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Steve Rosen: Edward Van Halen and Hear About it Later
77 Plays10 months ago
Rock journalist and biographer Steve Rosen joins the lads to talk about guitar legend Edward (Eddie) Van Halen.
Steve began his career in 1972 and has interviewed hundreds of recording artists over the years, including some of his favorites: Jeff Beck, Jimmy Page, Paul Kossoff, Peter Frampton, Steve Winwood, Brian Wilson, Pete Townshend, Keith Moon, John Entwistle, Jack Bruce, Supertramp, and Bad Company, just to name a few.
But it was Steve's relationship with Edward that really stood out. They met in 1977, before Van Halen's first album came out, and immediately forged a connection.
Steve points out some of the techniques that made Edward special as a guitar player: "He made the guitar a language all of its own. He had a sound he defined as the 'brown sound' that nobody else ever had. On top of all that, he built all his own guitars, forever changing the landscape of custom guitars."
The three dive into a great exemplar of Edward's virtuosity in the single, "Hear About It Later," from Van Halen's fourth studio album, Fair Warning (1981).
Fans of rock, music, and sufferers of GAS (guitar acquisition syndrome) will love this interview.
For more info, check out the show notes for this episode.
Re-Creative is a co-production of Donovan Street Press Inc. and MonkeyJoy Press.
Contact us at [email protected]
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Transcript
Opening Discussion: Christmas & Concert Experiences
00:00:09
Speaker
Hello, Mark. Hello, Joe. How are things? Well, things are, you know, we're approaching Christmas as we record this, so it's a very exciting time. It'll probably be after Christmas by the time it airs, but yeah. Yeah, I bet it won't be that long after Christmas. People will still be in the Christmas spirit, won't they?
00:00:26
Speaker
Oh, of course, of course. Yeah, they'll be, you know, taking their gifts back or whatever. So I have a question. I do have a question. It's not related to Christmas, but I think it is related to what we're talking about today. When was the last time you went to a concert or a musical event?
00:00:47
Speaker
I actually went last night. My wife and I have been hitting that out of the park since we moved to Moncton, New Brunswick. This is like a Mecca. This is like Moncton in the Riverview area. This part of New Brunswick is
00:01:02
Speaker
One of the world's best kept secrets, I think, because there's like three excellent music venues within a 60 minute drive of our place, and everyone comes through here at one time or another. This past week, we saw Boney M, or at least the original lead singer of Boney M.
00:01:21
Speaker
And it was a great show and then last night i want to see one of my best friends brother he's a music teacher his wife is a music teacher all his kids are music teachers and they threw a fundraising concert last night.
00:01:36
Speaker
in the College of Piping in Somerset, Prince Edward Island. And they had a special guest, a fiddler, a multi-instrumentalist, and it was another fantastic show. So, yeah. Good for you.
Introducing Steve Rosen: Music Journalism Journey
00:01:47
Speaker
Yeah, that's me. What about you? Oh, you're doing way better than me. I think it's pre-pandemic. I actually haven't like racking my brains. I think it was Blackie and the Rodeo Kings.
00:01:57
Speaker
I saw them at the Aeolian Hall, which is a fabulous musical venue here in London, Ontario. And London used to be the same way as Montgomery because it was between, you know, Detroit and Toronto, everyone would stop here. Yeah. Yeah. Did you say that was pre-pandemic that you went? I think that was pre-pandemic. Oh my God. You got to get out more, Mark. I do have to get out more.
00:02:21
Speaker
Shall we ask our guest today? I was hoping. Yeah, we could. Yeah. Steve Rosen. Welcome to the podcast. Hey guys. Thanks so much. Happy to be here. I'm guessing you've seen lots of live music in your time. I've seen certainly hundreds and hundreds and hundreds, maybe thousands of shows. As you guys are talking back and forth, I'm thinking these pranksters here, they're going to ask me that same question. What's the last concert I saw? Don't tell me to wrap my brain, man.
00:02:50
Speaker
I saw The Rival Sons, an amazing band. They did like a little, it was more like an unplugged thing at the, like the Grammy Museum. That's a place I got here out in Hollywood. My greatest joy, man, when I first started writing was going to concerts, getting like free tickets and getting good tickets, you know, man, and backstage passes, man, I live for that.
00:03:14
Speaker
Before we go any further, let's explain why we're talking about this with you. So you're a music journalist. Can you tell us, tell us about your career and what it is that you do? Gosh, I'll try to give you the capsule version here. I actually started writing for a high school newspaper. I had like a little entertainment column rather than write about scholastic activities. I thought I wanted to write about music. I used to do like live reviews. I'd go to the whiskey. Um, you know, very famous club here on the Sunset Strip, the Shubador, another very famous club.
00:03:43
Speaker
Golden Bear, which is another club south in Huntington Beach, sort of south of California. And I review shows and I do little reviews in the paper. And I love doing that, man. So after high school, I actually sort of started sending out reviews to magazines trying to get things published.
