Friends of the Boys: Visiting Jan Van Halen

The home where Eddie and Alex Van Halen grew up in Pasadena, as it looked in 2013. (Photo: Karen Nuremberg Sonner)

By DOUG FOX

Click, snap, clack, pop, clink ...

There's a lot of things that go through a teenager's mind while standing on a doorstep at the house where two burgeoning rocks stars live on the afternoon of their biggest concert to date -- most prevalently, "What in the world are we doing here?"

But the thing I remember most in those nerve-wracking moments between a false-bravado knock and the door opening is the mesmerizing metallic mash-up of a half-dozen locks being manipulated in well-worn sequence on the other side.

Click, snap, clack, pop, clink ...

The date was Oct. 7, 1979 -- 35 years ago today -- and there we were in front of an otherwise nondescript house on Las Lunas Street in Pasadena, California, waiting for the changing of the locks to run its course and the door to finally swing open at the family home of Eddie and Alex Van Halen.

That date is an important one in Van Halen history as it marks the night the four members of the little ol' rock band from Pasadena officially became masters of their Southern California domain, musically speaking -- headlining their first show, a sellout at that, at the L.A. Forum in Inglewood.

Everyone who has ever dreamed of being a rock star has probably pictured the scene in their mind of performing at the preeminent concert venue in their home market. In Southern California in the 1970s, that place was the Forum -- or as it was more commonly referred to, the Fabulous Forum or "The House that Jack (Kent Cooke) Built."

The Forum may primarily have been the home of the Los Angeles Lakers, but the reigning rock bands of the day held court there as well. Led Zeppelin, the Rolling Stones, Elton John, Peter Frampton, Queen and the Eagles all sold out multiple-date runs at the venerable venue during a period when maxing out even one show was a sign that you had made it in the rock world. The prestige of headlining the Forum was certainly not lost on the four members of Van Halen, as they themselves had attended major concerts there as rock fans growing up in SoCal.

So what was it that brought four increasingly timid-by-the-second teenagers -- Curtis Edwards, Bob Sebesta, Mat Yeates and myself -- to the conclusion that visiting the humble Van Halen homestead eight hours or so before the band's impending homecoming coronation was somehow a good idea?

Funny you should ask ...

They Really Got Me

My own evolution as a Van Halen fan has been religiously documented before -- from the slack-jawed amazement of hearing "Eruption" for the first time to the life-changing experience of seeing the "bastard sons of a thousand maniacs" (as they were introduced on stage in the early days) in concert for the first time. That first concert experience -- occurring in Logan, Utah, on March 31, 1979 -- came in the initial week of the Van Halen II tour, the band's first headlining jaunt. The triumphant show at the Forum was just over six months later -- and, fittingly, it marked the tour's closing night.

That intervening half year served to cement my allegiance as a VH lifer -- the band was just different than anything I'd previously heard or seen. I don't suppose my experience is all that different from millions of other fans who -- whether they were struck by Eddie Van Halen's otherworldly guitar wizardry, David Lee Roth's vocal swagger and outsized personality, Michael Anthony's enthusiastic bass thumping and general class act-dom, Alex Van Halen's sheer power and technique behind the drums, or simply wowed by the collective talents of all four in one explosive entity -- flocked to the VH bandwagon in ever-increasing numbers.

So as to not tread too much on past writings, you can read a lot more about that Logan show, not to mention see some pretty fantastic photos from that night in "My Introduction to the Mighty Van Halen." Near the end of that blog post, which was written three and a half years ago, I mentioned our visit to the Van Halen home on the afternoon of their Forum debut, and said, "Ah, but that's a story for another day."

That day, as it turns out, is today.

I've told the story of stopping by the Van Halen home to various friends and acquaintances over the years, and sometimes it has grown in the retelling. I realized this a few years back when, while backstage at a concert, I overheard another one of my friends telling the story to a third party. "Yeah, and then Mr. Van Halen invited them in for a visit," I heard him say.

A few minutes later I pulled my friend aside and said, "You know that didn't really happen like that, right?"

He laughed and said, "You should let me tell the story -- I tell it better than you! The next time I tell it, I will have you sitting on the couch with your feet up on the coffee table while eating chocolate cake!"

Before that happens, I thought it best to get the story in writing and clear up a few minor embellishments I may have made on my own over the years.

Atomic Punks

I grew up in Southern California, but our family moved to Utah in the summer of 1978, right after I graduated high school. Thankfully, I had caught the sonic wave of Van Halen earlier that summer a few months after the release of Van Halen I when the band broke through on L.A. radio.

Jumping forward to the fall of 1979, I was planning a return trip to Los Angeles to visit close friends from my high school years. Looking over the concert schedule, I noticed the Van Halen Forum show and immediately settled on vacation dates surrounding what I knew would be a memorable concert. However, when we attempted to actually get tickets for the show, my friends and I discovered it was already sold out. We then looked into tickets for the San Diego show the night before, it turned out that those were long gone as well.

As I recall, we checked into obtaining tickets through one of the many second-hand ticket agencies -- but they were out of our price range. I kick myself now -- considering that those out-of-range tickets were probably only listed for $25-$30, which, of course, is a comically low amount by today's standards. But it seemed like too much for a 19-year-old on a limited budget at the time.

Sometime in the previous months, a friend, also a VH fan, who worked for a record label in Los Angeles, mentioned having come across the band members' home addresses and phone numbers through inter-label work contacts.

Somehow, in the way only a late-teenage mind can think, the combination of us not having tickets to the Forum show and my having access to the band members' addresses brainstormed into the idea of actually stopping by the Van Halen household in Pasadena, which was maybe 20 minutes away from where we were staying in La Crescenta. With the show being in L.A., and the band having played San Diego that night before, so our thought process figured, there might be a decent shot that Eddie and Alex would be home visiting their family that afternoon. Admittedly it was a harebrained idea, concocted by pie-in-the-sky dreamers who thought maybe, just maybe, there was a small, outside chance that we would be rewarded for our creative enthusiasm with extra tickets to the show or at least come away with a good story to tell.

As it turned out, it was the latter.

One Foot in the Door

So it was that the four of us piled into a car and drove to Pasadena that sunny Sunday afternoon of October 7 with an address and a map. We were in high spirits to begin with, but the closer we got to our intended location, the more the absurdity of our intended mission began to settle in on us like stink on a monkey. (I've always wanted to say that!)

The alley behind the old Van Halen home. (Karen Nuremberg Sonner)

We found the house, located in what appeared to be a quiet working-class neighborhood, and executed a slow drive-by just to check it out. By this time, of course, our previous happy-go-lucky attitude had completely deserted us, giving way to nervous anticipation.

We noticed a back alleyway, and as a further delay tactic we drove around there to check things out from that angle. Counting down the number of houses from the corner, we looked into the back yard and noticed a boat -- which seemed out of place in comparison to the rest of the neighborhood. "That's it!" I confirmed, immediately remembering a Circus magazine interview months earlier where Eddie mentioned that the first big purchase he and Alex really made when the "Van Halen II" album and tour headliner money started rolling in was a boat for their father.

And ... there ... it ... was.

The garage where Eddie and Alex honed their craft. (Karen N. Sonner)

 There was also a small garage/shed structure at the back right corner of the yard. We didn't fully realize it at the time -- I mean, even we could not have projected the band's eventual Hall of Fame trajectory at that point -- but that little structure is somewhat of a musical mecca for hard rock fans, and a Graceland of sorts for guitar aficionados.

It was there where the Van Halen brothers not only honed their chops -- and, I imagine, annoyed a fair share of their neighbors -- with hours of jamming, but also where Eddie had brought his iconic black-and-white-striped red Frankenstein guitar to life six months earlier. Music and technique developed in that humble structure would go on to shake the very foundation of rock, not to mention the walls of arenas and stadiums around the world.

Having put off the inevitable as long as possible, or so we thought, we drove back around to the front and parked several houses up the street. We got out of the car and began a slow walk down the sidewalk toward the Van Halens' home. It was at that point that our nerves entirely left us.

Somewhere in our plodding journey to the front door, there was a short retaining wall/ledge that we all sat down on for several minutes, trying to gain our wits and build up the confidence to actually go through with our mission. We nearly called the whole thing off right then and there, but we finally pep-talked ourselves back into action, stood up and headed on the pathway leading to the door.

You know how there's always those few moments after you knock, especially if you are cold calling and your visit is unexpected, where you listen intently trying to discern any movement inside? I'm sure at that moment we were all hoping to hear nothing but silence throughout the house. That sensation had us on edge, but gave way to near panic when we heard the locks begin turning.

Click, snap, clack, pop, clink ...

We had no idea who would be on the other side of the door, but when it swung open it revealed Jan Van Halen, the VH family patriarch.

We could not have been any more awkward.

"Are Eddie and Alex home?" one of us stammered.

Our immediate impression was that Mr. Van Halen was slightly perturbed -- and believe me, looking back on the whole thing over the years, he had every right to be.

