Everybody Wants Some (39 page)

As much as his old bandmates resent his ballhog antics, they need to put the pieces together and reconnect the electricity before it’s too late. A hundred million Van Halen fans still want to live happily ever after. As Roth already stressed when he made his early-nineties push for a reunion, “I want some fireworks! I want some color! There might be some conflict, but maybe that’s what made great music.”

The failure of the 1996 reunion has dissipated. In 1996, Van Halen were deluded. Now they have a chance to redeem their chips for real. They could take inspiration from Gary Cherone’s midyear 2006 work with Extreme after ten years—start small, rehearse plenty, and play like you want to be remembered.

A brilliant diamond fell from Roth’s mouth during a 1991 interview: “With Van Halen, you got all five sides of the coin, whereas most musicians intentionally flatten it into a one-dimensional image: easily palatable, instantly digested. We never did that in Van Halen. You would have elements of brooding and great celebration, often in the con-text of the same song, so that you could reinterpret infinitely what you were hearing.”

Tired and twisted though Van Halen might be, nobody wants to see the band fail. The hope for a reunion is that after all these years, it is possible to go back to a happy summer day in 1977, 1982, or 1984, one of those nights when the perfect swagger came along as if by accident. Sammy Hagar couldn’t come between a love this strong—as he well admits. This is Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor love, Luke and Laura love, Tommy Lee and Pam Anderson love, meant to attract and repel again and again.

Most frustrating of all, almost everyone involved is currently performing classic Van Halen material. Roth’s recent tours have provided almost exclusively Van Halen-centric playlists, and he has strained his voice mightily to deliver his point. He tells long, sappy stories about how the songs were written. He flubs the words. But for a reunion, he can inject whatever steroids into his neck that Tour de France cyclists allegedly use to scale the highest mountains. He
must
.

At exactly the same time, Michael Anthony has toured extensively with Sammy as the Other Half, playing Van Halen songs plus his incom-parable extended bass solo. Even Eddie conceded to the demand for Van Halen, when he hosted a late September 2006 bash at his house and got onstage with ex–Mötley Crüe singer John Corabi to play classic Van Halen hits like “Panama” and “Ain’t Talkin’ ’Bout Love.”

Now that the seal has been cracked on the possibility of a new tour with Roth, the ouster of Michael Anthony remains toubling, especially for his replacement, Wolfgang Van Halen. The enormous pressure on Wolfgang if that comes to pass should probably prompt a child services investigation—how can a teenager be expected to patch up the damage done by decades of lawyers, lead singer disease, and unlawful behavior? Yes, there’s a certain amount of logic to Eddie’s declaration. Jan van Halen left Holland and sacrificed to found a musical dynasty. If Eddie never makes another record—and he already hasn’t in ten years—then he passes his son the torch. But doing this now, he’s throwing his only son down an aching chasm. Interviewed by
People
magazine, Wolfgang has already expressed his doubts.

First things first—this concept of a Van Halen dynasty lasting centuries can only be built on a refreshed memory of what made the band great in the first place. Sure, all this talk of a reunion is unfair—like asking any forty-something to run a basketball play like he did in high school, clear every board of Pac-Man on one quarter, or jump a BMX bike over the canyon on a plywood ramp. But Van Halen doesn’t need to point the way back to what they were as much as point the way forward.

The fact is, Van Halen have never suffered irreparable tragedy like so many of their peers. No death in the band like the Rolling Stones, the Who, Metallica, Nirvana, or Ozzy Osbourne. No murdered members like the Beatles or Pantera. So many supporting characters in the Van Halen saga have already passed away—like George Harrison, who jammed with Eddie in the early 1990s, Top Jimmy of the Rhythm Pigs, and manager Ed Leffler. The Beatles reunion never happened, and now it never will. Van Halen should. “We are in this for life—if I hit eighty, I’ll still be making music, blazing on,” Eddie promised after Roth first left the band.

At the end of the day—a time that is fast approaching, like it or not—the question never goes away, because in the minds of many, the original members of Van Halen are still together. The louder Eddie or Alex protests, the more the fans nod knowingly, insisting that they still love Roth. The first love is always the strongest. The tragedy of Van Halen will be if they wither away without a good-bye kiss—and it’s a slow-burning tragedy already building over the last decade. “What we sell is that we make all the guys feel young and invincible, and all the girls feel young and desirable,” Roth recently reminded the
Los Angeles Times
.