00:04:01
Speaker
Got rejection slips from everybody. Got a little thing printed in kind of a softcore porn. It wasn't hardcore. I called it softcore porn because you would buy it like out of the vending machines, you know, you put in the quarter and pull your copy up and you turn to the back page to look for the massage ads, phone numbers, right? You weren't reading the LA Star to glean any insights into the world of rock and roll music. So I got a couple of stories printed there.
00:04:28
Speaker
Kept trying to freelance, get things printed, wasn't have much luck. Went to UCLA and that was a nightmare. Couldn't stand a lift after a year.
00:04:36
Speaker
went to the UK and Europe doing like a backpack thing, like a, you know, on the road thing with my buddy. And I met some people over there. I actually did my first interview there. The very first interview I ever did, this is probably late 72, was Joe Cocker. I brought my cassette player with me. I had one cassette. The next day or two days later, I was going to interview a band called Gentle Giant, a prog band.
00:05:01
Speaker
And thinking, well, I'm probably not going to be a writer for very long and my career's not going to last that long.
Interviewing Icons & YouTube Channel Insights
00:05:07
Speaker
I really don't need to keep my Joe Cochran review. I'll just record over the same Joe Cochran. Fast forward a couple of years, you know, started writing for a guitar player in 73, wrote for them for about five years. That opened a lot of doors. Guitar player during the 70s, man.
00:05:24
Speaker
was like the Bible. If you were a guitar player, you wanted to be in Guitar Player magazine. Using that as sort of my calling card. You know, I did some stuff for, you know, Cream and Circus and Musician magazine. Bunch of magazines that kind of went by the wayside real quickly. Zoo World.
00:05:41
Speaker
various other publications of writing for some foreign magazines so just to cut to the chase you have over the years interviewed. Dozens and dozens if not hundreds of recording artists and many many big names correct hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds everybody i mean i mean i'm looking at pictures on my walls i mean a cdc eros music top zappa if you wonder purple the who zeppelin on the road for eleven days.
00:06:10
Speaker
The Eagles, Little Feet, Ronnie Montrose, everybody. And you started posting YouTube videos with audio of these. And I was listening to your rather testy interview with Andy Summers of the police. Oh, man. Yeah. Not one of your nicer people. He was a little edgy, but amazing. Yeah. Yeah. I put a bunch of that audio up on my YouTube page. You know, I mean, there's some, some pretty
Eddie Van Halen Friendship & Innovations
00:06:39
Speaker
cool stuff there. Jeff Beck is up there.
00:06:41
Speaker
Hi, Sally. That's cool. Ben Halen interviews are up there. But today you wanted to talk to us in particular about Eddie Van Halen. I did. So why are we singling him out today? Because I wrote a book called Tone Chaser, Understanding Edward, my 26 year journey with Edward Van Halen, which is a book I wrote back in 2020. I finished in 2021 after 14 long months of writing it about my 26 year friendship with Edward Van Halen.
00:07:10
Speaker
First met Edward in June 1977. They had just been signed, but the first record was still eight months away. So I met him at the whiskey one night. I was there and I was introduced to him. And we just, man, there was just, I don't know, this connection.
00:07:29
Speaker
He loved Clapton. I love Clapton. He loved Blackmore. I love Blackmore, you know. And for the next 26 years, sort of on and off, I hung out with, you know, arguably the greatest guitar player on the planet at the time. I wrote this book, which I self-published.
00:07:47
Speaker
which is now in its third edition, sold out of the first and just sold out of the second edition. And they're putting the third edition together as we speak. It's been unbelievable, man. The response has just been. Wow. Well, congratulations. Yeah, that's great. So actually, yeah, I don't disagree that it's arguable that he's one of the greatest guitar players ever. What made him so different, do you think? Or so special? He's probably most famously known for what has become known as tapping.
00:08:16
Speaker
where he would take his right hand and it would sort of be like an extension of his left fretting hand and he hit harmonics on the neck, which had been done before. Harvey Mandel did that. Jimmy Page did it in his Heartbreaker solo.
00:08:36
Speaker
but no one did it like Edward did. Edward truly made it a language of its own. But beyond that, he had a sound that he defined as the brown sound that nobody else ever had but everybody else wished they had. Why did he call it the brown sound? I think he called it that because it was more organic. Brown is in nature, the trees,
00:09:05
Speaker
wood as opposed to purple or blue or you know, polka dot red, you know, kind of a thing. Okay. And he just took all these influences clapped in and all these classic rock things and turned it into this language, this lexicon that no one had ever spoken before. On top of that, he built his own guitars
00:09:30
Speaker
And essentially, it was taking a humbucker, a Gibson pickup, putting it into a sort of like a Stratocaster body. And he forever changed the landscape of custom guitars. I mean, to this day, you know, you see a one pickup Stratocaster and go, Oh, that's Ed's guitar, you know, he painted his guitars. I mean, he provided the seeds for an entire, you know, custom guitar industry.