"No," he said bluntly.

Our whole encounter could have ended right there as we were more than ready to immediately slink back to our car, feeling like we'd just been denied entry to see the Wizard of Oz.

But then everything changed with one question and answer.

"Are you friends of the boys?" he asked.

"Of course!" I found myself blurting out with very little thought. I mean, what were we supposed to say? "No, we're just idiot fans who thought we'd stop by your home for a visit on one of the most important days your family will ever see in the hopes we might impress you enough that you'll offer us some extra tickets?"

Whether he believed us or not -- and as unlikely as it seems, he must have -- Mr. Van Halen's whole demeanor changed in an instant. All of a sudden he was warm, friendly and thoroughly engaging.

Details of the rest of our 4- to 5-minute conversation have faded from memory except for one specific exchange, which, to me, really showed the elder Van Halen's personality.

We explained how we thought that with the Forum show being that night, and the band having been on the road for months, that there would have been a good chance that his sons would have been home visiting that afternoon.

"You would think!" he said, letting out a big laugh and shaking his head with exaggerated sarcasm as he went on a playful mini-rant. "The boys never come by here anymore!"

I think that part of the conversation has stayed with me because it proved so painfully poignant. Here was a man who was a professional musician himself, on the cusp of seeing his two sons validated in grand fashion with a sold-out show at the Forum, yet it was obvious that he also missed having them around. His sarcastic overplaying of the comment showed his humor and acceptance of the circumstances, but couldn't completely mask the truthfulness of it either.

After offering our best wishes for that night and bidding farewell, we started back down the path. Following a few moments of relieved silence, one of my friends burst out, "Whoa! Did you see all the gold records on the wall?"

The other two animatedly answered in the affirmative. "Man, that was cool!"

Previously when telling this story, I have always mentioned seeing all the gold records on the wall. But here's the deal. I never saw them. Not a single one. But my other three friends had, so I simply co-opted their eye-witnesses into my own account.

I felt a tad bit cheated. The original "Van Halen" debut was an album that changed my life and forever altered my musical listening habits. How cool would it have been to see the official gold record commemorating it -- not to mention many others apparently -- hanging on the wall of two people who actually created it?

For most of the past 35 years, I have asked myself, "How in the world could I have missed seeing those records?" In my memory, I can still see past Mr. Van Halen and onto the main front room wall. But no gold or platinum records.

It wasn't until I asked my friends for their memories of the visit a year or so ago that I finally figured it out. I had always assumed we shared similar sight lines. That proved to be inaccurate. The gold records, they said, were lining the walls of a hallway to the right, and not those in the front room to the left. The angle of the partially closed door must have blocked that view for me.

It felt good to have some closure on a question that had always bothered me regarding our visit. But I still wish I'd personally seen them.

The view from the street of the gated Roth mansion in 2013. (Karen Nuremberg Sonner)

Somebody Get Me the Doctor

Emboldened by what we viewed as a pretty positive experience at the Van Halen abode, we did the next obvious thing -- and pulled out David Lee Roth's address. His home address was also listed in Pasadena, so we figured why not give it a try since we were already in the area?

The Roths and Van Halens were only separated by about 5 miles in distance, but their separate ways were worlds apart. Where the Van Halens lived in a nondescript, regular home, the Roth compound was a huge, mostly unapproachable mansion.

There was a gardener on a nearby part of the sprawling property, so we sent one of our party over to chat him up. That effort was pretty much foiled when it became apparent the gardener only spoke broken English.

"What happened?" we asked when our friend returned to the car.

"I asked him if David Lee Roth was home," he said. "And he said, 'Dr. Roth?'

"And I said, 'No, David Lee Roth.' And he shook his head and said, 'No. Dr. Roth not home.' "

That was that. Besides, we figured if the Van Halen brothers were too busy to stop by their home base on the day of the show, the chances that Roth would be setting up Club Dave at his dad's mansion were slim to shady.

Michael Anthony's home address was listed in Monrovia, which was a bit of a distance away. Based on the intel we had received from our first two stops, we figured he wouldn't be home either. So, we left well enough alone, and recognized our visit with Jan Van Halen as the rare opportunity it was, and the clear highlight of our Sunday-afternoon-on-a-lark adventure.

Heard About It Later

Sometime in February or March of 1994, I was driving home following a late-night shift on the sports desk at the newspaper where I still work. Being completely wound up from deadlines and knowing I'd be unable to sleep for several hours still, I stopped by a 24-hour supermarket to peruse the magazines.

My eyes immediately settled on a magazine cover featuring a dynamic live shot of a young Eddie Van Halen in classic soloing pose with his guitar neck pointing toward the heavens while playing his "Bumblebee" guitar during the VH II tour. It turned out to be a Best of Guitar Player special edition, devoted entirely to Van Halen and included text from several previously unpublished interviews by Jas Obrecht culled from the band's early years.

Arriving home after buying the magazine, I settled into bed and began reading (and reading and reading ... ) the unpublished interviews section. Eighteen pages in, I read something that literally made me sit up in bed with a start.

I read it over and over, continually running the comment and its ramifications through my mind to make sure I wasn't misunderstanding something.

In this previously unpublished interview, from late December 1979, Eddie was talking about two new guitars he'd purchased and the dilemma he faced in where to store them.

"Right now, I'm trying to figure out where to keep them," he said, "because when we played the Forum, my mom and dad came. And when my mom came home, the house got ripped off for about 20 gold and platinum albums."

That's screwed up, he continued, "because playing the Forum is like a dream come true. I've seen everyone play there. It was a hell of an event for me, and I come home and the back door is smashed in and all the records are gone. It's such a drag."

I couldn't believe what I was reading. Were we literally some of the very last people to see those records on the wall before they were stolen? At that point, I had to remind myself that I hadn't actually seen them. (Thanks, self!)

But still ... our experience, I figured, gave us a unique empathy for the personal nature of that loss.

Having stood on the front porch of that home hours before the landmark show and having personally felt a father's excitement and seen the pride in his eyes first-hand -- in a weird way, I, too, felt sucker-punched by the turn of events following that first Forum concert, even though I was learning about it more than 14 years later.

To this day, I still ask myself, "I wonder what happened to those records?"

Postscript: Your Last Loose End

It's cool to me how the events of that day tend to keep on giving as the years go by.

For example, in a Facebook conversation with a high school friend several years ago, she randomly dropped the nugget that her father had sold Eddie and Alex Van Halen a boat for their father.

I'm sure she was surprised when I mentioned having actually seen the boat in person.

Vicki Adams Dorosy said she remembers the day her dad came home saying how impressed he'd been with two young musicians who had stopped into his Sportsmen's Paradise shop in Monrovia wanting to buy an ocean-going fishing boat (a Grady Little) for their father with their first big paycheck -- and then he wondered if any of his kids had ever heard of a band called Van Halen. (They had.)

Jan Van Halen died in 1986 at the age of 66. The minutes we actually spent being entertained by him back in 1979 may have been few indeed, but it provided enough of a window into his personality to say the impression perfectly jibes with the popular stories most Van Halen fans know of him.

Like the time he passed the hat around the audience while his young sons performed but only gave them a portion of the collected funds. When Eddie and Alex asked what happened to the rest of the money, the elder Van Halen responded, "Welcome to the music business!"

I can also see the man who gave Eddie his first shot of vodka and first cigarette at the age of 12 in an effort to help calm his nerves before performing, yet unknowingly turning him on to a pair of vices that would rob him of many prime years of productivity while battling addiction.

But mostly I can see the man who some eight hours or so after we'd met him was reduced to tears sitting at a monitor board at the Forum while watching Eddie perform his extended guitar solo before 18,000 adoring fans.

"He was so proud," Eddie would tell me later when I asked about that night.

Yeah, I would eventually meet Eddie and Alex Van Halen -- some 15 years and 348 days after I'd met their father.

Ah, but that's a story for another day.

Note: This article is dedicated to Curtis Edwards, Bob Sebesta, Mat Yeates, Ted "Theodore" Logan and Bill S. Preston, Esq. -- my fellow excellent adventurers.

15 Years On: Eddie Van Halen Interview Revisted

Eddie Van Halen performs in Park City, Utah, on July 14, 1998 — one week after our interview. (Daily Herald photo)

July 7, 2013

"Why?" asked the voice on the other end of the phone. "I'm just a normal schmo like anyone else."

Like Michael Jordan was just another dude that laced up Nikes.

Like Walt Disney was just your average everyday daydreamer.

Like Beethoven was simply another cat that tickled the ivories.

It's not often in life that one gets the opportunity to pick the brain of someone who is universally recognized as not only a true game changer in their profession but also on the short list of those considered the best ever -- whatever the category may be.

When the subject is greatest rock guitar players of all time, the name Eddie Van Halen is in the conversation. And that's whose voice was on the other end of the line 15 years ago today.

