Neil Zlozower’s coffee table photo book, Van Halen: A Visual History, 1978-1984, is probably the best Van Halen book ever put together. The response to the book has been incredible, with virtually all feedback positive and all reviews glowing. The only complaint that fans had was that they wished there was a “Part Two.”
Well, good news… Zlozower has been working on a followup for over a year! This one will be an EDDIE VAN HALEN book and should be out around August or September this year. And from what we hear, it should be just as good as his first one. Many “long lost” Van Halen slides were scanned for the very first time for this project, promising many more never-before-seen photos. Like the first book, it covers strictly ’78 – ’84. The second book will primarily focus on Eddie, but will still contain many shots of David Lee Roth, Alex Van Halen and Michael Anthony.
Van Halen Store will again be the only place that will have copies signed by Zlozower. VHND will let you know when they start taking pre-orders.
Metal Shrine recently conducted a very interesting interview with Neil Zlozower. Here’s a Van Halen snippet:
Zlozower:“…Everybody likes to think there´s the bad boys of rock and roll, Guns N´Roses or Mötley, but honestly, the things that I witnessed with Van Halen were the most human debauchery as far as things they did with girls. I went on tour with Poison, I went on tour with Bon Jovi, I went on tour with Guns N´Roses, I went on tour with Ratt and I went on tour with Mötley and a billion other bands, but to me the antics with Van Halen, nothing really ever compares to that.
Metal Shrine: Who was the main instigator? Was it David Lee Roth?
Zlozower: Well, they all had different personalities. Michael was married and his still married to the same girl. She´s fantastic and I love her, so Michael he liked to drink Jack Daniels and he never really got involved in too much of the debauchery that was going on. Eddie was pretty mellow. He did the shows… he´s one of the greatest guitar players that ever lived, but I´d say Alex to be honest. Did you ever see those films where they throw pieces of meat to the shark and you get about 50 sharks that just fucking lose their mind and go ballistic, that´s how Alex was if he saw like a naked girl or whatever! He just would lose his fucking mind. He reminded me of those sharks and the shark eating frenzy. It turns out that me and Alex probably hung the most out of any of them. Usually after the shows, Dave had three of four girls and he would just take them up and do whatever he did, but me and Alex hung and I have tons and tons of photos of different adventures we had. I´m sure that the Mötley guys did it, but I never really saw it. Nikki was one of my closest friends in the world in ´83 and ´84! Me, him and Robbin Crosby went to Martinique on our trip to the Caribbean and we caused quite a bit of drama on that trip, to say the least, but I just never witnessed the same type of antics that I witnessed on tour with Van Halen.
Read the entire interview at Metal Shrine.