00:09:57
Speaker
his songwriting, his sense of harmony, and the way he orchestrated guitars, he was just, you know, man, just one of those unique diamonds that comes around once in a lifetime. Was he one of the first ones doing that, making their own guitars like that? Or is that sort of a tradition amongst, you know, the rock industry where there's people making their own guitars? Right, no, that's a good question. I actually write in the book, the only two people
00:10:20
Speaker
Look, people had built their own guitars. Sure. Yeah, they had to. They never played them because they were unplayable. And I write in the book and told you so the only two people I could think of who built their own guitars and played them was Les Paul, who is another, you know, ready being rebel, you know, less is responsible for multi tracking of guitars and
00:10:43
Speaker
the Les Paul guitar, of course, and Brian May, you know, his, his famous Red Special guitar that he built with his father. You now have a lot of guitar players who have signature guitars. So Slash has a signature Les Paul, but he didn't build it. The guitar was built by him by, I don't know, Gibson, or I'm not sure what company built that. But it was basically a guitar that, you know, Slash had a Les Paul and maybe he, you know, removed the pickup and put in another type of pickup or maybe changed the bridge.
00:11:13
Speaker
And this company made copies of that guitar, but it's not like slash built that guitar. So yeah, it's rare to have somebody not only build a guitar, uh, but play it, you know, there were guys along the way that messed around and probably rewired pickups or tried things, but, but not to the extent, uh, that Edward did and, and nobody having near the influence that he had. You call him Edward. Should we be referring to him as Edward as opposed to Eddie?
00:11:42
Speaker
I referred to him as Edward, because the first time I met him, the times right after that, he always say, hey, Steve Edward, you know, when he would call on the phone. Like I didn't recognize his voice, you know, after the 80th time or something. He always referred to himself as Edward. And typically, if somebody refers to himself as Edward, I would assume he wanted to be called Edward. Alex, his brother called him Ed.
00:12:05
Speaker
And fans would either call him Ed or Eddie, which he, um, I don't think he really cared for much because yeah, Eddie, it sounds like a little kid, you know, it's just, but you know, I mean, he was always a little more, um, I don't know, a little more sophisticated, a little more artistic. I get that. Yeah. Yeah.
Van Halen's Musical Impact & Band Dynamics
00:12:23
Speaker
Now, did you know that how early on did you know that you were dealing with someone who is special?
00:12:29
Speaker
He came over to my house. I had a small little guest house in the Hollywood Hills. Actually, at this time, when I first met Ed, he was still living at home with his parents in Pasadena, which is like a little suburb about, I don't know, about 45 minutes kind of east of LA. So he would drive over from his parents' house, which is weird. I mean, he's, you know, doing tours in the world and he's living with his parents. I always thought that was pretty amazing. And I always had a couple guitars in the house, you know.
00:12:55
Speaker
And he'd walk in, and I had the guitar set up in stands in my front room. And the first thing he did, the first time he came over, he walked in the house, you know, and he walks over and he picks up the guitar. I mean, before he even sits down. The first two things you would always do entering a room, light a cigarette, unless there was one already lit, and pick up a guitar. Then he'd take the cigarette and put it in the strings, you know, he'd wedge it between the strings up in the headstock, you know.
00:13:22
Speaker
He would sit down and start playing the guitar, just start strumming the electric guitar acoustically. And I'm sitting two feet away from him. I'd heard the record by then. And I knew what an amazing guitar player he was. But you're sitting two feet away from someone like that, and you're watching him, and you're watching his right hand, his picking hand, the way he's fretting and stuff. And I just remember thinking over and over, oh my god, this guy.
00:13:48
Speaker
He really is special. He is somebody very unique. I mean, I sensed that early on. People have asked, well, did you think he was going to be as big as he was? I didn't. I mean, I knew they were going to be successful. I knew he would have a huge impact on guitar players. But I really don't think I ever had a sense of really who he would become if I'm really honest with everybody and myself. I never thought that.
00:14:16
Speaker
Cause cause they were, they were, I mean, the band was huge in the eighties. Yeah. First record comes out in 78 and then 79. Yeah. So it's so predominantly their catalog. Yeah. It is in the eighties. They were one of only, I don't know my exact number eight or 10 bands to have every record go diamond status. So there's gold, a gold record, which is 500,000 diamond is like a million or 10 million. It's just, and they had like.
00:14:46
Speaker
five of them in a row or eight. So we're talking the Beatles, Stones. I mean, we're talking the absolute hierarchy. There was like five or six bands in the world and they were one of them. They were the best selling band on Warner Brothers. I mean, Warner Brothers had Deep Riffle and Sabbath and Bonnie Ray. I mean, they were extraordinarily successful. Yeah, unbelievably successful.