It was right at the beginning of our interview and I was merely trying to convey what a privilege it was for me to talk with him, when he responded with the above quote. Eddie went on to say a lot of interesting things over the course of our 40-minute conversation, but none of them have made me smile over the years as much as that spontaneous introductory declaration.

"I'm just a normal schmo like anyone else."

Anybody that knows me, recognizes my passion for the music of Van Halen -- speaking of both the guitarist and the Hall of Fame band that bears his name (and that of his brother, Alex). I wrote some time ago about how and why that dedication came to be ("My Introduction to the Mighty Van Halen"), so I'll spare the rehash here.

Looking back, I'd have to say my chat with Eddie was both the easiest and hardest musician interview I have ever done. Easy in the sense that I was well versed in every possible tidbit of Van Halen history -- having read pretty much every interview I could find throughout the band's career, which featured 20 years of "Behind the Music"-style story lines at that point in time.

The flip side was recognizing the rarity of the opportunity -- and worrying that I might somehow screw it up.

The interview almost didn't happen. The morning it was originally scheduled, I received a call from the record company rep who arranged it, informing me that Eddie had been working on a project all night in the studio and that he would be unavailable that day after all.

"Would you instead like to talk with Gary Cherone?" she asked, referring to the ex-Extreme frontman who had recently replaced Sammy Hagar behind the microphone for the "Van Halen 3" album and tour.

Child, please. No offense to Gary, and I would certainly relish talking with him someday, but I simply couldn't give up on the chance to interview the king of 10 fingers and six strings so easily.

Luckily, the publicist sensed my predicament -- and rescheduled the interview with Eddie for a couple weeks down the road. Even then, on the afternoon the duscussion did go down, Eddie had been up again the entire previous night working in the studio between tour dates. Tour manager Scotty Ross called me about 15 minutes prior to make sure I was ready, informing me that he was just going to wake the weary guitarist up.

Could This Be Magic: Eddie Van Halen on the VH III tour.

In our pre-serious interview banter, Eddie mentioned that he was looking forward to the Park City, Utah, date -- our local show -- the following week because his brother-in-law owned a home there and his wife, Valerie Bertinelli, and son, Wolfgang, were going to fly in and meet him since there were a few off days between shows.

"It'll be good," he said, "because every time I'm home, I seem to be working. I didn't sleep until 8 o'clock (this morning) because I'm trying to cut 'Josephina' down to below 4 minutes, you know, editing for a possible single."

When the real interview commenced shortly thereafter, I learned that our original discussion had been postponed because he was working on a new version of "Once," at the record label's request. I thought it odd at the time that a record company would make such demands on a band of Van Halen's renown. But "Van Halen 3" was struggling in both sales and radio airplay, especially when compared to previous efforts, so I figured Eddie was doing anything he could to up the profile of the new lineup.

Interviews generally serve as a snapshot in time. Certain sections are sure to seem outdated when glancing at them in the rearview mirror. Opinions and thoughts expressed may have since proven inaccurate or misguided. Looking back over this interview now, there are certainly points where that is true. But I think it mostly holds up and provides a look into the state of Van Halen at a very specific time, even if it was an era that ultimately proved unsuccessful when compared to previous VH standards.

A few of my favorite parts include:

-- Eddie's insight into the recording of his guitar solo for Michael Jackson's "Beat It." He recently discussed his involvement in much more detail, corresponding with the 30-year anniversary of the historic "Thriller" album. But 15 years ago, I had never seen him share some of this information before.

-- Our discussion about his sobriety and alcoholism. His comment that "when you hit 40 and you don't cut the crap, you know, you either kick the bucket or just lose it in the turn" proved somewhat prophetic. Completely off the wagon again by the mid-2000s, if he didn't lose it in the turn he was at least careening around corners with two wheels hanging over the edge. Today -- after another stint in rehab several years ago and the added incentive of having his son join the band, not to mention the strong influence of his new wife, Janie -- he appears to have rebounded. In fact, his playing on the band's 2012 "A Different Kind of Truth" tour was turning-back-the-clock phenomenal and better than anything since the "III" tour.

-- Eddie's mention of how he's not knocking people on the Internet, but he just doesn't have time for it. I'm guessing he never envisioned a day when even his dog (Kody Van Halen) would have his own Facebook page.

-- His slight scoff that there's "still people that want (David Lee) Roth in the band, you know?" Even he came back around to wanting the exact same thing eventually.

-- His memories of the band's triumphant homecoming show at the Forum in Inglewood, Calif., on Oct. 7, 1979 -- the final date on the World Vacation tour. The Forum was the place every Los Angeles band dreamed of playing back in the day. It was the sure sign that you had made it. During his guitar solo that night, Eddie happened to look over and see his father sitting at the soundboard, unabashedly crying with pride. It's a story I had read years earlier and never forgotten. Probably because earlier that very day, a few friends and I had stopped by the Van Halen home in Pasadena, on a lark really, and met Jan Van Halen, Eddie's and Alex's dad, and enjoyed a brief but fun conversation with him. I've promised to write that experience up, and am finally committed to getting it done. Check back in the next few weeks for that writeup.

I remember typing up the interview into the wee hours of one morning at the office -- and immediately sharing it with the Van Halen Mailing List, a tight-knit Internet fan club of sorts with some of the most knowledgeable and dedicated fans the band has ever known. The response and feedback was extremely positive -- and that eventually led to it being published in the Inside, the band's official magazine, in 1998. It was a gratifying moment for me, and was the start of a great association with Jeff Hausman, who ran the Inside then, and now oversees the Van Halen News Desk (www.vhnd.com) and the Van Halen Store operations.

It was the last real interview with Eddie in the Inside before it eventually ceased publication amid the band's years of inactivity and media cone of silence starting in 1999 after parting ways with Cherone. The band wasn't really heard from again until the 2004 reunion tour with Hagar, and after that ended somewhat disastrously there was nothing until re-forming with Roth in 2007, this time with Wolfgang VH on bass in place of Michael Anthony. Even at that, the band in general, and Eddie in particular, have done very few interviews in the intervening years since the "III" project fell apart.

A few years after the interview, my wife and I were in a class where the teacher, attempting a grand object lesson, asked us all to envision having the opportunity to interview anyone in the world, whether it be famous athlete, celebrity or public figure. He then asked us to imagine how we would prepare, what questions we would ask and how we would react to such a unique challenge.

I offered up no response. I figured the exercise was for those who could truly imagine the assignment -- not those who had already experienced it.

Besides, I'm not sure a normal schmo would qualify.

The interview follows. Enjoy!

Caution: Normal schmo at work. (Daily Herald file photo)

 July 7, 1998

 DOUG FOX: Originally, I was supposed to interview you about two weeks ago, but it was postponed because you were up all night working on a project.

EDDIE VAN HALEN: Yeah that was for “Once,” they wanted an adult contemporary version of it. They didn’t realize what was quite involved in having to do that. I had Gary (Cherone) re-sing parts of it, it’s not a whole different song, but it’s quite different. I’m happy with the way it turned out. It’s not the way I wrote it. You know, Van Halen is not a pop band. But we write all types of different music. I don’t know, it’s like a big square peg trying to fit into a little tiny round hole, you know? And we’re not Spice. We’re not Hansen. We’re just Van Halen, you know? It’s not flavor of the month. I mean, I’m in the business of making music, not in the music business so to speak. There is a bit of a side to it and if they ask, “Can you do this please,” I go, “Well, if that’s what you want I’ll try my best to give it to ya.” But they just didn’t realize how much work was going to be involved. It took two weeks because I had to start from scratch.

DF: But you’ve said before that anything you do, no matter what you do, it still ends up sounding like Van Halen.

VAN HALEN: Oh yeah. Put it this way. I removed all the heavy guitars and replaced them with acoustic guitars and we had a friend of Gary’s, a girl, come in and do some backgrounds because when Mike and I did it, it sounded a little too manly. And just edited it.

DF: So that means I’ll be hearing it the next time I go to the dentist’s office?

VAN HALEN: There’s still no guarantee that they’ll play it because we’re Van Halen, ya know? It’s like a lot of radio stations when they hear the name, they won’t even give it a chance. It’s like in L.A., there’s not one station that will play us. There’s no AOR station, there’s no album-oriented rock station that will play us, and you know, I’ll be very, very surprised if they play us on top 40 radio.

DF: That’s amazing. I grew up there and I graduated in 1978 right when you guys came out and I think the station that I listened to then was like KWEST or something like that ...

VAN HALEN: Hey, right, right, right ... it’s very bizarre because every record that we make, you know, it always feels like that (first one). ... I’ll never forget hearing “You Really Got Me” at two o’clock in the morning the very first time on the radio. I ran and woke up my mom and dad, going, “We’re on the radio! We’re on the radio!” And it’s like that every time, even 13 albums later. Except this time it’s like, “oh,” you know, the album’s released and nothing. But I still get just as excited hearing us on the radio now as I did then. I have not yet heard anything on the radio. It’s kind of depressing, you know. Like wow.

