Edward Van Halen: A Definitive Biography (19 page)

The songs “Dreams” and “Love Walks In” only further cemented the serious change in direction. Just as Ed had worked with pop specialist Michael McDonald on “I’ll Wait,” Mick Jones helped work on writing and arranging “Dreams” with him and Sammy (Jones was fresh off his own quite sensitive hit, Foreigner’s “I Wanna Know What Love Is”). The lyrics to “Love Walks In” suggest that love is possibly nothing more than some divine being—possibly an alien from outer space—simply pulling a string and dropping love into someone’s life at random. That’s what love is all about. Some of the lines include “There she stands in a silken gown, silver lights shining down / And then you sense a change, nothing feels the same / All your dreams are strange, love comes walkin’ in.” Dave had foresight—he knew the only thing that would fit over such keyboard-laden soft rock chord progressions would be “poetic felonies.”

“Dreams” said, “Baby, dry your eyes / Save all the tears you’ve cried / ’Cause that’s what dreams are made of.” Lyrically laughable, and at best incoherent. Yet there I was, fourteen years old, singing out those trite lyrics with all my heart. I was an adolescent and fell for it hook, line, and sinker. And the truth is that
Edward
was my hero. My youthful lack of ability to process cognitive dissonance disallowed me from believing that Van Halen Mach II wasn’t all it was cracked up to be, even though there was no badassery in those lyrics—there was no fun in those lyrics—there was no sense of humor in those lyrics. The words were either so direct that reflection was simply not necessary or so disjointed to the point of being nonsensical.

Edward’s old decision to turn over the lyrical responsibilities for his music 100 percent to someone else had been a huge sacrifice of control. Dave took the job very seriously. He pulled out witty and original classic and timeless lines, including simple quips like “I don’t feel tardy” and “One break… coming up!” His lines left room for the listener to fill in the gaps in their own imagination. A classic song like “Panama,” the listener isn’t always exactly sure if he’s talking about a girl, or a car, or the country Panama—there was some guesswork left there, and everyone loved it.

In his place was a lyricist without a sense of genuine innuendo or mystery. Sammy’s lyrics were what-you-hear-is-what-you-get.
People
even said Sammy’s VOA was for “rock fans that don’t demand a whole lot of subtlety.” Clearly though, his approach appealed to a great many unsophisticated, young American rock fans, which at the time included me, my brother, and all of our friends.

The
5150
album opens with “Good Enough” with Sammy belting out “Helloooooo, baby!” Sammy obviously did this as a nod to The Big Bopper and his classic “Chantilly Lace,” but that was completely lost on anyone under 35 at the time. Instead, it was Sammy’s big introduction to the fans. “Good Enough” was already in progress with Dave, and it succeeded musically. Ed even pulled out one of his oldest unique tunings by dropping his low E to a low A—this gave the music a very heavy groove. The music for “Good Enough” and the title track “5150” was proof that Ed was, for the most part, still at the top of his game musically.

CHAPTER 20 

Van Hagar Hits the Road

The
5150
tour started in late March in Valerie’s hometown of Shreveport. There were a few warm-up gigs scheduled, but those were canceled while Edward, Donn, and Mick Jones finished mixing the album. On the way to rehearsal for the tour one day, Eddie ran into Dave in traffic. “I saw this black Mercedes, I pull up to it, and I’m going, ‘Goddamn, that sure looks like Dave’s car.’ And it was. I honked and waved.” He said Dave gave him the cold shoulder. “His classic look,” said Edward. “It’s like he basically flipped me off. I thought he would at least wave and say hi, you know? He didn’t roll down his window. He looked at me and drove off.”

The first shows with Sammy were very well-received and clearly helped lift the sales of
5150
. By mid-April, the album was #1. The band celebrated to commemorate the occasion.
Guitar
Player
writers Bud Scoppa and Billy Cioffi stated that “the boys in the band attribute a lot of those sales to mere consumer curiosity.” Another important aspect to remember is that the backing vocals provided by Edward and Michael still sounded the same, and the guitar, bass, and drums were still the same. So most fans were satisfied that they still heard enough essential aspects of the Van Halen sound—especially the guitar solos—to swallow it.

