Edward Van Halen: A Definitive Biography (20 page)

CHAPTER 21 

A Spiral Begins to Take Shape

In early 1987, after the conclusion of the successful
5150
tour, the entire band was interviewed by Leeza Gibbons for
Entertainment
Tonight
. Leeza didn’t exactly give Edward or the band the softball interview they were probably hoping for. After Sammy went on a diatribe about how it’s okay for all of the guys in the band to be married—including Sammy himself, who was married for eighteen years at that point in time—Gibbons asked if that policy was not that way when Roth was in the band. A flustered Edward started to answer but abandoned the question, saying he just didn’t want to talk about it.

Gibbons, likely not intentionally, absolutely incensed Edward during the interview:

Leeza Gibbons: With this last album, it seems that Van Halen has been able to really broaden its audience and reach more of a, more of a pop audience.

EVH: What do you mean by “pop audience”?! [NOTE: Edward became visibly angry and removed his sunglasses.] . . . To me, you know, pop, if you make good music and more people like it all the sudden you’re pop?! You know? If you’re a punk band and nobody buys your records then you’re cool, or something, I don’t know. I don’t get it, you know? As soon as you start selling a lot of records, you’re pop… .

Leeza Gibbons: You don’t see any change in the music?

EVH: Oh sure, there’s change in the music. If we kept doing the same thing, you know, why not just buy our previous record? Why buy the new one if it’s not different?

It’s not clear why Edward would get so defensive about the use of the word “pop” in describing specifically the songs “Why Can’t This Be Love?,” “Dreams,” and “Love Walks In.” They are not thrash metal or country or smooth jazz. “Why Can’t This Be Love?,” as analyzed, uses a very common chord progression in pop music. To deny that that song was in fact a pop song is a confusing aspect of Edward’s perspective. It certainly wasn’t “Unchained.”

He didn’t soften his position on the semantics. The following year, in an interview with Alan di Perna for
Keyboard
World
magazine, an otherwise soft interview turned as follows:

ADP: The synth work on
5150
tends to be on the more pop-oriented songs.

EVH: I hate that term. If a song sound good and people like it, all of a sudden it’s pop. What do you mean by pop? I don’t understand.

ADP: Van Halen’s more pop-oriented songs are different melodically.

EVH: They’re better melodically, that’s all.

ADP: They’re perhaps less riff-oriented; based more on chord progressions.

EVH: Yeah… well… to me they just sound better.

ADP: You don’t make a distinction between the more metal side of what you do and the more pop side?

EVH: No, it’s all rock and roll to me… . I’m not into labeling anything. It’s all music to me… . Like the Sex Pistols. They were a band just learning how to play their instruments. And people called that punk. But if you listen to it, it’s just a bad rock and roll band… . Punk would be bad, rock and roll would be good, pop is better—if you want to put it that way. Pop is something more people can hum along to and enjoy. Like a Christmas carol or something, is that pop?

ADP: Based on sales, yes.

First Attempt to Get Help

In February, Valerie hosted
Saturday
Night
Live
, and Edward was a musical guest, as a solo artist, and performed with G.E. Smith and the
SNL
house band. They played an instrumental called “Stompin’ 8H” in reference to the NBC studio in which the show is filmed. Valerie and Eddie actually appeared together in a skit together called “Dinner with the Van Halens” in which Kevin Nealon, Dana Carvey, and Dennis Miller played roadies securing a restaurant table for the couple. Ed was clearly out his element during the relatively weak skit and appeared uncomfortable. During the news segment of that episode of
SNL
—knowing that many a VH fan would be watching—Dana Carvey parodied Roth in an unflattering manner.

Shortly thereafter, Valerie was walking out to see Ed in the studio when she stopped short and overheard him on the phone saying that “he wanted out of the marriage.” Valerie was sure it was Patty Smyth. Patty, however, has continually denied any romantic involvement with Edward and said she was only trying to help him get sober. However, her eavesdropping led to their first separation. Valerie said, “I stayed in the house, and he moved into the studio and wherever else he landed. To be honest, I don’t really know where he went, but it wasn’t like I’d seen him that much before.” The separation lasted only three weeks.