DF: I’m sorry about that, but I’m hoping that this new album will get out cause it’s really good.

VAN HALEN: Well in a funny way, if I have to relate it to any other record, it’s kind of like “Fair Warning,” which was also a sleeper so to speak because there was no hit. It was the first record where I really started experimenting and overdubbing, layering and stuff, I don’t know. Radio wouldn’t play it. A lot of people didn’t get it, but they did a few years down the road. Then they went back and went, “Hey, that was a good record.”

DF: It’s funny you mention that because that’s one of my favorite albums ...

VAN HALEN: But it probably wasn’t when it first came out.

DF: Well, actually I was gone for two years on a church thing, so I didn’t hear it, but when I got back, I went right out and got it.

VAN HALEN: A lot of people when it first came out went, “Well, what is this?” This (new) record is not a one-listen record, you know? There’s a lot of depth to it and lot of diversity. To me, rock and roll is free-form music, and it’s there to take chances — to not fit a mold or be trendy, or this and that. So, no, it wasn’t the right time with a brand new singer to start experimenting and doing tripped-out stuff. But, hey, it’s rock and roll. Ask me if I’ll do it again and yes, you know, that’s what rock and roll is all about to me. It’s not about fitting into any mold or, “Hey, this is flavor of the month” or “Hey, let’s do that.” We do what we do. So we know what we do.

"I think when you hit around 40 and you don't cut the crap ... you either kick the bucket or lose it in the turn."

DF: So going back to your music theory class at Pasadena City College, I remember your teacher said, “If it sounds good, it is good.”

VAN HALEN: Yeah, his name was Truman Fisher, and he was a great teacher. Frank Zappa was one of his students. That shows you right there the difference, what a great teacher he was, you know, to not have molded his students, like, “This is the right way to do it.” I mean, it’s called music theory — not music fact.

DF: Hey, how’s Alex doing?

VAN HALEN: Oh, that guy, he never ceases to blow my mind. I mean we had a month off, we had to cancel our European tour because of the ceiling coming down. A brick just about the size of a cinder block, broke his arm (right forearm), during soundcheck. An inch and a half torn muscle, and our first gig (back) was Phoenix last week. I couldn’t believe it. I’d been in the studio, so I hadn’t played guitar in like a month, which is a long time for me to not play. So for the first gig, it was like, “Whoa!” It was like an athlete not keeping in shape, man, it’s like my fingers were locking up. And here’s Al just cooking, you know? And he hadn’t played in a month, on top of being injured. It just blew my mind. He can’t put a hard cast on because it heals short, the muscle’s torn. There’s a fine line to how much you move it. You can’t overuse it. I just don’t see how he pulled it off. He’s playing better than ever. I think the whole band is. I mean, I really think that if you don’t see the band live, you’re missing it, because this is the best we’ve ever been.

DF: I was wondering how much a process of development goes on since you’ve added a new member, is it taking some time to get used to each other?

VAN HALEN: Not at all. It’s like we’ve known each other, it’s like he’s a long-lost brother. I swear. In a funny way, when I think about it, my father was a traveling musician, so who knows? (laughs) The first gig we did together was at the Billboard Club the evening of the record release party, and it was like we’d played together all our lives. There was no need to get comfortable, no feeling each other out. It was just (makes sound like “VAROOSH”). He just fits like a glove. It was just meant to be.

DF: I’ve been reading the reviews of your shows on the Van Halen Mailing List and everyone is commenting on how happy you seem and how exuberant.

VAN HALEN: (I’m the) happiest I’ve ever been in my life.

DF: Is that mainly because of the musical situation, or is simply everything in your life combining to make it that way?

VAN HALEN: Everything. I think everything kind of relates. If you’re not happy at your work, you come home and kick your dog, you know what I’m sayin’? So yeah, it’s got a lot to do with Gary and (having) a musical soulmate, and he actually lives here with us in the guest house. And he’s just a wonderful human being. His passion for music is the same as mine. It’s not about money or how many records we sell. There’s just no ego, it’s truly a band now. You definitely feel that when you see us live.

DF: I read where originally you got a tape from Gary, and weren’t really impressed with it.

VAN HALEN: No, I wasn’t at all. Because what he tried to do was second guess me and do what he thought I would want. And that’s the last thing I want. So I told him, why don’t you just come out. You know, over the phone just doesn’t work.

DF: At what point did you know he was your guy?

"(I'm the) happiest I've ever been in my life." -- EVH, 1998

VAN HALEN: Actually when he hopped out of the car, I just looked at him and said, “He’s a brother.” Just no attitude. Just a real sweetheart from heaven. We blazed through eight older Van Halen songs, four Roth-era tunes and four Sammy-era tunes, and he just blew our minds. We took a little break and 45 minutes later “Without You” was written — the first day. And if that ain’t chemistry, I don’t know what the hell is. That evening I played him all kinds of bizarre music that I make (laughs) just to let him know that he is not in any way confined to “Panama” or “Jump,” hey, anything goes in this band. Any idea is worth pursuing. I just wanted to let him know that there are no boundaries in this band. I kind of overloaded him and the next morning I just told him, “As far as I’m concerned, you’re in the band, you’re the guy.” I hadn’t spoken with Mike and Alex, but I just told him, you know, “They’re going to make up their own mind, but as far as I’m concerned, you’re in.”

DF: Speaking of stretching boundaries, you’re singing lead for the first time on “How Many Say I” ...

VAN HALEN: Well, that wasn’t on purpose. That was not my call (laughs). It just so happened, this is like a milestone in my life. Never ever have lyrics inspired me to write anything. It was always music first, then squeeze a melody out of it and throw some lyrics on it. Well Gary just kind of stuck me some lyrics and goes, “Here check these out when you got time.” Well, of course, I looked at them immediately, and as long as that song is is as long as it took. It just came right through me. Not to get bizarre or spiritual on you, but it was almost like an out-of-body experience. I was like sitting there watching myself while I’m singing and playing. I had goosebumps, and I’m going, ‘Where is this coming from?’ I’ve always known, you know, where do ideas come from, if you really think about it? Once you start thinking you’re responsible, forget it. I mean, I’m just a conduit. The ideas are given. Now, it’s like I can’t write without him handing me lyrics. Then I write the melody, and I sing it and he re-sings them. That one, Mike Post and Gary said, “Hey, why should I sing it when the vibe is there?” That’s kind of a Tom Waits kind of, you know, I’m not really a singer.

DF: How hard was it to sing the first time in concert?

VAN HALEN: I was a little nervous, but you know, I sing backgrounds. I mean, I used to lead sing for the band before Roth was in the band. It’s just I never learned properly how to sing, so after about four or five songs my voice would be shot.

DF: In the past you’ve compared the band’s albums to children, obviously the newest child will get the most attention ...

Michael Anthony and Gary Cherone. (Daily Herald file photo)

VAN HALEN: No, that’s another thing. We’re playing everything. Gary asked, "How come you never do any of the old stuff?" You know, certain people didn’t want to sing it. So we gave him free rein and we said, “Yeah you pick the tunes and we’ll do ’em.” So I had to go back and listen to “Van Halen I” and learn “I’m the One.”

DF: Was it challenging to have to relearn some of those older songs?

VAN HALEN: Oh, it sure blew my mind — I didn’t realize how much my playing has changed over the years. You know, it’s an unconscious thing, but there’s a lick in the beginning that I’m going, “Man, how in the hell did I do that?” And it took me a while to learn.

DF: Now you know what the rest of us go through when we try to learn it!

VAN HALEN: (laughs) I guess I know how you feel now.

DF: At least you know you were able to do it once.

VAN HALEN: Yeah, well I can still do it. It’s amazing after 20 years you just kind of evolve or change and not necessarily for, I’m not saying I’m any better now or anything. But let’s say (Eric) Clapton for instance, you know? Look at him during Cream, Blind Faith, Derek and the Dominoes — and what he’s doing now, it’s completely different. I’m sure unconsciously, you know what I mean? I just think it’s a natural evolution or growth or whatever you want to call it. That’s the way I look at the band, too. I kind of look at it like we’re kind of like this huge oak tree that the seed was planted back in ’74 and it sprouted in ’78 with the first record, and we just continue to branch out and experiment. I think once you stop branching out and moving forward, then the tree dies.

DF: Well, you’ve sure provided a lot of shade for people over the years.

VAN HALEN: Well, it’s my life. I thank God every night for having found my gift, so to speak. I love doing it. I don’t know. That’s what I’m here for. I think everybody’s born with a gift, some people just never find it or bother to try and find it, you know?

DF: What’s the hardest song for you to play each night?

VAN HALEN: I don’t know. None of them are really hard. It just depends on if I remember how to play it or not! (laughs) ’Cause sometimes you get so wrapped up, I don’t know, it’s such a loose thing that we just kind of have a skeleton of a setlist, and sometimes we don’t follow it and we’ll go into a song that we haven’t played in a while and, yeah, then it’s tough. Then I’ve got to think — and I don’t like to think.