One of the most bizarre aspects of the early
5150
tour shows was rampant Dave bashing both from the crowd and from the stage. Fans brought spray-painted bed sheets emblazoned with “Dave Sucks” and “No Daves Allowed” and “David Lee Who?” During a May stop in Pittsburgh, Sammy brought up a kid out of the audience to sing “Jump.” As per a
Rolling
Stone
article: “Hagar ushers him offstage to a standing ovation and turns to a video camera in the photo pit that is recording all the action. ‘See that, Dave?’ he shouts at the camera, furiously poking his finger at the lens. ‘That guy sings the song better than you!’”

Apparently, there was a line crossed there, and Edward took Sammy to task. “When he brought the guy up to sing ‘Jump,’ he said, ‘That was actually better than the other guy.’” A band meeting was held after the show and Sammy was told to tone it down. “We all said, ‘Come on, you don’t have to go that far,’” said Eddie.

The shows were selling out, and they were even pulling two-night stands in several cities through the summer, and even some three-night stands as during the
1984
tour. In July, the new incarnation of Van Halen played three nights in a row at the Forum in Los Angeles, their first hometown appearance with Sam.

However, in May, during a string of shows in Michigan, Eddie and Alex received word that their father Jan had had a heart attack. Valerie said, “Ed’s face turned gray.” Ed, Valerie, and Alex took a private jet straight to Los Angeles and raced to the hospital. The heart attack had been severe and was worsened by Jan’s non-stop drinking and smoking. His chances for recovery were slim and Valerie noted that “he was in and out of the hospital for seven months.”

The tour continued through the summer and this author had one hell of a life experience the weekend of July 19, 1986 [see the appendix for the full story]. Me, two of my best friends, Dave and Chris, my brother Brandon, and his friend Gary all went to Dallas for the annual Texxas Jam. These festival shows at the Cotton Bowl were absolutely legendary. Van Halen had played several, including their first tour, and Sammy had the distinction of being the artist to play the festival the most times. The bill was Keel, BTO, Krokus, Loverboy, Dio, and Van Halen. We were only about thirty yards from the stage when Dio ended, so we figured we were in great shape for Van Halen’s set.

We weren’t. During the wait for VH to take the stage, the crowd surge was beyond what three 14-year-olds between eighth and ninth grade could handle, so we bailed back to the side sections near the stage, leaving Brandon and Gary, plenty capable of taking care of themselves. Dave, Chris, and I all ended up with great seats right at the bottom of the nearest seated section on Ed’s side of the stage. We had an incredible view when the band took the stage.

The band was honestly on fire and had the crowd of 72,000 in the palms of their hands. It was easy to tell that it wasn’t just an ordinary night for the band. Ten, fifteen, twenty-thousand people adoring you—that’s amazing. But tens of thousands lighters going at the same time is a whole other thing. The electricity was incredible. I was transfixed by Ed’s solo. He played Beethoven’s “Fur Elise” with both hands on the fret board.

Ed Still Can’t Stop Slagging Dave

The tour introduced entirely new elements into the Van Halen stage show, most notably Sammy Hagar taking on guitar duties while Ed played keys. They also jammed together on Sammy’s tunes “There’s Only One Way to Rock” and “I Can’t Drive 55.” The inclusion of Sammy Hagar solo tunes in a Van Halen set caught some by surprise. But acknowledging that Van Halen’s audience had inherited a lot of Hagar fans, Eddie said, “I think Sammy’s fans would be disappointed if we didn’t play it [“I Can’t Drive 55”].”

That July, Roth released his first full-length album,
Eat
’
Em
and
Smile
—the title of which came from his retort to the challenge Van Halen laid out for him. Mr. Roth did not to do too shabbily. The album went to #4 and sold a million copies by September. Dave led fans down the trail that Van Halen had left off, where as the Van Hagar incarnation clearly went more pop. And Dave was back in the director’s chair for his videos. Although his movie deal had fallen through, he ended up with two videos from his album that went into heavy rotation on MTV. Van Halen on the other hand made the deliberate decision not to compete with Roth on the video front.

