Early in the band's career, Eddie made his producer and
band mates uncomfortable with his interest in incorporating
keyboards into Van Halen's sound during a studio session
for the band's third album, Women and Children First Ed
surprised Templeman by playing a Wurlitzer electric piano through a
Marshall stack while the band tracked the anthemic And
the Cradle will Rock. Since most fans would mistake
the instrument for a guitar Roth and the band were less
vocal about Eddie's use of keyboards on
that occasion. However for live performances bassist
Michael Anthony would be the one playing keyboards on the song. Ed noted that was my first
encounter with a band not wanting me to play keyboards.
Battles over creativity, keyboards and Eddie's status
as a guitar hero continued into the eighties. The guitarist pinned some
songs from 1981's, Fair Warning, like "Hear
about it Later" on piano, even though he played them
on guitar on the album. However, he sold the band and
Templeman on an evil so
unding instrumental called "Sunday
Afternoon in the Park," which saw Van Halen utilize
an Electro-Harmonix micro synthesizer and which was
inspired by the stress of his upcoming wedding to Valerie Bertinelli. The sessions from 1982's
Diver Down helped bring this long simmering conflict to a head. Eddie had developed an amazing
new riff on a mini Moog synthesizer and shared it
with Templeman and Roth. Soon after the pair hijacked
Eddie's synth composition for "Dancing in the Street", a cover song
that Ed disliked in the end. Eddie told Guitar World, Ted and Dave are happy and I wasn't. Fast forward to spring 1983, Eddie is in his new studio
with no one telling him not to mess with those pesky keyboards, so he had the opportunity
finally to do it his way. He felt he and Donn Landee
were going to show the world, especially Roth and Templeman, how a Van Halen record should really sound Instrumentals were
nothing new for Van Halen, but they never opened an album with one. In contrast to Fai
r Warnings, murky synthesized drone on
Sunday afternoon in the Park, which abruptly gave away to
the fierce shred fest of One Foot out the Door. 1984 function as a lead in to
the following track on the lp, although most people only
regarded it as an eerie guitar free introduction to "Jump". The song marked a significant
shift in the group sound and revealed who was in charge
of that sound moving forward. As with much of Van Halen's history, there are two stories on the
origins of the track. 1984
, Ed told Steve Rosen that it
came from 45 minutes worth of Eddie Noodling that Landee
had secretly recorded, but Michael Anthony's bass
technician Kevin Dugan said he and Anthony wrote it. According to Dugan, the opening title track
originates from a Roland bass synthesizer passage created
as an intro for Anthony's in concert bass solo. Dugan stated Edward liked it
so much that he made it the intro to the 1984 album. Eddie brought the first
draft of a keyboard song that sounded like a mashup
of
the Rolling Stones. Get off my Cloud and Hall and
Oats Kiss on my List to the band and Templeman.
Somewhere around 1982 later, Ed admitted to Darryl Hall that
his song did Influence "Jump". Roth responded to Eddie
with his customary, you're a Guitar hero, no wants to hear you play the keyboards. They shelved the song for another year. In the spring of 1983, Ed
played his song ideas for Mike, Al, Dave and Templeman, including the same "Jump" demo
he had played for them the prior year. Afterward,
Templeman remarked I
signed a heavy metal band. When Van Halen uses keyboards, they should sound nasty like
they do on And the Cradle will Rock or Sunday Afternoon in the Park, they should shatter your senses
and make your ears bleed. This riff sounds like keyboard playing you'd hear between innings
at a baseball stadium, so I'm not crazy about it. Van Halen wasn't a pop band to Templeman. He wanted them to maintain
their edge and rawness Ed persisted however and firmly
informed Templeman that
he was mistaken. Later at 5150, Ed, Alex and Landee worked nonstop
to create the foundational tracks for "I'll Wait"
Dropped Dead Legs and "Jump". The first two were more rough sketches, but Templeman felt that "Jump"
had significantly improved, so he asked Roth to create some
lyrics with the instrumental recording on a cassette tape. Roth headed out to work on
the lyrics and vocal melody in his own odd way by having
one of his roadies drive him around in his 1951 Mercury Low
rider while he comp
osed the lyrics in the back seat. Templeman remembers it differently
saying Ted and Dave sat in Dave's car outside of 5150
and passed a clipboard back and forth. Dave wrote and Ted commented
and offered his opinion. After witnessing a suicide