DF: Hey, do you mind if we talk about your sobriety for a minute?

VAN HALEN: No, not at all.

DF: How’s everything going there?

VAN HALEN: Excellent.

DF: What’s it been, like two to three years?

VAN HALEN: Oh, more than that. See, Oct. 2, ’94. Whatever, I’m not an A.A. kind of guy where I count the days. I’ve had a glass of wine here and there, it just doesn’t control me like it used to.

DF: I’d read where your dad had given you your first drink before to calm you down before you played ...

VAN HALEN: Yeah, my first cigarette and my first shot of vodka.

DF: I was wondering, with everything you’ve gone through and the experience of hindsight, if you were offered that first drink again, would you still take it?

VAN HALEN: I have no idea. I don’t know. That’s an interesting question. ’Cause I’ve never really looked back ... put it this way, if I had to do it all over again, I don’t think I would change anything ’cause I think it took that to get to where I am.

DF: ’Cause I was wondering if it was the kind of thing where having gone through the experience, you’re better off now, knowing what you know than never having done it?

VAN HALEN: Probably, yeah. But I wouldn’t know because that’s the way it was, you know what I mean? I think I caught it just in time. I think when you hit around 40 and you don’t cut the crap, you know, you either kick the bucket or just lose it in the turn.

The full Van Halen 3 lineup rockin' it in Park City on July 14, 1998. (Daily Herald file photo)

 DF: One of the other more memorable things I’ve heard you say, because you were talking about your dad just a little before, when he went and watched you play at the Forum ...

VAN HALEN: Oh, yeah ...

DF: I grew up there and I went to a lot of concerts there, so that was always the big place in my mind. I imagine it was for you, too?

VAN HALEN: It was always a dream to play there. A friend of Alex’s drew a poster when we used to play backyard parties, you know the band used to be called Genesis before it was Mammoth, and then we walked into a record store and go, “Hey, we’ve got a record out, Alex.” (laughs) Then, of course, we changed it. But the poster said “Genesis at the Forum.” You know, that was the place where we used to go see Zeppelin and Grand Funk and, you know, so yeah, it was a dream come true to play there.

DF: But you mentioned that you were playing there (at the first Forum show), and you looked out during your guitar solo and saw your dad was sitting there and he was crying ...

VAN HALEN: Oh, yeah, he was sitting by a monitor board. He was so proud.

DF: You know, when I used to crank up the guitar at home my dad used to cry, too, but it was for a different reason than that ... (laughs)

VAN HALEN: Well, that was my mom. My mom, used to always say, “Why do you make that high crying noise?” ... “It bought you a house, didn’t it?” (laughs)

DF: That must be very special to have a moment like that that you can remember and look back on.

VAN HALEN: Oh, yeah. The funny thing is, my father who was the musician, did not at all push us, you know? It was my mom who pushed us, to “Well, if you’re going to make music, do something respectable. You’ve got to play classical piano.” So we did that for a few years like the movie “Shine.” You ever seen the movie?

DF: “Shine?” No.

VAN HALEN: The Australian guy? Well, basically, you sit there and you practice one piece of music for a whole damn year, and they put you in a category of how many years you’ve played and what piece of music and it’s a contest. And, you know, I actually won three years in a row, but it just wasn’t my cup of tea, you know? There was no room for improv or to do what I wanted to do. You had to play what was on the paper. It was so funny because I never really learned how to read, so the judge’s comments were, “Very interesting interpretation.” I thought I was playing it right! (laughs)

DF: It probably sounded good though.

VAN HALEN: Well, (laughing) I won!

DF: How do you think your dad would enjoy the third incarnation of the band?

VAN HALEN: Oh, he would love it! Definitely. He’s up there, you know, watching over us.

DF: That’s a good feeling.

VAN HALEN: Oh, yeah.

DF: With the Internet and everything, you know, I’m on the Van Halen Mailing List, I get so much information and I can’t get enough of it, but then again, I look to the show next Tuesday (in Utah) and in a way, I wish I knew nothing about the show going in.

VAN HALEN: I still think that whatever people say, you’ve got to read the book, you can’t have someone explain it to you, you know what I mean?

DF: Having so much information out there about what you’re playing ...

VAN HALEN: I don’t even know ’cause I don’t even know how to run a computer. Valerie does and every now and then she goes, “Ummmmmmm errrrrrr ehhhhh” and I go. “OK.” There’s people that still want Roth in the band, you know? Of course. Now, I just think it’s funny, I mean, I’m not knocking people on the Internet, you know, but I just don’t have the time for it.

DF: What CDs have you been listening to?

VAN HALEN: I’m so into cello right now, Yo Yo Ma. He’s a Japanese-American cellist. I just listen to him and just like with guitar, I just listen and emulate.

DF: You’re not going to start playing cello now too are you?

VAN HALEN: Yeah, I am playing cello. I sit in a racquetball court. It just sounds amazing.

DF: You should have put that on “Once.”

VAN HALEN: No, I wasn’t that good yet. Oh, you mean for the remix?

DF: Yeah, for the top 40 (version).

VAN HALEN: (Laughs) I didn’t think about that.

DF: Have you ever thought about including the “Beat It” guitar solo in your guitar solo during the shows?

VAN HALEN: Oh, it was just an improv you know? I just walked in, blew two solos, “You guys just pick whichever one you want,” and then I left.

DF: That’s one of my favorite solos. Just hearing it when the song came out, you knew it was you.

VAN HALEN: Yeah, it’s funny, of all people, Ted Templeman happened to be in a record store and the song was playing and there were some people standing next to him and they said, “Oh, it’s just someone else trying to copy Eddie Van Halen,” and he goes, “It is.” (laughs) He’s the one, Quincy Jones called him and Ted gave him my phone number. It’s funny, when I walked in the studio I asked Quincy, “What do you want me to do?” And he goes, “Anything you want.” So I ended up rearranging the song, and little did I know the trouble I caused because there were two 24-track machines locked up with SMPTE code. It wasn’t my fault, but the engineer should have known that you don’t cut master 2-inch tape with SMPTE code on it. So he was editing master tape with code so it wouldn’t lock up afterwards. So thank God the idea I had worked, because, “Hey, let’s try this.” I thought he was just doing it on the two track and testing it. But it took them like months to piece it back together — and all they had was my guitar solo and Michael’s voice.

DF: Well, it turned out good!

VAN HALEN: Yeah, I guess it was fine. It was funny too because back then the guys really didn’t like me playing on other people’s records and stuff. Everybody was out of town and I figured, “Ah, who’s going to know if I play on this kid’s record?” And it ends up being song of the year. It was hilarious.

DF: That phantom riff at the end of “Women and Children First” (called “Growth”), that would have made a great song. Have you ever thought of developing that? Do you know which one I’m talking about?

VAN HALEN: I think you mean at the end of the second record. (Hums “Growth” riff.)

DF: Isn’t that on “Women and Children First”?

VAN HALEN: No, it’s on the second album, I think? I think it’s on Van Halen II.

DF: Yeah, but that is the riff. That would make a great song.

VAN HALEN: Yeah, I forgot about that. There’s so much music, you know? I mean, we were actually thinking about putting out a double CD with Gary, you know, the first one, we have so much material. You just keep writing and writing, just about every day.

DF: I bet you just have tons of tape ...

VAN HALEN: Oh, I’ve got so much music. I look at all the tapes and I go, “Ugh, I don’t have time to go back and listen to all of that, I got new stuff, you know?”

DF: I know Eric Clapton was your idol growing up, if you could ask him one question, what would it be?

VAN HALEN: Wow. I wouldn’t have any questions, I would just say, “Thank you.” And I have. I’ve met him a few times and it’s, you know, it’s just amazing because now, over the years I’ve met ... Jeff Beck is a really good friend, Jimmy Page is a real sweetheart, David Gilmour is just incredible. All these guys, Clapton ... you know, we’re just normal people making music.

DF: I guess that’s what I’d like to tell you is just thanks for all the years of making music. I can’t even begin to tell you how much listening to your music has meant to me over the past 20 years.

VAN HALEN: Thank you very much. I think that’s what music is all about. It’s a universal language. I think if it comes from the heart, which definitely with Gary now it does, it’s not contrived, you know? I mean, it’s not, “Hey, skateboarding’s in, let’s write a song about that,” you know what I mean? It’s definitely heartfelt and we don’t let it out unless we like it. And the whole purpose is to maybe touch some people’s lives with it, you know? Whether it be 10 people or 10 million.

DF: Well, you definitely have, and I just wanted to tell you thanks.

VAN HALEN: Well, you’re very welcome and I thank God for having the opportunity to do it.

My wife, Jenn, and I got to meet up with the band one week after my interview.

Related content: I have waxed poetic about the world's greatest rock band on more than one occasion. Here are a select few of the many other stories.