Valerie then got extremely serious. “I insisted that Ed get rid of his coke dealer and quit drinking. Period. As I told everyone—and this was justified—I worried that Ed was going to kill himself with these habits.” Alex had finally quit drinking permanently in April of that year, and taking some inspiration, Valerie staged a formal intervention. It was ugly, but it worked and Ed checked into the Betty Ford clinic for thirty days—his first attempt at rehabilitation. Valerie was stressed beyond belief and slipped and had a wine cooler before going to visit Ed in rehab. When he asked if it was alcohol he smelled on her breath, riddled with guilt, she had to lie and told him no.

Sadly, Eddie immediately relapsed. Lamenting his failure and recalling his father, he said, “I tried to quit for him. I tried to do it for my wife. I tried to do it for my brother. And it didn’t do any good for me. After I got out of Betty Ford, I immediately went on drinking binge and I got fucking drunk-driving ticket on my motorcycle.” Ed later said, “I got one drunk-driving ticket ever, and I was on my motorcycle leaving an AA meeting. I’d just had it up to here with everyone’s shit and stopped at a bar for a couple of shots.” However, Ed did manage to get back on a decent track and worked earnestly with Sammy on his solo album that he owed Geffen.

Working on Sammy’s Album

They worked in both Los Angeles and in Mill Valley north of San Francisco. Valerie drove up to spend some time with Ed but she ended up by herself most of the time as Ed and Sam worked away on the record. While doing Sammy’s solo record, Ed contributed the bass line to the title track of the god-awful Sylvester Stallone arm-wrestling vehicle
Winner
Takes
It
All
. Sammy is even seen in the video arm-wrestling Stallone.

When initially asked about Sammy’s album, Ed insisted that he would only produce and that he would not play even a single instrument. Before going headlong into the project, Edward said, “If I write and play, it would sort of sound like Van Halen. And it’s not a Van Halen record. I don’t want anyone to have the impression that it is.” Ultimately, Eddie played bass on all the tracks, as well as a small piece of uncredited guitar work, and contributed backing vocals.

Not being a bass player, it was an odd role for Ed to assume, but on the surface it is clearly a power-balance act. Sammy surely had his best interest in mind working with Ed as a team, as a duo, rather than Sam working all alone. The producers on the album are listed as “Sammy Hagar & Edward Van Halen.” Both appeared on the cover of the October 1987 issue of
Guitar
Player—
Eddie almost humorously holding a bass while gesturing toward a screaming, leaping Hagar. For Michael Anthony, it must have felt like Ed’s attitude was “anyone can play the bass.”

The recording of the album took ten days. Two of the songs, “Give to Live” and “Eagles Fly,” made their way into Van Halen’s live set on their next tour; both were pure power ballads. Originally untitled, an MTV contest was drummed up allowing a fan to name the album. Ultimately, the album was titled
I
Never
Said
Goodbye
—as if in reference to his fanbase. It also reflects a willingly ignorant naiveté that he’d be with Van Halen forever given the ups and downs with Roth. Possibly, it was a gesture of good faith on his part. Ed, along with Al and Mike, appeared in the video for the song “Hands and Knees,” although the video did not get much airplay. My brother Brandon bought the
I
Never
Said
Goodbye
cassette the day it came out and listened to it non-stop. It was part of his soundtrack of 1987, no question about it.

Sammy’s solo record for Geffen was also timed in such a way that there would be no competing Van Halen/Warner Brothers product in the market. “We
definitely
didn’t want a Van Halen record out there while his record was too,” Edward said. “People would really go, ‘Huh? What, is he in Van Halen or what, now? Who’s gonna be the
next
singer?’”

About this time, the band’s admiration of Hank Williams, Jr. led to the country singer calling out the band by name in his song “Young Country.” Waylon Jennings is shown singing the line “We like ol’ Waylon,” followed by Hank Jr.’s declaring “And we know Van Halen!” That line was followed by a brief, mock tapping section. The entire band was featured in another of Hank’s corny videos, “My Name Is Bocephus.” A short-haired Ed stole the show at the end of the bit by getting so into miming the track’s guitar solo that he fell down on his back on the stage pretending to wail away on his Kramer.

