenFoot says:
“I’m a little confused…”

You sure are. What 1984 debacle are you talking about? The tour was one of the most legendary in hard rock history and it was one of the biggest, most succesful and acclaimed of any band from that era. I know – I was a fan at the time and I’ve read literally countless reviews from the press, fans and artists who were there. The 1984 album is considered a masterpiece of hard rock and was incredibly influential, selling over 10 million copies to date. Classic Rock magazine recently devoted several pages to celebrating it.

Eddie and the band at their best and most interesting.

Where’s the debacle? Or are you talking about them breaking up in ’85?