Eddie slagged Dave’s album, saying he “pasted together a junior Van Halen.” In response, Dave said Eddie was an excellent guitar player but “a shitty human being.” Edward’s retort was almost exactly the same, verbiage and all: “I mean, hey, the guy’s creative, okay? But he’s a lousy human being.” Eddie had also gotten over the pain of Dave’s departure he once deemed “cruel”, and was now calling it “a blessing in disguise.” He added, “When we get nominated for a Grammy and win, I’m going to thank him. I’m serious.”

In early August, at the Hard Rock Café in Los Angeles, the band held a celebration party for
5150
going double-platinum. MTV covered the party, the voice-over saying, “Eddie gave us his impression of a former bandmate [Eddie proceeded to bend over and shake his ass at the camera, immaturely mocking Roth] and gave MTV the Van Halen philosophy.” Edward, bleary-eyed and obviously quite intoxicated, slurred the nonsensical line, “Whatever you do, where ever you go, there you are.”

Dave made an appearance for an interview with Joan Rivers for her brief run on the late night talk show circuit:

Joan: What about the feud with Van Halen? Is that real? They have big banner at all their concerts that says ‘Screw David Lee Roth’ . . .

Dave: I don’t know, there’s been a battle raging on back and forth between myself and Van Halen. And I shook Edward Van Halen’s hand over a year and half ago, we both had a tear in our eye and said, “We have a career—a musical difference like all bands—like
all
bands—and then several weeks later, I’m reading how he was forced to survive, to live a lie, you know. Twelve years after Maserati, after Rolex, after Lamborghini… and on and on, you know? And now it’s reached proportions of a little bit comical proportions, so I just figure, ‘Fellas—you keep on raining, and I’ll still be the parade.’

“Pa” Passes Away

Van Halen’s August 22, 1986 show in New Haven was filmed and released as the video
Live
Without
a
Net
—the band’s first ever official live release of any kind. On September 29, the band returned to Texas for another show at the Summit, which my brother and all of our friends attended. Still just fourteen, I remember very clearly seeing a banner that said “Drop Dead Dave”—a play off of “Drop Dead Legs” from
1984
. There was something about that that bothered me. Van Halen hadn’t even been making records for a decade yet. They had seven albums at the time—six with Dave and one with Sammy. I loved
5150
at the time, but I also worshipped the six with Dave. Even at such a young age, the apparent dismissal of those first six albums from any source absolutely did not feel right.

Our seats weren’t great, but one friend and I were determined to get as close as possible during Eddie’s solo. There were two empty seats just ten rows from Ed’s side of the stage. I watched his solo from just twenty-five feet away. I can only describe it as akin to a religious experience.

The night after the Houston show, the band played in Fort Worth. During the show, someone threw an 8x10 photo of Dave on stage that said “David Lee Who?” on the back of the photo. Sammy picked up the photo, went over to Eddie and borrowed his lighter. Sammy then lit the picture on fire. It would be unbelievable if there wasn’t photographic evidence to back it up, but sadly there is.

The tour continued on through early November, wrapping with an astonishing four-night stand at the Cow Palace in San Francisco. Unfortunately, Jan’s health had seriously deteriorated. After the tour, Eddie and Alex had the opportunity to spend some quality time with their father, but sadly, he died that December at the age of 66. Ed and Al went to 5150 and played together for reportedly ten hours straight. Dave, who had been a great admirer of Jan and who had personally recruited Jan for “Big Bad Bill,” put the big feud on hold and called Edward to console him and express his grief.

One of Jan’s last wishes for his sons was that they quit drinking before they encounter the same alcohol-related health issues he had brought upon himself via his addiction. Valerie said, “When the doctor made a point of saying that alcohol had contributed to Mr. Van Halen’s weakened health, my thoughts had naturally turned to Ed and his health. After his father’s death, every day seemed to become more and more of a battle.” She noted that Ed had “retreated to his comfort zones: work and alcohol.” In another interview with
Redbook
, she said, “He [Edward] doesn’t abuse me, but he hurts himself… He’s got a problem I’m not happy with, but I bring stability to his life.” In her autobiography, Valerie said, “After his dad’s passing, I think he relied more heavily on alcohol than before, even compared with the bust-up with Dave.”