My introduction to the mighty Van Halen.
A 'Different Kind of Truth' sets Van Halen fans free.
Running with the Tiger: Van Halen at Tiger Jam XI
Where Have All the Good Times Gone? Fractured Van Halen inducted into Hall of Fame.
You Had Me at 'I Live My Life Like There's No Tomorrow.'
Van Halen Rocks Delta Center on 2004 Tour.
Sammy Hagar, Alex Van Halen Discuss 2004 Reunion Tour

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'A Different Kind of Truth' sets Van Halen fans free

Back in the late 1970s and early 80s when Eddie Van Halen was constantly rewriting prevailing wisdom on what people presumed possible to achieve on electric guitar, he used to describe his playing approach as falling down the stairs and landing on his feet.

Applying that same analogy to “A Different Kind of Truth,” Van Halen’s first studio album with lead singer David Lee Roth in 28 years, it sounds like Eddie should update the status of his guitar acrobatics to sliding down the banister, dismounting with a front pike somersault and sticking a perfect landing at the bottom.

As far as classic Van Halen fans are concerned, “A Different Kind of Truth” – pound for pound, perhaps the heaviest VH record ever -- constitutes several giant steps in the right direction.

From the opening guitar growl of "Tattoo” to the sustained 30-plus seconds where he slowly wrings every last bit of fuzz and distortion out of his instrument to close “Beats Workin’,” “A Different Kind of Truth” expertly testifies that Eddie has once again taken his guitar playing “Back to the Future.”

There was a reason, after all, that when Marty McFly needed some serious guitar mojo to forcefully frighten his father into critical action during the popular 1985 Michael J. Fox flick that he did so with a cassette tape labeled “Edward Van Halen.” In its original incarnation, Van Halen always did tend to scare parents while unabashedly encouraging the young at heart to become “Unchained” and “Hot For Teacher” or simply to “Dance the Night Away.”

Classic Van Halen was quite literally a glimpse into rock’s future, as nearly every new album contained at least one reinventing-the-instrument guitar moment. Think “Eruption,” “Spanish Fly,” the “Mean Street” intro, “Cathedral,” and “Little Guitars Intro,” not to mention any number of “How-in-the-world-did-he-do-that?” in-song solos that routinely sent guitarists worldwide scurrying back to the woodshed to learn at the frets of Professor Van Halen.

And sometimes the guitarist trying to learn what the younger Van Halen did was the guitar god himself. When I had the opportunity to interview him in 1998 during the course of the Van Halen III tour where the band was playing a lot of Roth-era songs that hadn’t been played in more than 15 years, Eddie told me that relearning a part of 1978’s “I’m the One” had given him fits.

“It sure blew my mind -- I didn’t realize how much my playing has changed over the years,” he said. “You know, it’s an unconscious thing, but there’s a lick in the beginning that I’m going, ‘Man, how in the hell did I do that?’ And it took me a while to learn.”

“A Different Kind of Truth” is literally Van Halen relearning, revisiting and reclaiming its legacy as the greatest American rock band of all time. Much has been written about the band going back into the vaults and revamping up to seven old demos -- many of them from the unreleased recording sessions financed by KISS bassist Gene Simmons prior to the band’s official debut with Warner Brothers.

While that approach may indeed seem at odds with conventional wisdom, just ask yourself this question: When has Van Halen ever done anything by the book? From a listener’s standpoint, I couldn’t care less if the smoking guitar riffs that billow throughout “A Different Kind of Truth” were written last century, last year or last night. The simple truth is there remains nothing else quite like it in music today.

When discussing “A Different Kind of Truth,” there is no getting around the chip off the old block in the room. As Roth declared during the band’s 2007-08 tour, this edition of Van Halen is three parts original, one part inevitable. The latter half of the equation refers to the addition of Eddie’s son, Wolfgang (21 next month), on bass, following the subtraction of Michael Anthony.

Clearly, Anthony, who had remained a member of the band through all three of its previous lineups, was popular and extremely fan-friendly. His onstage exuberance and background vocal abilities are missed. However, it’s quite likely that were it not for Wolfgang, there would have been no reunion with Roth, no new tours and no new music. The potential to play with his son was likely the main impetus that led Eddie back to rehab, back to the stage and, eventually, back into the studio for the new recording sessions after years of band inactivity – sans a somewhat disastrous reunion tour with second-singer Sammy Hagar in 2004. In that respect, it’s hard to begrudge father and son this unprecedented opportunity.

Yeah, but can he play? The proof is in the creme brulee. Wolfgang is not only locked in step with his uncle, drummer Alex Van Halen, but he adds his own little flourishes throughout the entire record and holds up the bottom end with aplomb. The kid is more than all right. And the rhythm section on this entire record is off-the-rails powerful.

The typical sign of a great album from an established band is if there are three or four tracks that you would want to see in concert. Let’s just say I would be ecstatic if the band played the entire record from top to bottom’s up. Track by track, and there are a blazing baker’s dozen of them, this album ranks right up with the band’s best work.

Here’s my song-by-song breakdown:

“Tattoo” -- The diehard Van Halen camp has not been so split over the merits of a lead single since the release of “Jump.” Half the fanbase seems to love it, while the other half loathes it. I fall into the former group. While it did initially raise some red flags with those who hoped the band would return to its hard rock roots, those fears would prove to be completely unfounded. When the initial reviews started filtering out in advance of the album’s release, I scoffed when many claimed “Tattoo” was the worst song on the record. I now hear their point. I still love the song, with Dave’s lyrical imagery and Eddie’s guitar solo making it already better than most anything else on the radio today. I also like the subtle keyboard in the verse -- the only spot on the album where any keys are apparent — and the “Down in Flames/You’re No Good” volume swell ending.

Favorite lyric: “Swap meet Sally, tramp stamp tat, mousewife to momshell in the time it took to get that new tattoo.”

“She’s the Woman” -- While “Tattoo” hints of “Down in Flames,” this is the first track that draws heavily from an earlier demo. Same title and music, completely different lyrics. While on the subject of lyrics, I’ve got to give it up to Roth here. It’s incredible having his gift of gab and wink-and-a-nod sense of humor back in play. This song is a perfect example. The last Hagar-attempted lusty love song with the band was the wholly unappetizing “Up For Breakfast,” and its line upon line of third-grade fruit metaphors (“Cherries on bananas ... honeydew my melon”? Seriously? Gag me with a prune!) But with Dave we get lines like “suburban garage a trois” and “I want to be your knight in shining pickup truck.” Upbeat and fast-paced, this track features a funky feel and Eddie’s trademark between-vocal guitar fills and squeals. This song also answers all questions about Wolfgang’s bass abilities.

Favorite lyric: “The song ain’t dirty it’s really just the way we sing it.” (Reminds me of the famous Jessica Rabbit line from “Who Framed Roger Rabbit?”: “I’m not bad, I’m just drawn that way.”)

“You and Your Blues” -- At this point in time, I can’t get enough of this song. A syncopated Eddie riff sets the mood and carries the song for the first 15 seconds before Alex and Wolfgang join in mid-first verse. I’m probably not recognizing them all, but Dave name checks at least nine different blues songs in the lyrics. This is Van Halen-style blues, in that you don’t get pulled to a darker, somber place while commiserating with the lyrical point of view. Instead, the upbeat chorus lifts your spirits even while it hammers home the suffering viewpoint. The background vocals also stand out -- checking off another question lingering from Anthony’s departure. I could see this as a potential single.

Favorite lyric: “Ain’t goin’ down to no crossroads, ain’t gonna dust no broom, no evil woman’s got a hold on me, ain’t goin’ to heaven anytime soon.”

“China Town” -- This is as heavy a song as Van Halen has ever recorded. It’s 3 minutes and 12 seconds of pure adrenaline. If you could somehow bottle this, you could put Red Bull and Rockstar out of business. Alex’s drumming throughout this breakneck pace is incredible. Looking for your mind-blowing guitar moment of this album? Check out the last 12 seconds of the song -- as Eddie unleashes a free-falling torrent of notes that just make you shake your head and say, “Wow!” I would love to see the band open its new tour -- which as I write this opens tonight in Louisville -- with this song. Besides, how can you not love a song that begins with the line, “Headless body in a topless bar”?

Favorite lyric: “Heroes aren’t born they’re cornered, and this corner is where we write the story.”

“Blood and Fire” -- Longtime Van Halen fans recognize the main music motif in this song as “Ripley,” an instrumental written by Eddie when he scored the soundtrack to “The Wild Life,” a 1984 movie by Cameron Crowe. Fans have always wondered what it could turn into with lyrics and the full band treatment. Now they know. Lyrically, with its talk of “forgotten empires” and “lost victories long past,” it seems to be an autobiographical nod to the band’s history. Dave even inserts his trademark concert exclamation of “Look at all of the people here tonight!” Speaking of trademarks, this marks the first of several standard spoken mid-song slowdowns (think “Everybody Wants Some!,” “Unchained” and “Panama”) with Dave breaking down the third wall and talking directly to the listener. “Told ya I was coming back. Say you missed me. Say it like you mean it.” The transition from spoken word to over-the-top guitar solo still gives me goosebumps, even after a couple dozen listens. I kind of feel like rating Eddie’s guitar solos is a bit like judging Michael Jordan’s dunks in that even his average takes are on such a higher plane than the competition it’s almost unfair. It’s mostly futile to compare Eddie to others, he’s best compared only to himself. With that in mind, this solo stands up to some of his best work.

