A July 1979 interview with Eddie and Alex Van Halen during Van Halen’s first headlining tour has surfaced.
In the interview, uploaded by YouTuber Paulo Micheli, Eddie and Alex are hangin’ out in the studio of St. Paul, Minnesota’s KQRS FM to promote their second of two shows at the St. Paul Civic Auditorium. Van Halen played at the St. Paul Civic on July 24th and 25th of ’79.
“We’re gonna blow the roof off and make the sunrise the ninth encore,” said Alex.
The interview took place while Van Halen was in the midst of the World Vacation Tour, whch kicked off on this week in 1979. The trek started off at the Selland Arena in Fresno, California on March 25th of ’79.
The brothers gave a brief history of the band (for those few left who hadn’t already knew about the mighty Van Halen by this time!), talked about David Lee Roth singing with strep throat and what it was like to be headlining for the first time.
“Everything you’ll see tonight is purely Van Halen,” said Eddie. “Last year we had to use the other act’s sound system and lighting, things like that. Now, total freedom. We can do whatever we wanna do.”
Alex said,” We have enough lights to light up a small city.”
Eddie: “Some small cities we play don’t have enough power!” [laughs]