00:15:11
Speaker
Now, where does Van Halen, the band, sit on the Pantheon for you? That's a good question. Divorcing yourself from the fact that you were good friends with Edward. Yeah, man, that's a good question. So, my favorite bands in the world, I mean, The Beatles, that goes without saying, I mean, you know, but I'm sort of of the classic rock era, or maybe even a little before that, kind of that English, that English thing, you know, 65, 66 to 68, 69. So, I mean,
00:15:40
Speaker
I love the Who, you know, Cream I loved. But I love the American bands, you know, Spirit, I thought were the most underrated bands of all time. I mean, Supertramp I loved. I love Van Halen. You know, I don't know if I would put them in my top 10 records. I don't know if I should be saying that, but I mean, I love Edward more than I love the band.
00:16:08
Speaker
I loved his partner and his guitar playing, you know. His riffs were amazing, you know, the band. Okay, so a question related to that then, was Van Halen, despite the name, was Van Halen the band, the right band for Edward Van Halen?
00:16:31
Speaker
That's a good question. Yeah, it's a good question. There was something about the chemistry of those four guys that yes, I don't think I don't think there could have been any other members of Van Halen, you know, famously, they go on and they get Sammy Hager on the band to replace David Lee Roth. And they have a month, a pretty monstrous career. But you've already got
00:16:53
Speaker
history of six records before that. So the real question is if Sammy Hagar was a singer in the original band, you know, that's an impossible question to answer. Would they have been successful? I'm sure they would have. But then, you know, all those songs, assuming that Edward was writing the same riffs and presented them to Sammy, obviously, all those songs will be different, right? They have different melodies and different lyrics. So who can say what that response
00:17:19
Speaker
Yeah, it's kind of a, see we're science fiction guys, right? So this is, uh, this is alternate history. Andy Summers with Eddie Van
Analyzing Van Halen's Music & Live Performances
00:17:27
Speaker
Halen. So Eddie Van Halen is now in the police and Andy Summers is in Van Halen.
00:17:31
Speaker
What happens? I think we just invented a new game. There you go. Well, this might be related then because one of the songs you mentioned that you wanted to talk about was here about it later. When I was listening to it, I was going because I don't know that it would have been a song that I would have remembered, but I was listening to it thinking, I see why he wants to talk about the song because guitar playing on it is amazing. Yeah, it's unbelievable. Yeah, it's a deeper cut.
00:17:59
Speaker
for sure, even on the Fair Warning record. Yeah, most people would, yeah, you know, I mean, I could have pulled the song off the first or second record, you know, or one of the covers, which Edward hated doing. Yeah, I mean, it was a pretty, it was pretty flexible in his guitar playing. He could sort of come at you in various ways. That song, you're right, man, I just thought the guitar playing was, it's like if you're a guitar player, man, it's like everything you wanted to know about guitar playing.
00:18:28
Speaker
in the one song, you know. What makes Fair Warning, I think, such a remarkable record is it's the first record where Edward is sort of let loose in the studio. Up to that point, there was a minimum of overdubs on all the records. You know, I mean, he'd go in and typically the band would record lines, you know, sorts of bass drums and guitar.
00:18:51
Speaker
Playing live and if Ed broke into a solo there was no rhythm guitar He wouldn't go back and put rhythm guitars on or there weren't really guitars put down on the basic rack Then you go into a solo it was if they were performing live But we get to fair warning and I think Ed wanted to flex his muscles. He took a lot more time The songs are a lot more complex guitar wise
00:19:14
Speaker
you know, he orchestrates the parts and there's little bits flying in and out of verses and you can hear how he's building the verses and the songs, you know, and a lot of that happens and you hear about it later. I'm talking about it. I was going to ask you a specific question again about that song because I was listening to it thinking it could be that he just put it in later, but it sounds like there's almost two guitars playing in places.
00:19:39
Speaker
Yeah. Two rhythm guitars playing. I mean, this is the bass guitar too, but obviously, but it sounds like there's two guitars playing. And I'm like, is that that hammer on technique that he's doing there? Like that, that, that sort of harmonic technique that it's almost giving a rhythm guitar feeling while he's playing the sick licks. Yeah. Is that what he did? Or did he play in a second track later? Probably a second track. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So now he's just, yeah, man, he's gone crazy, man.
00:20:07
Speaker
He's a kid in a candy shop now. And now do you think then that, so they didn't do the overdubs earlier because they wanted to be able to replicate the live sound? I think that was a huge part of it. Ed had never been in the studio prior to the first album. He did some demos with Gene Simmons in New York. Gene said, yeah, okay, go in and do the basic track.
00:20:32
Speaker
And Ed went in there and the band played exactly as if they were playing live. And Gene said, no, no, no. Don't do that. Don't break into your solo. Play the rhythm parts. And Ed didn't know what to do. So yes, a huge part of those first records with Ted Templeman, who produced those records, Ted produced the Doobie Brothers and tons of bands, recognized that and said, yeah, man, just do what you do live. There are some tracks on the first record where Ed went back and put on a rhythm guitar. Jamie's Cry and this one.
00:21:02
Speaker
Ain't talkin' about love. And the occasional track would show up on subsequent records, but for the most part, it was live. Yeah, so here we are, you know, the fair warning record, all these records on the road, that is now a pro in the studio. And he says, hey, I wanna do something, you know, guitar-wise, I wanna do a thing, you know. So he just spent hours and hours and days and days putting guitar parts on and laying guitar parts on.