Favorite lyric: “Look at all of the people here tonight.” (This line never ceases to put a smile on my face.)

“Bullethead” – So far, I have a real love/like relationship with this song. When I’m scanning the songs on the disc, it’s never one of my first choices to listen to. Yet, when it does come on, invariably I enjoy it. With its blast-from-the-gates guitar squeal, this is another blistering rocker. Musically, it dates back to the Simmons demo, but with new lyrics, albeit the same title. Personally, I place it toward the bottom of this album, but I know many others who rate it near the top. This album tends to invite that very rare phenomenon where opinions are across the board on what the best songs are. I’ve read hundreds of comments, from professional reviews to message boards, listing the best and worst songs on the album, and someone’s treasure is another’s throwaway track. To me, that’s actually the sign of a very good album.

Favorite lyric: “How many roads must a man walk down, before he admits he’s lost?”

 “As Is” -- This song is just a monster! I remember Eddie saying once that before there were lyrics to “Me Wise Magic” he referred to the song as “The Three Faces of Shamus” because of its trio of distinct musical sections. In that case, this song might as well be called “The Five Faces of Shamus” for its handful of abrupt turns and changes of pace. Alex kicks things off with an 18-second drum intro before Eddie and Wolfgang join in, and just when you’re settling into what you expect to be the main groove it all turns upside down with what turns out to really be the song’s main riff. Discerning fans will recognize a striking similarity in the predominant riff to the explosion-of-jam moment he played during his walk-on appearance of “Two and a Half Men” in 2009. (On the show, that was given the tongue-in-cheek title of “Two Burritos and a Root Beer Float.”) Everybody is just firing on all cylinders throughout the song before eventually settling into an ethereal rideout section that eerily endures for more than a minute. Great, great song.

Favorite lyric: “It's not who you squeeze, but who returns once again to squeeze you no doubt, love ’em all I says, let Cupid sort ’em out.”

“Honeybabysweetiedoll” -- There is so much going on musically in this song that I’m still finding amazing things in it with each new playback. It opens up with 30 seconds of guitar wankery and weird sound effects. The main segment is a roiling undertow of a riff that pulls you in and relentlessly pummels you before finally releasing you exhausted at song’s end. Dave handles most of this song in a lower register, half singing, half speaking his way through. The final minute and a half is all instrumental and features a furious solo by Eddie and some guitar playing that has a surprising Mideastern flair.

Favorite lyric: “Stone soul sistah soccer mom, muchacha-miga, cherry bomb.”

“The Trouble With Never” -- Another top flight song that could be a potential single. There’s much to like about this song, from its main verse and chorus to the couple “Alice in Wonderland” references and some nice backing vocals. But my favorite section of the song is the middle, which features a more-than-a-minute-and-a-half departure from the proceedings. It kicks off with a killer, wah-induced guitar solo lasting 45 seconds before easing into another classic Dave-speak breakdown that sets up a thundering reverie before returning to the original chorus. Amazing!

Favorite lyric: “Let’s un-plan the moment, dance the night away, selective amnesia is only a heartbeat away.”

“Outta Space” -- The backstretch of this album is just unbelievable. There is no let-up and no filler. It’s undoubtedly buoyed because three of the final four songs are revamped from a trio of all-time demo favorites -- their explosive main riffs having lost none of their power in the intervening 35-plus years, and, in fact, even gaining more of an edge in the hands of a battle-tested and –scarred Eddie.This song is based on “Let’s Get Rockin’ ” and is flat-out stellar as Dave updates it with his take on overpopulation and political correctness.

Favorite lyric: “Need no polar bear to scare me, no Eskimo to share with me his fate, woo, we outta space. No blog-o-sphere to sell me, no dolphin needs to tell me, no starving kid to make the case.”

“Stay Frosty” -- If “Stay Frosty” weren’t poised to become the catchphrase of 2012 -- Dave Grohl of the Foo Fighters has already chanted it like a mantra -- then you could call this “Son of Ice Cream Man.” Completely different song, of course, but the formula is the same -- the only thing missing is Dave dedicating one to the ladies and a hearty “All right, boys!” before the song ramps up from acoustic to power-based boogie blues. Dave’s storytelling talents are in fine form here, transporting the listener on a journey to various religious leaders who offer sage advice along the lines of: “Don’t want them to get your goat, don’t show ’em where it’s hid” and “You want to be a monk, you’ve got to cook a lot of rice.” There are not one, but two high-octane guitar solos, and Alex and Wolfgang keep up the oft-frenetic pace.

Favorite lyric: “Stay Frosty, and there's nothing you can’t handle, far and wide, far as you ramble, trust in Allah, but tie up your camel.”

“Big River” -- Reworked from a fan-favorite demo titled “Big Trouble,” this is another amazing song. It’s almost redundant at this point: The musicianship on here is first-rate. Great catchy tune, with a pair of mind-numbing guitar solos.

Favorite lyric: “Listen to a sea shell, you can hear the sea, listen to a beer glass, that river belongs to me.”

“Beats Workin’ ” -- Top to bottom, this is one of my favorite songs on the album -- a potential party rock anthem for the new generation. Opening with a 45-second setup, the song receives a complete jolt when the extremely catchy main riff (originally from the demo “Put Out the Lights”) explodes onto the scene. This song is vintage Van Halen. Great vocals, blazing guitar with three solos, great backing vocals, heart-thumping rhythms. Not only does this make a great closing number, especially with its exaggerated fadeout, it would also make a fantastic single.

Favorite lyric: “One empty floor, stands between the stage, and the welfare door, heads or tails, of the same bread, coin of the realm, just like the man said.”

In summation: Forget all the infamous backbiting, sniping and animosity between various members throughout the decades. Forgive the years and years of wasted time and lost opportunities. Throw the “No news is good news” slogan to the wind.

Trust your ears. This is the exactly the type of “Truth” that can set long-suffering Van Halen fans free.

After a couple dozen listens, my fur-rising factor rates “A Different Kind of Truth” on a nearly equal hallowed plane as “Van Halen I” and “Fair Warning” -- my two personal favorites based on 35 years of utmost fascination with this little old band from Pasadena.

Ultimately, only time will tell if it stands the test of ...

(Editor’s note: The breakdown segment in “Mean Street” just struck this poor boy down ... )

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My Introduction to the Mighty Van Halen

This photo captures the raw exuberance of a young David Lee Roth. While innocence is not a word you would normally associate with Van Halen, there was a “the-world’s-at-our-fingertips” vibe at the Logan show. Everyone should have the opportunity at least once to catch a great band in the early phases of its career.
All photos by Mitch Hancock from March 31, 1979, in Logan, Utah.

I've had Van Halen -- a group I first saw in concert 32 years ago this past week -- on the brain a lot recently.

It is pretty common knowledge that the group is in the studio recording a new studio album with original frontman David Lee Roth. This is a gift not taken lightly by Van Halen fans. It's been 27 years since the band's last full studio album with Roth (1984's "MCMLXXXIV"), 13 years since the band's last full studio record with any singer (1998's "3" with Gary Cherone), and seven years since any new music of any kind (three new reunion songs with second singer Sammy Hagar in 2004).

So, clearly, I've had plenty of time in between albums -- not to mention frequent personnel changes and years of utter silence -- to question my devotion to this little old band from Pasadena. Besides just the fantastic music, I've determined that a lot of it goes back to my initial introduction to the band.

There are moments of clarity in every person’s life that are ingrained in one’s memory so completely as to almost be imprinted on the DNA.

Most people, for example, can tell you exactly where they were and what they were doing when world-altering events occurred.

Personally, I find that this phenomenon also happens with music. I have always tended to mark specific instances and periods of life based on certain songs and when I first heard them.

But nothing quite prepared me for that day in the summer of 1978 when my musical theory received relativity.

Living in Southern California at the time, the local hard rock radio stations of the day had been playing a trio of songs from an L.A. band that had just released its debut record. There was something about those three songs that seemed to force my hand — as if drawn by a tractor beam — toward the stereo’s volume dial, where a quick right turn would raise things to a more enjoyable level.

Eruption: A classic Eddie Van Halen guitar solo pose.

The songs in question were “Ain’t Talkin’ ’Bout Love,” “You Really Got Me” and “Runnin’ With the Devil.” The band was Van Halen — and life as I knew it was about to change.

I remember clearly the day my brother and I drove down to the local record store to purchase the cassette tape of this much-buzzed-about new band. Being the sensible older brother, I hedged my bets by allowing him to buy it — figuring that if I ended up not really liking the rest of it, at least I wouldn’t have risked my own hard-earned money on what was still a largely unknown entity. It turned out to be the best $5 I never spent. (Don’t worry. I would later plop down money, most willingly, for the vinyl album and remastered CD.)

