Edward Van Halen: A Definitive Biography (10 page)

BOOK: Edward Van Halen: A Definitive Biography
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CHAPTER 11 

Women First

And so the cycle continued. As soon as the
Van
Halen
II
tour was over, it was right back into the studio for the third album.
Women
and
Children
First
was made in eight total days, including vocals. The songs “Fools” and “Take Your Whiskey Home” were reprised from their 1975 days, although with new arrangements and updated lyrics. However, when asked by Jas Obrecht if the songs for the third album were “All new ones?” Edward said yes. Also, when asked about the lack of an instrumental on the new record, Eddie said, “‘Eruption’ was the first one and then the second one I did was in flamenco style, but it was still the same type of thing. And what could I do this time? I didn’t want to do one just for the sake of doing another solo.” Additionally, there was pressure mounting to eschew the instrumental solos from Dave who wanted Van Halen to present itself more as a succinct band/unit.

Although it was little noticed or acknowledged at the time,
Women
and
Children
First
marks the first use of keyboards of any kind on a Van Halen album. The signature sound on “And the Cradle Will Rock” is actually a Wurlitzer electric piano played through Ed’s standard guitar set-up. Beneath the piano track is a beautifully orchestrated guitar track, and the music behind the guitar solo is all Edward’s keyboard line. Clearly, he was now comfortable playing to tape and orchestrating overdubs.

“Everybody Wants Some!” became an instant party classic and was later featured prominently in the 1984 cult-classic teenage film
Better
Off
Dead
starring John Cusack. Behind the slamming chords during the “jungle part” of the tune, Ed overdubbed a number of absolutely wild sounding harmonics, tremolo dives, and various odd scraping and feedback effects. He was becoming more experimental.

The only true instrumental break is between the introduction and kick-off of “Fools” where Edward plays an extremely brief but extremely fast lead break before kicking into the actual start-up of the “Fools” main riff. The “Tora! Tora!” sound effect track that leads into “Loss of Control” is simply a backwards tape effect of a tremolo dive bomb—nothing terribly spectacular. One particularly clever track was “Could This Be Magic?,” a Delta blues-sounding number featuring Dave on rhythm acoustic and Ed on lead slide acoustic with the band members singing in harmony. This was definitely a first for the mighty VH (the introduction to “Take Your Whiskey Home” is also acoustic). The most notable first, though, was the fact that
Women
and
Children
First
was cover-song free.

Like clockwork, the band set out on yet another world tour to support the album. Shortly after the start of the tour, Edward told
Circus
Magazine
, “I’m in rock and roll because I don’t like being told what to do” (a statement stemming from his piano and violin days, or perhaps something more than that).
Women
and
Children
First
had enough variety of tunes to avoid being as pigeon-holed as say Judas Priest or Black Sabbath. The album was released in March 1980 and was certified platinum by June (with two songs pulled all the way back from 1975). That made three records selling over one million copies in a row.

Ed gave another
Guitar
Player
interview to Jas Obrecht. Finally in April 1980, Edward got the cover article he had been bargaining for for nearly two years. In the article, ironically, Pat Travers—who had turned down his chance at a star interview with Obrecht back in 1978—lauded Edward saying, “I don’t think there’s anybody better for saying more, getting a better sound, or just taking advantage of the straight Stratocaster-style sound.” Other top name guitarists, like Rick Neilsen of Cheap Trick and even Ted Nugent, showered Ed with accolades.

Edward said that he played extremely loud both on stage and in the studio and doesn’t wear ear plugs, adding, “I’m surprised I’m not deaf yet.” He noted that his live set up included eighty—EIGHTY—twelve inch speakers! Eddie also claimed that in the studio he used four 100-Watt Marshalls cranked all the way up. “I like to feel it, you know,” he said, “make my arm hairs move.”

When asked if he would ever do a solo album, he said, “All of my energy goes into Van Halen; it’s my family. I’m not going to leave my family until one of the members passes on… . If I ever do a solo album, which I don’t see in the near future, I’d have plenty of ideas.” As far as his personal progression in his playing, Edward said, “How much can you progress? I’m as fast as I can possibly get. I can’t picture myself being too much faster. I mean, you can only hear so much. What I’m trying to do is be weirder and different” [a la “Tora! Tora!” and “Could This Be Magic?”]. Additionally, he noted that he was constantly getting asked to guest on other people’s tracks, saying “‘Will you play on my record?’ . . . And I go, ‘No, Van Halen is my family. I’m not gonna wash your dishes. I’ll wash dishes for Van Halen alone.” He seemed to have forgotten his work with Gene Simmons and his guest spot on Nicolette Larson’s album, the latter who actually sang along with the rest of the band on the backing vocals for “Could This Be Magic?” Dave was especially perturbed that Nicolette was allowed to participate on
their
album.

Pulling back from his previous comments about touring, Ed stated that he’d sell his guitars just to go out on tour. “It’s a world vacation, a way of life.” He noted that experiencing different cultures was the biggest kick he got out of touring, specifically mentioning France, Germany, and Japan. He also said that, “Sometimes I’ll pass on the party and take a day and go out and trip around,” sight-seeing completely on his own.

“I don’t even consider myself a rock star. I enjoy playing guitar, period,” Eddie told Jas. “I’m considered a rock star because kids label me as one.” He noted he had begun to have difficulties relating to people socially, saying if he was too outgoing, people would think he had a huge ego, and if he was normal, people would say, “That’s all he is?” Frustratingly, he stated, “I don’t show my face too much. I’m pretty much a loner. I just can’t get along with people; they don’t understand me.” It wouldn’t be too much longer before his days of being a real “loner” would be gone.