00:21:27
Speaker
That seems to be a kind of a common evolution, you know, thinking of, I mean, that was the trajectory of the Beatles. It was the trajectory of XTC. I'm thinking that it must be common that they get a little bit more ambitious as they go along. It is. Now, the thing is with XTC, I'm not quite certain about, although I love that band. But the Beatles, the reason that they did it is because they only had four tracks.
00:21:54
Speaker
So right, so before we go in there and do what we do, and you know, John Lennon can't play the harmonica part and play guitar, you know, I mean, he could, but it was a difficult thing. Yeah, they literally have to do so they go in and John will play, you know, he's playing his rhythm guitar, right? And George is playing his little lead part and Paul's playing bass and Ringo.
00:22:19
Speaker
And then, you know, I mean, I'm guessing that, you know, John went back in and put the harmonica on. But then if they had like another guitar part, the engineer, and I think, I don't know, Jeff Emrick was doing those very early, early records, we have to go back and it's called bouncing. So we take those four tracks, bounce them to one track, and now they had three more tracks. So the reason for them sort of doing it that way is because they didn't have tracks. I don't think it was because,
00:22:49
Speaker
They were used to playing it live a certain way, or they were trying to reproduce things a certain way. Yes. Now you get into Revolver and Rubber Soul, and obviously, Sergeant Pepper, it's like, oh my God, how are we going to recreate that live? I don't think they ever even gave a thought to that because I don't even know if they ever played any of those songs live. No, I don't think that was their interest. Just to finish the thought on XTC, that was Andy Partridge's stage fright forced them into me.
00:23:16
Speaker
You know, they were just doing studio work. Yeah. I have a question that really relates to this. And it might be a really stupid question, just showing my ignorance, but how did they handle it then when they're on tour? Because they don't, they can't recreate the sound that they've created in the album, obviously. You mean Van Halen. Yeah, Van Halen. Yeah. I'm sorry. I'm still stuck with Van Halen. Yeah. Well, I mean, the thing is, you know, your ears, if you're a big time fan of Van Halen, you know those songs pretty well. And even if there's not a rhythm guitar back there,
00:23:46
Speaker
your ear kind of hears it. Yeah, I mean, the songs, yeah, the fair warning songs were certainly more difficult to perform live. But, you know, again, I your ears were sort of creating that that second guitar or the you know, and played slide a couple times.
Balancing Friendship with Journalism: Interview Dynamics
00:24:06
Speaker
There's a missing slide guitar.
00:24:08
Speaker
Now, you get to the 1984 record, well, even though there were keyboards earlier, but 1984 is where keyboards, right, get huge and jump, that whole thing happens. And now how are you going to do that? Well, is he going to play it on guitar? He could have, but that wasn't going to work. So, initially, Michael Anthony, the bass player, was going to play the keyboards, and it was a little too difficult for Mike to do. So, Ed played keyboards.
00:24:35
Speaker
So just back to to Edward himself as a person so you guys were were friends so tell us what he was like as a person and what what kind of things did you guys talk about and do. I was I was ready for magazines at the time. So a lot of conversations.
00:24:56
Speaker
were interviews for the magazine. Most famously Guitar World. I wrote three cover stories on Edward for Guitar World, 84, 85 and 86, besides a lot of other big feature stories with him. I wrote a lot of stories about Edward back during the day. So we'd sit down and Ed, Guitar World wants a story, so let's sit down and do an interview. So those interviews were pretty
00:25:22
Speaker
They were a little bit more straightforward. They may have had a new record out. They just got off tour. They had just done the Us Festival. Ed, what was the Us Festival like? Now, what was it like playing with those other metal bands? And Ed, what guitars would you bring it out? So a little bit more straightforward. What was weird, what was odd is that we have probably talked about those things off record or without the cassette player running many times. So it's like I'm asking him questions
00:25:51
Speaker
I kind of knew the answers to. So I had to like pretend I had never heard it before and he had to pretend he had never told me before. And on top of that, being his friend, you know, I had to pretend or not pretend, but I had to pull back from that. I couldn't be his friend when I was talking to him.
00:26:11
Speaker
Interviewer and he had to be the interviewee, you know, I was kind of full disclosure mark here as a journalist. So yeah, that's that's when you have to say, you know, we're friends and How I cover this, you know Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I mean I never came out and disclosed it to people reading I mean, I think they probably knew that I kind of knew Edward but I think that's also what they kind of really dug about the interviews because
00:26:37
Speaker
In my mind, and I've read a lot of interviews, they did go deeper. I think Ed, Edward did say things that he wouldn't say. So it really was a pretty amazing thing. You know, but then we had a lot of conversations that weren't interviews. And let me back up for two minutes here. In 1985, I'm going to write Edward's Authorized Biography. I say, Edward, writers are going to come to you. They're going to want to write your life story. I want to be that person. And he said, yes.