 Leaving the record store, we pushed the tape in the car stereo, turned up the volume and headed for home. The short drive from Foothill Boulevard up Lowell Avenue in La Crescenta only used up one song, and we were just pulling into the garage as opening track “Runnin’ With the Devil” came to its fiery conclusion.

And that’s when the future officially arrived — and it was named “Eruption.”

The plan was to pop the tape out and continue listening inside the house, but the second song had just started and neither one of us could even remotely fathom reaching for the eject button.

To be quite honest, we weren’t exactly sure what we were hearing during that initial listen. A torrent of notes exploded out of the left speaker at a dizzying rate as we looked at each other in slack-jawed amazement and wondered aloud whether what we heard was accomplished on synthesizer or guitar.

And while I didn’t know exactly what I was hearing, I recognized that the music landscape as I knew it was changing before my very ears.

As it turned out, what we were experiencing was a 1-minute-and-42-second explosion of jam that changed guitar playing forever and signaled the arrival of a new six-string sheriff: Eddie Van Halen.

David Lee Roth in the days before spandex and seatless chaps

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Later that summer, our family moved to Utah where, in a shocking surprise, the mention of Van Halen resulted in nothing more than dumbfounded stares — as the band had yet to break on Salt Lake City radio stations. However, once I started attending college in the fall, I was back in familiar territory, as Van Halen was a big favorite among those on our dorm floor, since most of my new acquaintances were students from out of state. Well, all of them that is except a longtime friend from California, Mat Yeates.

It was late in our freshman year (March 1979) that we heard a radio ad for a Van Halen concert at Utah State University in Logan — about two hours north of Provo, where we were going to school. But we were undeterred. I remember Mat and I being elected to drive up and procure the tickets — for our group of eight or so who wanted to attend. On the day before tickets were to go on sale, Mat and I drove up to Logan to camp out for the best seats. When we got there, we were first in line. Well, basically, we were the entire line — as nobody else was there. We sat there for a couple hours — no doubt talking about Mat’s love for the band Legs Diamond, some band he was always pimping as the next big thing — before somebody showed up at the ticket office, which is when they informed us that there had been a problem at the ticket printer's, and that they had been forced to postpone all ticket sales.

The tickets did eventually go on sale a few days later, and we scored some sweet seats on the seventh row on the floor. We were pumped.

Van Halen II was released on March 23 — so we had eight days to familiarize ourselves with the new material before the show. I can still picture walking into the quaint locally owned record store -- Remember those? -- near campus and hearing "Light Up the Sky" for the first time playing over the loudspeakers as the shop owner was spinning the new disc.

Michael Anthony performs his bass solo before leading into "You're No Good."

March 31 finally arrived and the weather was terrible. I recall making the couple hours drive to the show through a torrential downpour.

The support act that night was a band called the Granati Brothers. Never heard of them? Neither had we. They jumped out on stage in their poodle-boy hairdos. That’s pretty much all I remember about their set — although a couple years back I did run across a couple of news stories out of Pennsylvania (Motto: Home of the Granatis) where they reminisced about how they had remained friends with the Van Halens for years after that tour. But I digress.

A young Eddie Van Halen took guitar playing into the future.

I have never stood on the tarmac behind a 747 when it takes off, but it can’t be unlike the experience of seeing Van Halen open a concert. The sheer power of “Light Up the Sky” erupting from the amplifiers as Van Halen took the stage was an experience to behold. What a complete rush! It was a show unlike anything I had ever seen prior to that. There was the technical wizardry of Eddie Van Halen on guitar, offset by the exaggerated macho posing, high-pitched wails and animated song intros of frontman David Lee Roth. There was action all over the stage, augmented by Michael Anthony pounding on his bass and Alex Van Halen on drums (he even set the big gong behind him on fire at the end of the show). It was powerful. It was funny. It was completely over the top. And I loved every minute of it.

The best analogy I can come up with to describe the experience is to compare it to the pivotal scene in the movie "Back to the Future" where everyone is at the "Enchantment Under the Sea" dance and, as a member of the band, Marty McFly starts riffing on Chuck Berry before falling down on the stage and playing a cacophony of lead guitar notes, leaving everyone in the audience with stunned looks on their faces. (Is it a coincidence that earlier in the film, when Marty plays music from the future to frighten his father into asking his mother out, that the tape is labeled "Van Halen"? I think not.) Van Halen was ahead of its time -- both musically and from a stage-show standpoint.

One recollection I wish I had, but can't pull out of the memory banks, was whether or not Eddie played his infamous "Shark" guitar that night. He was using it on select songs throughout that tour, so chances are good that he used it at our show as well. The "Shark" guitar is an Ibanez Explorer that Eddie — a noted tinkerer in search of the perfect "brown sound" tone, as has been evidenced over the years with all his developments in guitar-related products and even his own line of guitars — took a chain saw to, drastically altering its appearance and sound. The cut-out chunk gave the guitar a slight Jaws-esque appearance, which led to its moniker. Of course, I didn't begin becoming familiar with his guitar collection until several years down the road, so it would not have resonated with me that evening. Still, that particular guitar has always fascinated me — it just looks cool — and it nags at me that I might have seen it played and just not realized it at the time.

There is a bit of a mystery involving that Logan show. To this day, the Logan concert — Van Halen’s first live appearance in Utah — does not show up on any of the band’s archived tour lists. I heard a rumor several years back, supposedly emanating from a former member of the band’s road crew from back then, that due to some bet, for some reason Alex Van Halen said the band would never acknowledge that tour date. (I can’t vouch for the source, but it is strange that the date remains unlisted.)

Surf is up, Eddie: Let's see the Granati Brothers do this!

On a ridiculous note, a few years ago I read a review of that show written in the Utah State University student newspaper. The reviewer waxed poetic about how this great new band had graced the USU stage and was sure to be the next big thing in rock music. Unfortunately, he was talking about the Granati Brothers. He completely dismissed Van Halen. (Rock critics ... sigh ... what do they know?) I actually felt sorry for the sap that wrote that review. There was a future Rock and Roll Hall of Fame act on the bill that night, not to mention arguably the greatest guitarist of his generation, and the poor guy totally missed it. A complete whiff. Not to worry, I’m guessing that writer went on to a successful career forecasting futures on Wall Street.

Well, of one thing I’m certain. The show did happen. And I’ve got the ticket stub and pictures to prove it. Not to mention, 32 years reflecting on the memories of that one night.

David Lee Roth, Eddie Van Halen and Michael Anthony in happier times.

The photos, incidentally, were shot by a friend of mine who was taking a photography class on campus at the time. We went to the university darkroom and printed these pictures up, and I have held on to them all these years. Several of them capture the raw power and energy of a young band that would become the biggest band in America within the next five years. (Mitch Hancock, wherever you are these days — I salute you!)

Eight days after the Logan show, Van Halen played the second day of the Califfornia (yes, with two f’s) World Music Festival at the Los Angeles Coliseum, appearing with the likes of Aerosmith, UFO, Toto, Mother’s Finest, Eddie Money, Brownsville and the Boomtown Rats.

A little over six months later, Mat Yeates and I, and two other friends, were on the doorstep of Eddie and Alex Van Halen’s childhood home in Pasadena — on the day of the band’s first headline appearance at the Great Western Forum — having a chat with their father, Jan Van Halen (a delightful character). Ah, but that’s a story for another day.

That's the tale of my introduction to Van Halen ... what's yours?

Note: Included below is the setlist from the Logan show, as well as links to an article on the Granati Brothers and their history with Van Halen, details and photo of Eddie's "Shark" guitar, and a travel piece I wrote detailing the last time I've seen the mighty VH. Also, some videos that have popped up on YouTube in the last couple years taken from the tour-opening show in Fresno, Calif., on March 25, 1979 — just six days before the Logan show. This footage is the closest thing available to what I witnessed that first Saturday night in Logan.

Eddie Van Halen inspired a whole generation of guitar players with his unique tapping style.

Van Halen

Utah State University

March 31, 1979

Light Up the Sky

Somebody Get Me a Doctor

Running With the Devil

Dance the Night Away

Beautiful Girls

On Fire

You’re No Good

Jamie’s Cryin’

Feel Your Love Tonight

Outta Love Again

Ice Cream Man

Ain’t Talkin’ ’Bout Love

Eddie Van Halen Guitar Solo

You Really Got Me

Encore I

Bottoms Up

Encore II

Atomic Punk

Performance time: 1 hour, 25 minutes

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A great article on the Granati Brothers and their experiences on tour with Van Halen can be found here.

For a closer look at some of Eddie's iconic guitars, including the "Shark," click here.

This was a report of my first Van Halen concert. Here's a report of the last time I saw the band — Tiger Jam 2008 in Las Vegas.