Rebuilding and Relapsing

With Sammy’s project out of the way, Eddie finally turned his focus to writing and recording the next Van Halen record, one that would be important in psychologically validating his work with Hagar, and one that could not rely on curiosity buyers. There was tension between Valerie and Edward as the making of the new album loomed. “At first, his sobriety lightened the mood at home,” she said, “but as time passed, I saw it get more difficult for him, and I remember having the sense of walking on eggshells. I also remember knowing that the question wasn’t will he stay sober but how long will he stay sober?”

At that time, Eddie and Valerie had gone ahead with plans to build a new, much larger, much nicer house on their estate—a 9,000 square-foot dream house. The construction started in 1986 would take four years. It was a never-ending source of headaches for them. Valerie said, “Entire shopping centers are built faster than our house.” Edward said, “The thing’s taking twice as long as it was supposed to, and it’s costing six times as much!” They found respite in Colorado that winter, beginning what would become an annual ritual vacationing in Aspen.

“By spring Ed was drinking again,” said Valerie. She was partially satisfied that he kept his drinking at a moderate level, but she said, “I was really pissed off and frustrated. We couldn’t seem to break out of the same old patterns.” In April of 1988, Ed and Val retreated to the Fiji Islands for an attempt at a romantic adventure to celebrate their seventh anniversary. Valerie called it “the eight-day getaway honeymoon we never took.” At one point, in this remote paradise, they were being serenaded at dinner by a group of musicians. One recognized Ed, gave him a smile, and attempted to do finger tapping on a beat up acoustic. Ed confirmed that it was the weirdest place he had ever encountered his own music. They enjoyed their stay, although Valerie was still fostering anger about Eddie’s drinking, so much so, in fact, that upon their return from Fiji, Ed woke up in the middle of the night with severe vomiting. Valerie’s response was to ask, “What the fuck did you take this time?!” Turned out Edward had contracted dengue fever in Fiji and ended up hospitalized for three days, his temperature at times reputedly reaching 105 degrees.

CHAPTER 22 

Who Ate What

Work on next Van Halen album began in September of 1987 and was not completed until the following April. Ted Templeman’s relationship with Edward was far too strained to consider using him to help with the recording. In the end, no one helped at all on the album which was exclusively produced by Eddie and Donn themselves. Ed stayed sober as recording started, but lapsed about half-way through production.

Musically, Ed returned to his well and pulled two tracks back from
The
Wild
Life
soundtrack, one of which became “A.F.U./Naturally Wired” and the other the keyboard-driven “Feels So Good.” All in all, the overall batch of tracks reflects a continuing softening of Van Halen’s once edgy sound and image. Certainly, Edward was no longer in his early twenties, and at the age of 32 it was obviously natural for him to write music that sounded less like barely restrained reckless abandon and more subdued. “Feels So Good” was one of those tracks, which in fact was not liked by either Alex or Michael for going so far down the pop-rock road. And in the vain of the ballads of
5150
, out came another doozey.

“When It’s Love” was a piano and keyboard driven power-ballad that was pure Journey. Ian Christie, author of
The
Van
Halen
Saga
, referred to the record and its featured ballad as “an album of prom themes.” “When It’s Love” is so far musically from what made Edward’s songwriting and playing exciting as to give one pause. Just like “Why Can’t This Be Love?,” “When It’s Love” used a familiar chord progression in pop music, and, again, Sammy’s poetic felonies warrant a life sentence in songwriter’s hell. The refrain repeated “How do I know when it’s love?” asked by the backing voices with Sammy answering as the wise sage, “I can’t tell you, but it lasts forever.” The technique is repeated for the line “How do you feel when it’s love?” to which Sam answers, “It’s just something you feel together.” Things like Metallica and some other heavier bands started to become more appealing—I can certainly attest to that by my own observations of the sheer numbers of jean jacket back patches worn at school. Edward cannot be blamed for writing the lyrics but only for letting them pass.

During the recording,
Guitar
World
interviewed Edward at his studio. Writer Bud Scoppa rubbed Edward the wrong way by suggesting that Van Halen’s sound was now “more polished”—in reference to both the synthesizer aspects of the new album and to
5150
’s “Why Can’t This Be Love?.” Eddie defensively snapped, “It’s more pop-popular right? If more people like it, it’s pop, right? What’s wrong with that? I would love to have written a Christmas carol. What’s wrong with that?” When Scoppa wondered if Ed would share any of his “secrets,” the interview turned openly contentious:

EVH: There ain’t—not that I know of. What do you mean? What kind of secrets?