Touring in 1980

The 1980
World
Invasion
tour kicked off in March and it was business as usual on the road. Edward himself was the chief participant in an incident in his room that went down as “The Famous Ketchup Kaper” (no real description other than that is really necessary). The tour was also marred several times. Dave innocently told the crowd in Cincinnati to “Light ’em up!” during “Light Up the Sky!”—which is actually a lyric in the song. He was subsequently arrested and later acquitted of “inciting others to violate the fire code.” About a month later, Dave jumped face first into some low hanging lights in Italy for television show and sustained some pretty serious injuries. Going against doctor’s orders, they went ahead with their next show, in Geleen in the Netherlands, no less. Ed and Al backed up Dave on the radio repeating that Dave had said, “Fuck the doctor!”

The guys also threw out the suggestion that they film their adventures on the tour—aboveboard, of course—as a
Magical
Mystery
Tour
or
The
Kids
Are
Alright!-
style documentary of their trips around the world. The band insider/filmmaker went by Snade Krellman (krell being loose code for coke). The project was abandoned, but footage does exist. Part of it shows the guys in the Netherlands and actually shows Ed and Al speaking Dutch—showing that they never lost their native tongue. The likelihood is fairly high that the project was abandoned because it likely would’ve turned out like
Spinal
Tap
before
Spinal
Tap
. Ironically, Eddie later told
Guitar
World
that he didn’t laugh at all when he first watched
Spinal
Tap
later in 1984. He said all of the other guys were cracking up and laughing themselves silly, but Ed did not find it quite so funny. “It was so close to home, man,” Edward said. “The whole lifestyle of it. Everything in that movie had happened to me. The record company parties with all the execs, and nobody showing up for things, and the guy who couldn’t get out of his pod. All that stuff is real. So the first time I saw it, everyone was laughing, and I was sitting there thinking, ‘This isn’t funny.’” He later admitted, though, that
Spinal
Tap
is a “classic flick.”

During the early summer trek through Europe, Edward had an altercation with the most unlikely of rock and roll peers, Geddy Lee of Rush. After a show in Leicester, UK in late June, Rush and Van Halen were staying at the same hotel, their paths just happening to cross while on their separate tours. Any previous interaction between Rush and Van Halen is unlikely given a rundown of their historic touring schedules up to that point (the only exception being Gene Simmons mutual involvement in both of their careers). One of the bits of information that has been given about the incident is that Geddy had a portable tape recorder and played a track for Eddie—the same thing Eddie would often do himself for other musicians or interviewers. Rush had released their album
Permanent
Waves
the same month as
Women
and
Children
First
. Rush’s album featured their biggest FM radio hit up to that point, “The Spirit of Radio.” Rush had actually successfully worked a great deal of synthesizer support lines into that song specifically as well as their music overall, something Edward had been wont to do more and more. Behind the scenes, down at the fan level, there has always been a “Who’s better, Rush or Van Halen?” thing going on. Geddy Lee was certainly the Eddie Van Halen of the bass; bass just isn’t as sexy as lead guitar (nor was Geddy quite as sexy as Eddie in really any sense). [A December 1983
Hit
Parader
“dream band” reader’s poll put Ed on lead guitar and Neil Peart on drums (Steve Harris of Iron Maiden took the bassist category, which also cited Geddy).]

Unfortunately, this prime gathering of the potentially respective reigning kings of the six—and four-string guitar went downhill fast. While playing this track, which could potentially have been a song off of
Moving
Pictures
(1981), Geddy purportedly “whispered” something into Edward’s ear. Why would Geddy have to whisper something? And if he whispered, what was it that he whispered? In any case, Edward’s response to whatever comment Geddy had made was to take his beer and pour it into Geddy’s tape recorder. That’s actually quite a spectacularly dramatic end to a conversation. Most likely, there was intoxication involved to some extent. It’s doubtful that whatever Geddy said was put out there to elicit that kind of reaction; he’s simply not known for that. But their paths would cross again. And even yet again.

Van Halen spent July and August wreaking havoc across Canada and the U.S. While Dave was mocking music critics for liking Elvis Costello “because he looks like most of ’em,” Eddie was already lamenting that his adherence to the Van Halen format, as it were, was already limiting him. “I’d hate to fall into a slam-bang rock and roll thing and never get any farther than that,” he said. A
Circus
article acknowledged that Edward had indeed brought keyboards into the mix for the first time on “And the Cradle Will Rock,” and synthesizers would end up playing a fairly critical role on Van Halen’s next three albums.

Meeting that Girl on TV

During the band’s stop in Shreveport, Louisiana on August 29, 1980, Ed met his future wife. Valerie Bertinelli was extremely famous at the time. She was the super-good looking cutie on
One
Day
at
a
Time
, and this was back when there were three, maybe four or five channels to watch on television. An incredibly huge percentage of Americans would instantly have recognized her anywhere at any time, where as Eddie was still very much under the radar outside of the rock world. Valerie was visiting her parents living in Shreveport during an actors’ strike in California. Her brothers Patrick and David—Van Halen superfans—were friendly with the local radio station who knew they were Valerie’s brothers. They had concocted a scheme wherein Valerie was to be photographed handing out bags of M&Ms to each of the band members, and they’d all get in for free and get backstage passes. [The “no brown M&Ms” contract rider was simply a clause cooked up by Dave to ensure that the promoters and the venue had read all of the fine print. If there were brown M&Ms—you have to go back to square one and start all over. It was actually quite brilliant.]

BOOK: Edward Van Halen: A Definitive Biography
3.4Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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