00:27:04
Speaker
I can't think of anybody else to do that. You're the one. Signed Little Simple Contracts. I began working on that book. I worked for about three years interviewing people, talking to people. He said to me, listen, you can record me any time you want. Just turn the cassette player on. Him giving me license to do that. A lot of times we'd be talking and we'd be at my pad or maybe I was up at his house, 5150, a cold water cannon which was just sort of about eight minutes away from where I lived.
00:27:34
Speaker
in Laurel Canyon, the Hollywood Hills. And I would bring my cassette player, and I'd hit go, man. And we'd talk, and sometimes he'd call late at night. And those conversations, the late night conversations and the kind of off the record conversations were what I called the twilight tapes. And these were the amazing conversations. These are the conversations about him talking about his family, and talking about getting along with Dave,
00:28:03
Speaker
you know, being upset with Mike, or, you know, a tour or, you know, and me, you know, I'm depressed, you know, and those were remarkable conversations. And we would find these in your latest book. These are all in the book, which I put away, not a word of those interviews was ever leaked. And in fact, if we were doing a normal interview, he might start talking about something. And you go, hey, don't print that. And
00:28:31
Speaker
None of that ever got printed. I did put all that stuff out for the book because one, it was 17 years later and a lot of that stuff sort of became common knowledge. But secondly, I believe that these deeper conversations revealed so much about Kim as a human being and not just a musician.
Publishing Personal Insights on Eddie Van Halen
00:28:50
Speaker
And I thought they were just remarkably insightful. So yes, they are all in the book. What did we do?
00:28:57
Speaker
I'd go over there, most of the times he'd be playing guitar. I actually jammed with him several times. He actually came over to my house and played on a couple of my songs. And I have those tapes. That was, oh my God, I'm watching him, you know, here, listening to my songs. And he's like, he takes my guitar, and I'm over there with a buddy, and we're recording, you know, a little fast export track in my front room. And he started to play, and I'm watching him, and he's talking about,
00:29:25
Speaker
how he's playing and how he's working stuff out. And then I have this window into Edward Van Halen's brain, how he thinks as a songwriter and an orchestrator. It's the most unbelievable thing. A lot of people overlook Edward Van Halen as a songwriter. His wrists, his writing, oh my God, they were so unique. So what do we do? We jammed, we got high. I did drugs with a man.
00:29:51
Speaker
I got a little drunk. I didn't really drink because I was susceptible to migraine headaches. And then if I looked at a bottle of beer, I could get a headache. So I didn't really drink too much. But occasionally I drink because it's like, hey, Edward Van Halen's drinking, I got a drink. Peer pressure. Yeah, man. And I got to tell you, man, they were some of the funnest times of my life.
00:30:14
Speaker
I'd be a liar if I said it wasn't. I love doing it with them. I think the difference is, and I'm not trying to put myself on a pedestal or anything, nothing like that whatsoever. When I went home, I never did drugs at home. I think when I left, Edward kept doing drugs. But he was extraordinarily high functioning. I mean, Edward get high, and you really never knew. Edward get drunk, and you really never knew. He just became more Edward-esque.
00:30:42
Speaker
He's just open, he was happy. They were fun, fun times, man. Those late night conversations are just such an amazing gift. And I think it's great that you put into the book because then someone who's really interested in him as a person and a musician can read your book and actually hear that stuff. It's great. Well, I really appreciate that, man. And as I'm writing this and as I'm working on the book and I'm coming across these sections and hearing those interviews again, because I never listened to them
00:31:12
Speaker
since they've been recorded, and some of them recorded in, you know, 84 and 85, 86, 87, and I'm writing the book in 2000. So we're talking about a fair number of years have passed, you know. So I'm listening to them, and I'm transported back to that moment, and I go, oh my God, now is that conversation. But as I'm writing that, I'm thinking, wow, this is really personal, man. Am I hurting somebody?
00:31:41
Speaker
Is Edward's family going to be embarrassed by this? You know, am I betraying something? Am I, you know, and at the end of the day, I go, no, man, it's none of those things. Because if I thought it was that for a second, I never would have included any of that. But it's precisely what you said, Mark. Man, it reveals so much about the guy. And Edward Van Halen, the greatest guitar player in the world, he looked amazing. He had a beautiful wife and a big
00:32:08
Speaker
record deal and cars and guitars. And he got sad sometimes. And he had problems sometimes, you know, like every other human being on this planet from the beginning of time. And I think that's what those conversations revealed. I want to try to get more of a sense of the man and your relationship with him. Did you ever get mad at him? I did. I did. Edward was
00:32:36
Speaker
extraordinarily honest. And I've come to find out that people from the Netherlands are that way. I have no idea what it is, but I know another guy. You know, he'll say things. He loves the book. He's been so helpful to me, but he'll say things. I'm going, why the fuck are you? That's the fucking insult I've ever heard.
