Coheed and Cambria guitarist Travis Stever says Van Halen’s Women and Children First album was a life-changer.
Stever was recently asked by Musicradar to list the 10 albums that changed his life. He put WACF in the number two spot right behind Led Zeppelin III.
“I wouldn’t by any means call it under-appreciated, because Van Halen is Van Halen — all of their early records are rightfully known as classics — but it’s definitely one of the least mentioned when discussing them,” said Stever of Van Halen’s third studio album. “There’s just this momentum to the record where you can tell that it was created maybe more organically than some of their other records.
“It has all these incredible riffs and songs,” Steve continued. “Songs like ‘Loss Of Control’ are so good but would probably be considered what people call a deep cut but there’s just this momentum to the record where you can tell that it was created maybe more organically than some of their other records —
less produced, if you will. That’s something that I became attached to. It felt more like one of those scenarios where they were just throwing a lot of paint at the wall, and I remember reading a description of how they made it and it wasn’t one of those albums where they really went nuts with holing up and writing, and it felt a lot more raw by their standards.”
To read more of Stever’s comments on Van Halen and the 10 albums that changed his life, read all of Sam Drower’s Musicradar article HERE.