Scoppa: I don’t know. If there was a secret to it and you could unlock it for people, they still wouldn’t be able to play it like you do.

EVH: I already explained to you how I came up with the idea of how to
do
it, and I just
did
it… .

Scoppa: I [met] you once before, but it was wholly different circumstances, and you seemed like a regular guy to me at the time—

EVH: Oh, and I’m not now?

Scoppa: Gimme a chance, for chrissakes! There’s such an intense interest in you… How do you deal with that? . . .

EVH: Maybe I
don’t
deal with it…

When Scoppa returned a few days later to listen to rough cuts with Donn, Ed happened upon the writer running his tape recorder while listening to tracks. “Hey, what’s this?” Eddie said. Scoppa deadpanned, “I’m makin’ a bootleg… Actually, I forgot to turn it off.” Eddie said, “Hey, you’ll get yer free CD soon enough.” Then he took Scoppa’s tape machine, rewound it to the top of where the music started, and ensured that the tape was eaten up with conversation. Scoppa wrote, “Fair enough, Ed.”

Eddie wanted to title the new album simply
Rock ’n’ Roll
. He said, “That’s what it is. It ain’t heavy metal, it’s not hard rock—it’s rock ’n’ roll.” In his interview with Scoppa, he said, “I dunno why in that press release they put
OU812
. Probably Ed Leffler just thought, since that was the latest one we bounced off of him, that’s the one we decided on.
Rock ’n’
Roll
—I think that’s classic.”

Oh, You Ate One… I Get It

In the end, the album was called
OU812
as a direct retort to Dave’s album title
Eat ’Em
and
Smile
. The “oh, you ate one, too” acronym had been around for years, and Sammy was the one that actually brought the title to the table. The fact that Edward agreed to go along with the title is a shame as it became a permanent symbol of the childlike name-calling and feuding that had gone on with Dave. He’d already told the press Dave was a lousy human being, that he was like Idi Amin, that he had a limited vocal range, that he put together a junior Van Halen—but it’s one thing to put spout it off during an outpouring of honest conversation with an interviewer, and quite another to permanently cement the feud via the official title of a Van Halen album.

Just a few months earlier, Dave released his second solo album
Skyscraper
(production was credited to “David Lee Roth & Steve Vai”). Just before VH slagged him with their album title, Dave recorded a plaintive and reminiscent tune called “Damn Good.” An excerpt of the words shows it was clearly an open-letter to Edward:

Those were good times, damn good times

Hey, take a look at this picture! Can you believe that was you?

And who’s that standin’ there in the corner? Not me! Ahh, the crazy things we used to do

The mixing of the album continued right up to April, until the last possible minute. It was sign that something was possibly amiss. Nevertheless, the album was released in May and two weeks later became the second Van Halen album to go to #1 on the
Billboard
charts with Sammy on vocals. The success of the album is attributable to the band’s extremely loyal fanbase at the time, but the album was immediately deemed below par for Van Halen standards—and not for just the songwriting and lyrics either.

All one has to do is bring up
OU812
on a standard sound system and put it up against any of the previous albums and you immediately notice a major lack of well-rounded fidelity. Ted’s absence was obvious. Ed and Donn had done their best, but even Eddie later admitted, “Sonically it was shit.” Ian Christie noted that the guitar level was “largely subdued” the bass so low that it was “as if the band was trying to hide its animal impulses,” that is to say, to purposefully try and sound more mature. Michael Anthony let loose on the record down the line, saying “I probably didn’t even have to play on that album… . Because of the production, you could barely hear any bass.”

The opener, “Mine All Mine,” was an attempt at serious political reflection, a first for Van Halen. Unfortunately, it comes off lyrically like a junior high school essay attempt at tackling world affairs. “You’ve got Allah in the East / You’ve got Jesus in the West / Christ, what’s a man to do?” asks Sammy. Bringing religion and world politics into Van Halen’s music just absolutely does not work—then or now or at any time. Van Halen is not U2. Reportedly, Sammy agonized over the words, going through revision after revision with Donn until Donn simply put his head down on the console while Sammy tracked his vocals. Upon completion, Donn told Sammy it was his best work ever. All producers are forced to lie to their artists at one point or another just to keep their spirits up.