00:33:04
Speaker
That wasn't his. It's a bluntness, isn't it? Exactly blunt. Oh my God. Oh yeah. And actually Edward changed and I try to explain why he changed. I was really never sure, but Edward changed. He wasn't as nice a person and I don't know where that came from. When did he change? Yeah. When did that happen?
00:33:34
Speaker
I sensed it early 90s. By the mid 90s, I really could sense it. I don't know the band maybe was kind of in turmoil at that point. They were on their third singer by then and maybe there was some family things happening. So it wasn't the fame because the fame had already happened. No, I don't think it was the pressure of fame or the lack of it. No, nothing like that.
00:34:04
Speaker
I'm not sure, but he used to say things to me that were even beyond being blunt, they were meant to be hurtful. And that was pretty hard to take, yeah. And I try to explain that, and that's a difficult one. But even earlier on, you know, and we say, yeah, man, you're the balding guy with the glasses. Oh, that's great. That's how you see me. You know, he says, well, you are? No, okay, you know. Yeah, but he was just very honest.
Reflections on Music Industry Personalities
00:34:32
Speaker
Or when he wanted to work,
00:34:34
Speaker
You know, when he was in, you know, music guitar mode, you know, he says, Hey man, I'm going to work now. And I go, okay, I got that. But it was always like, Hey man, great to see you. I'll see you later. You know, I was like, yeah, I'm going to work now, you know, but yeah, he could be incredibly. So earlier I had mentioned your interview with Andy Summers where he was a little brittle. And so, and so, and then Eddie was
00:34:58
Speaker
Was this common amongst the people that you associated with and interviewed and talked to in the music industry? I probably interviewed, let's call it a thousand guitar players, but let's lump in their bass players, keyboard players, singers, producers. I would say two or 3% were pretty nasty. They didn't want to do interviews. They were sarcastic. They were
00:35:26
Speaker
Short you know that one would answer they were condescending which just makes me insane you can be rude but condescending Because I've sat three days dude and I've listened to your records and don't make me think I'm not saying something You know, but but you know that that makes me crazy, but most of these people were pretty amazing people
00:35:48
Speaker
Yeah, I'll even name the guys who were assholes. Frank Zappa, he was not. Todd Rungren was nasty. Todd Rungren. Oh, yeah. Well, he was XCC's producer at the famous sessions with him. Yeah. Yeah. Incredibly gifted guy. Amazing songwriter, amazing singer, producer. But yeah, he was
00:36:11
Speaker
He was a little nasty, but, um, does that matter? Because I mean, like, okay, so Skylarking is one of my favorite all time albums that he produced. Yeah. Does it matter that he was nasty? Do we, do we care or do we just care about the work that these people do? That's a good question. The fact that Frank Zappa wasn't a nice person that did that affect his record sales or conscious ticket sales. I don't think it affected them one bit. I think the truth of it is, you know, most people would know that Frank Zappa wasn't
00:36:38
Speaker
unless I wrote a body one of my stories or he was that way with another writer, you know what I mean? I probably just didn't publish those interviews when a guy was an asshole. Right. I guess it detract from their creativity. You know, I won't listen to a Todd Rungren song when it comes on the radio because of my experience, but I'm one person. Oh, really? Yeah. Wow. Let's take it one step further. I don't want to get political here, but there are some musicians who are raging anti-Semites.
00:37:08
Speaker
And I think that has affected them really terribly. I certainly won't listen to their music. And these are extraordinarily creative people. And there's more than you think. So, yeah, I think if it takes you to the extreme, I think it can affect their persona as an artist. But I think for the most part, people never know.
00:37:26
Speaker
And I guess the question is like, when we do know, do we divorce the art from the person? You know, like John Houston, apparently it was a big asshole, but he made some great movies, you know? So do we not watch the treasure of the Sierra Madre as a result? Yeah. Well, I mean, John Wayne was one of the biggest movie stars in the world, man. And he was a racist and everything else. Walt Disney was an anti-Semite. But, you know, it doesn't seem to affected the amount of people going to Disneyland.
00:37:54
Speaker
I don't know, man. I don't know if it affects you personally in some way. Yeah. I said for the most part, I don't think people care. I want to just to get back to the song that you picked and I completely appreciate and respect why you picked that song for the guitar work in it and for Edward's contribution to that song. So it's some brilliant guitar work married to, if I may be so bold, rather banal lyrics. Yeah. What do you think of that? I was never a fan of Dave's lyrics.
00:38:22
Speaker
You know, the thing about Van Halen is they were a fun band, you know, I mean, they were a fun, hard rock band, you know, and and people, they just got off on those lyrics, man. Beautiful girls and hot for teacher. Exactly.
00:38:42
Speaker
Yeah, I guess you're not listening to them for the lyrics. I'm listening to that today, like, oh my God, I forgot about this song. I'm so glad I'd forgotten about this song. You know, but that's funny, you know, hyper teacher, there's that one line that Dave has, it's like a, it's like a throwaway line. He goes, I don't feel tardy. That
00:39:08
Speaker
Edward's music was sometimes not the easiest music to sing over or to find a lyric that fit in, you know, the meter and you'd use your rhyme all sussed out there. So I give Dave all credit for that, you know.