Maybe the future of our civilization doesn’t depend on Van Halen reuniting—maybe it does—but “Happy Trails” doesn’t sound right unless David Lee Roth, Eddie Van Halen, Michael Anthony, and Alex Van Halen sing it together. There’s still a lot of Van Halen left in the rest of us, and we need Van Halen to come along with the spark of life and bring it out. At the end of the story, everybody still wants some more.

Eddie Van Halen
Extended Discography

Nicolette Larson,
Nicolette
(Warner Bros., 1978): guitar solo on “Can’t Get Away from You”

Dweezil Zappa, “My Mother Is a Space Cadet”/“Crunchy Water”: 12-inch single (Barking Pumpkin, 1982): co-producer with Donn Landee, guitar intro

Michael Jackson,
Thriller
(Epic, 1982): guitar solo on “Beat It”

Brian May & Friends,
Starfleet Project
(EMI, 1983): guitar 

Tim Bogert,
Master’s Brew
(Accord, 1983): guitar, as “A. Havlenen”

Original soundtrack (OST),
The Wild Life
(MCA, 1984): composer, music on “Donut City”

Sammy Hagar,
I Never Said Goodbye
(Geffen, 1987): bass, vocals, co-producer

OST,
Over the Top
(CBS, 1987): guitar, bass, producer on “Winner Takes It All”

Private Life,
Shadows
(Warner Bros., 1988): co-producer 

Private Life,
Private Life
(Warner Bros., 1990): co-producer 

Thomas Dolby,
Astronauts & Heretics
(Giant, 1992): guitar 

Sammy Hagar,
Unboxed
(Geffen, 1994): producer on “High Hopes” and “Buying My Way into Heaven”

Black Sabbath,
Cross Purposes
(IRS, 1994): uncredited coauthor of “Evil Eye”

Rich Wyman,
Fatherless Child
(Apricot, 1996): co-producer, guitar and bass on four songs

OST,
Twister
(Warner Sunset, 1996): guitar on “Respect the Wind.”

Various,
Tribute to Jeff: David Garfield and Friends Play Tribute to
Jeff Porcaro
(Zebra Records, 1997): guitar, vocals 

Steve Lukather,
Lukather
(Sony International, 1998): songwriter, bass on “Twist the Knife”

OST,
The Legend of 1900
(Sony Classical, 1999): guitar on “Lost Boys Calling”

Steve Lukather & Friends,
Santamental
(2002): guitar on “Joy to the World,” “Greensleeves,” and “Carol of the Bells”

Sacred Sin
DVD (NinnWorx, 2006): videos for Eddie’s solo songs, “Rise” and “Catherine”

Holy Grails:
Unreleased Van Halen Rarities

Alex Van Halen told Australia’s
Undercover News
in 2004 that Van Halen has virtually no finished unreleased material. “There may be two or three songs that were partially completed, but if those songs were really worthwhile we would have released them back when they were written.”

For that to be true, you have to take “finished” to mean packaged with artwork and UPC code, practically sitting on store shelves. Van Halen has always been prolific, and they are sitting on a mother lode of unreleased recordings that would put Tupac Shakur to shame. Forget about
Best of Michael Anthony’s Bass Solos, Vol. I
—here’s a small selection of the bounty that will keep rock archivists busy for the next hundred years:

Live tapes and rehearsals by the “Covers Band from Pasadena,” 1974–1976
  Plenty of soundboard and audience recordings remain—why should bootleggers have all the fun? We’ve all heard Van Halen play the Kinks, now let’s have their versions of Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, and KC & the Sunshine Band.

The Gene Simmons demos, 1976  
Not the first Van Halen tape, this ten-song demo presents the first professional picture of “Woman in Love,” “Fools,” and “Runnin’ with the Devil.” This ten-song demo features early versions of “Runnin’ with the Devil” and “House of Pain,” not to mention some unreleased live standards like “Woman in Love” and “Big Trouble.”

The Ted Templeman demos, 1977  
When the band first met its long- term producer Ted Templeman, he immediately snared two dozen or more well-honed songs from Van Halen’s live set. Most of the tracks surfaced on
Van Halen
,
II
, and
Women and Children First
, but “We Die Bold” and “Young and Wild” are time capsules from the Sunset Strip days.

Oakland, California, June 1981  
The three Oakland shows on the
Fair 
Warning
tour were supposedly filmed by Warner Bros. Only a couple songs have ever surfaced, notably the “Unchained” live video.