The lyrics were printed inside the album cover, something that was never done when Dave was in the band. The song “Source of Infection” clearly showed that that was not a great idea:

Hey! Alright! Woo!

How
’
bout
’
cha now, come on!

Oh yeah! Dig it! That’s right

Is everybody ready? Let’s go!

The music itself is actually incredibly similar to “Hot For Teacher,” utilizing the same familiar shuffle-style beat with incredible guitar solos and even an extended tapping intro to match. As a 16-year-old, my focus was still on Edward and his guitar playing. It wasn’t until a friend of mine actually said to me, “Did you read the lyrics for ‘Source of Infection’?” I actually hadn’t, and we looked at them together and I’ll never forget his comment: “If those are the words, why would you print them in the album?” By now, the cognitive dissonance was really growing inside me—and obviously, lots of other fans of the band and of Edward’s.

Another
OU812
track would eventually lead the band into a business venture south of the border. Sammy owned a condo in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico where he frequently vacationed soaking up the sun and the beach. He penned “Cabo Wabo,” an ode to the easy-going, fun-loving, beach-bumming paradise. Critic Chris Willman of the
L.A.
Times
took aim at the song, his comparison mirroring my own contention that Sammy writes “what you hear is what you get” lyrics. “Roth might have turned the paradise resort of ‘Cabo Wabo’—where there are ‘pretty girls coming by the dozens’ ready to ‘make love in the sea’—into a parody of male fantasy,” he said. “But with Hagar it’s just male fantasy.” Musically, it’s a strong track from Ed; the solo could arguably his best since
1984
.

One night, while Ed and Sam were both staying at their Malibu homes only two doors down, Eddie knocked on Sammy’s back door at 2am and asked him to come down. Sam was on the verge of getting amorous with his wife and told Ed it was too late. Eddie said, “The old lady kicked me out. Come on, man, let me in.” Sammy wouldn’t let Eddie in because he was smoking, so they sat on his deck and Edward showed Sam a fun and different type of song for VH—a blues and country mix that became “Finish What Ya Started.” Featuring nothing but finger-picking and “chickin’ pickin’” by Edward, Sammy contributed an acoustic guitar track. Musically, it is fresh and fun. Lyrically, it is of course juvenile (Sammy’s ode to “blue balls”—or “unfulfilled sex” as he referred to it). While recording the tune, Eddie recalled how Alex played alone in the main room while he, Sammy, and Mike played to him from the other side of the studio glass. “Sammy and I were in here direct, and Mike was in here, too, playin’. So we three are standing here wavin’, goin’, ‘Hey Al, havin’ fun out there?’”

Lyrically, there was nothing nearly as biological to match “Black and Blue.” The foundation of the song is a groovy, funky, dirty riff with amazing dynamics between Ed, Mike, and Alex. But on an album that took a shot at determining when your relationship has indeed reached the status of love, as well as pontificating upon world affairs, “Black and Blue” would stand out on
any
album as some of the most corny and immature lyrics ever recorded. Sammy Hagar penned the lines: “The wetter the better (the harder the better) / Do it ’til we’re black and blue!” It wasn’t even blush-worthy. It was banal. And “Sucker in a 3-Piece” was yet another great riff ruined by juvenile, sexist lyrics. The irony of such graphic, low-brow words in the same forty-minute swath as confused politics and trite notions of true love was enough to catch the attention of
Good
Morning
America
, who read the lyrics to both songs on the air—raising the specter of Steve Allen reading the lyric sheet to “Bee Bop-a Lula.” Author Ian Christie noted, “The would-be censors raised an interesting point—why Van Halen would go to the trouble to make music designed to rock the masses and then dent their commercial appeal with blatantly artless songs about fucking.” In 2011, Sammy admitted, “The songs were not my best stuff lyrically. ‘Black and Blue’ . . . the lyrics were a little too eighties.” Also, Sammy addressed the “Source of Infection” lyrics upon reflection only with the word “ugh.”

Just before the album came out, Ed addressed some personal issues for the first time ever, really, in
Rolling
Stone
. Acknowledging his stay at Betty Ford, Eddie said, “You reach a certain age where you just can’t party as hard as you used to… . I’ve cut back on the booze, and I’m starting a workout program.”