00:39:22
Speaker
And Edward did too, you know, um, the lyrics were Dave's, um, melodies were Dave's. And, um, you can't argue with their success.
Jam Sessions & Friendship with Eddie Van Halen
00:39:30
Speaker
I mean, holy cow. No. I mean, they inspired a lot of other musicians too. A lot. They became really the blueprint for kind of that, that hard rock. Yeah. That sound. They really did. Yeah. And a lot of people look at Dave is like one of the greatest front men of all time. Yeah. You know?
00:39:50
Speaker
I feel like asking you about every guitarist that you've ever hung out with and interviewed, but we don't have time for that. But just to wrap up with Eddie, so unfortunately... Edward. Edward, yes, I'm sorry. To wrap up with Edward, so he passed way too young, tragically. It was lung cancer, wasn't it?
00:40:14
Speaker
lung cancer and he had cancer of his tongue. Uh, yeah, it had migrated. It was, it was pretty bad. Yeah. When, when's the last time you saw him and what did you guys talk about? 2003 is the last time we spoke. Um, but I don't think I had seen him probably sometime in the late nineties. And by then, as I've mentioned earlier,
00:40:42
Speaker
He had changed a lot. Typically, when I was going to interview Ed, I would just call him up. Ed, we need to do an interview with the guitar world. Ed, we need to do an interview with the player magazine, Japanese magazine. And he'd go, yeah, come over or I'll come over, you know. So I called him and I'd go, Ed, you know. And I could sense things were changing, but I was still at a point where I could still call him. And I, you know, call him up and go, Ed, you know, hey, man, we need to do an interview. And he said, I'll call my manager.
00:41:11
Speaker
That was always our standing joke. Oh, call my manager to set it up. Then we'd goof and go, yeah. And then say, yeah, come on over tomorrow. So that was a joke. So I said, call my manager. And I started laughing. And he goes, no, really? And I think, oh, man, he's really being funny today. I keep laughing. And he goes, no, man, I'm serious. I don't want to give the book away. But he says something that's really broke my heart.
00:41:40
Speaker
So it was really, really terrible. And that was one of the last conversations. That was the last time I saw him. I saw him, and the last conversation I had with him in 2003 wasn't very uplifting either. Okay, so to finish on a positive note, Joe, we go for those questions. The hard questions. Let's remember the parts that were great.
00:42:09
Speaker
Tell us something like a cherished memory of your time with Edward. My God, when he came over to my house at night and played guitars on my songs, giving me the permission to write his book initially back in 1985, that was extraordinary. Just dealing with my temperament, you're around somebody so
00:42:39
Speaker
exceedingly gifted and Successful and you know, you're never gonna achieve that and I and not in my wildest dreams I would never I thought I could but as a musician and songwriter it's like you're around that you think my god if I could just have a drop of that so at times you get like Jealous and it can't even be jealousy because you're jealous of this
00:43:03
Speaker
You're jealous of Da Vinci and John Steinbeck. I mean, they're beyond jealous because you could never aspire to that, you know. And he would sense that, you know. He could have said, you know, I'll talk to you later. He never did that, man. He always said, hey, man, it's okay, man, you know, just keep working at it. And, you know, if I was playing guitars with him, you know, and I was so terrified about playing some wrong note.
00:43:28
Speaker
I was never a horrible guitar player, but I wasn't a great guitar player. I was a good guitar player. Well, you're playing there, you're playing guitar with Edward Van Halen, you know? It's like your fingers stiffen up, you know? It's like, how do I hold the guitar kit, you know? And, you know, I'm playing it, I'm afraid of playing something bad, and him saying something which would just, like, crush me. He never did that, you know? He's playing something, and I pick up my guitar, you know, or I was at his place. He put a guitar in my hand.
00:43:58
Speaker
And we'd be playing guitars. I'm trying to copy something he's doing, you know, and realizing it's ridiculous. If I play something else like halfway decent, he goes, yeah, that's it. You got it, man. That's great. Yeah. I mean, that's really who he was, man. Really was. And if nothing else, I think it's as brave that you were playing with him. I mean, I think a lot of people would just go, no way. No way.
00:44:21
Speaker
Yeah, so good for you on that front, too. Thank you. Mark, any final thoughts, questions? No, I just really enjoyed hearing these stories so much. And yeah, thank you for making me listen to Van Halen again all afternoon, because I really did enjoy it. I was like, it took me back. Steve Rosen, thank you very much for being on our podcast, Recreative. Thank you, Steve. Oh, very welcome, guy. I love the questions. Great hang.
00:44:59
Speaker
Recreative is produced by Mark Rainer and Joe Mahoney. Technical production of music by Joe Mahoney. Web design by Mark Rainer. Show notes in all episodes are available at recreative.ca. That's re-creative.ca. Drop us a line at joemahoney.donovanstreetpress.com. We'd love to hear from you. Thanks for listening.