US Festival ’83, May 29, 1983  
Van Halen were paid $1.5 million not just to play the US Fest but also to mix and edit a radio broadcast and TV special.

Castle Donington, August 1984  
A full hour of fine-tuned Van Halen captured before a frantic British crowd just days before Roth’s final performance.

The original “1984”  
The intro to
1984
was cut from thirty minutes of synthesizer swishing sounds concocted by Eddie at his brand-new studio, 5150. This is probably just a fraction of what Eddie recorded while Moog-merized in his studio exploring the possibilities of electronic music.

Singer tests  
Eddie likes to use tape, so it’s a fair bet that the record button was pressed when Van Halen tried out singers like Sass Jordan and Mitch Malloy—especially since they’ve said so.

Dallas, Dececember 4, 1991  
Probably the grittiest Sammy-era show ever recorded, this makeup date performed at midday on the streets of Dallas by a grungy, stubble-faced band was filmed.

Eddie’s jam tapes  
Sammy mentions hundreds of cassettes kicking around 5150, ranging from bare electric guitar to full songs recorded with Alex and Eddie.

Molson Ampitheatre, Toronto, August 1995  
The band went to pains to record this stop on the
Balance
tour, but months later Sammy was out of the band.

Australia, April 1998  
Likewise, this document of Gary Cherone’s brief tenure was filmed for a pay-per-view concert and shelved.

DLR Revisited, 2002  
While the fans clamored for a reunion, the band has been sitting on three or four unreleased new tracks recorded with David Lee Roth in 2002.

Van Halen IV, 2006  
Eddie, Uncle Alex, and Wolfgang Van Halen have been jamming at 5150 for years. Let’s hear this dangerous new band.

Pictures On The Silver Screen:
Van Halen In The Movies

Tim Robbins learns to dance in space in
Mission to Mars
to “Dance the Night Away,” David Arquette screams out “Runnin’ with the Devil” with a van full of nuns in
Ready to Rumble
, and Van Halen’s music plays during the party scenes of too many movies to name. Here are a few must-see moments of VH-TV:

Back to the Future, 1985  
Michael J. Fox puts a tape labeled “Van Halen” in his Walkman to scare Crispin Glover with futuristic interplanetary guitar sounds.

Better Off Dead, 1985  
Overimaginative fry cook John Cusack brings raw hamburger meat to life, creating a giant Claymation figure of cheeseburger that plays a red-and-white-striped guitar and entertains a grease pool of female fries while “Everybody Wants Some” blasts.

Weird Science, 1985  
Roth’s “Just a Gigolo” video is prominently featured.

Saturday Night Live, 1987  
A skit called “Dinner with the Van Halens” lampoons life with Eddie and Valerie, as a quiet dinner with friends at home is ruined by the constant interference of overzealous roadies Kevin Nealon and Dana Carvey—who inexplicably speaks in a British accent.

Café Americain, 1993  
Eddie Van Halen appears as a street musician in the “Home Alone” episode of this short-lived TV show costarring his wife, Valerie.

Frasier, 1993  
For the episode “Call Me Irresponsible,” Eddie lends his voice as a radio caller named “Hank.”

Airheads, 1994  
Honorable mention for hinging the plot around Van Halen. When record company weasel Harold Ramis comes to sign Brendan Fraser’s band, the suspicious Fraser asks which side Ramis took in the David Lee Roth/Van Halen split. Ramis says, “Van Halen,” and the door slams shut in his face. “It’s strictly a judgment call,” he sputters in protest. “They sold a lot of records after Dave left the group!”

The Menu:
The Covers Band From Pasadena

Sometimes they faked it, sometimes they nailed it. . . . Before the well-known Kinks, Martha and the Vandellas, and Linda Ronstadt covers, here are a few of the hundreds of songs Van Halen kept on hand to play while cutting their teeth as a cover band.

• Aerosmith, “Sweet Emotion,” “Walk This Way,” “Last Child”

• Bad Company, “Can’t Get Enough,” “Live for the Music,” “Rock Steady”

• Beatles, “Drive My Car”

• Black Sabbath, “War Pigs” (Eddie on vocals)

• Tommy Bolin, “The Grind”

• David Bowie, “Jean Genie”

• Budgie, “In for the Kill,” “Living on Your Own”

• Captain Beyond, “Bright Blue Tango”