attempt on LA's Arco Towers being broadcast live on local news, Roth came up with a title and the phrase, go ahead and jump in. An interview with Rock Video
Magazine in July, 1984. Roth said. I was watching television
one night and it was the five o'clock n
ews and a fellow was
standing on top of the Arco Towers in Los Angelus and he
was about to check out early. He was going to perform the
33 story drop and he was about to do it. When I heard a large
group of people shouting, don't "Jump", don't "Jump"
from the parking lot below, I recorded it and it eventually
appeared on the record, albeit in a much more positive light. It's simple to interpret it
as a go for its mentality in a positive type of affair from
how you hear it on the record. In fact,
the song's original
title was "Go Ahead and Jump", and at one point it had the
fame "Panama" Engine rev sound on it. Ed told writer Steven Rosen, we have a song called "Go Ahead and Jump", which is a synthesizer
song and sounds real good. We did it at an out of the
way studio and Donn and Ted are mixing it right now. The
chorus goes, go ahead and jump, jump Vroom and just for a joke, we thought we'd tried the car, we played it backwards and it
might work and it might not. After the song was a p
roven success. Roth's response when asked about
vetoing the songs two years later was. Man, there is so much music, so many snippets of good
riffs and bad riffs. Who knows what is getting
thrown out After a while, I don't remember from two years ago, maybe it wasn't right for two years ago. We hear all these bits and
pieces and then we have to sift through them. We can't possibly
put everything on the album. "Jump" made it there. Eventually. At the time, MTV was gaining popularity
along with lat
e night video programs like Night Tracks
and Friday night videos, so a music video needed to be
made for their first single "Jump". The band decided to take a
far more minimal approach for "Jump" after investing a lot of
time and money in the Pretty Woman video from Diver Down
only to have a band by MTV. In contrast to the other high
production videos at the time, it would be more personal. The director of the Pretty Woman video, Robert Lombard was brought in
to produce "Jump" Van Halen's lighti
ng director and
Roth creative partner, Pete Angelus was there
too. According to Lombard, Pete Angelus operated one of the cameras, but we never used any of his
footage because he didn't know how to operate a 16 millimeter
camera to save his life. Lombard had hired David Lewis, who actually shot the footage.
With the band's fracture over Roth starting to mount Lombard
told the band he would shoot the video in sections. Lombard said I didn't shoot
them together until the end of the day. I was tryi
ng to keep the
peace because I felt tension amongst them. David thought he was bigger
than the rest of them. Roth preferred more than
just a simple video. He wanted more focus on
himself. According to Lombard, Dave wanted the performance
video intercut with him doing crazy like driving his chopped
Merck hot rod and hanging out with midgets and girls in maids outfits. So he shot hours of footage. Lombard disagreed, so he had the video edited and
used none of the extra Roth footage taking it to Ed
die
and Alex for approval. Guys, I'm taking a stand here. If
you put in this crazy footage, the video isn't gonna
have the impact it should. Eddie and Alex said,
we agree with you 100%. We're not gonna release this
video unless it's done this way. Two days later, I got fired. Noel Monk, their manager
said, you don't do that. You don't go behind Dave's
back. Here's your check. Never wanna see you again. The $6,000 or $600 according
to Roth low-fi video would premier on MTV at midnight
on January
1st, 1984 and be nominated later for three
MTV Awards winning best stage performance on February 25th,
1984 "Jump" became Van Halen's first and only Billboard number
one song dethroning Culture Clubs Karma Chameleon. It was the group's biggest hit
topping the charts for five weeks and one of the best
selling rock songs of the 1980s selling over 3 million copies. Hardcore fans that may have
been bummed out by the keyboard driven poppy "Jump" were quickly
satisfied by hearing the third cut off of
1984. As
with most Van Halen songs, two essential parts were
the genesis for "Panama", the lyrics and the guitar riff. When Roth realized that he
hadn't written specifically about a car and was constantly asked
if his lyrics were only about partying cars and sex, he set out to do something
different this time that ultimately inspired the
lyrics for "Panama", which were based loosely on a
stripper he knew from Arizona and a dragster car called
"Panama" Express he had seen in Vegas. Eddie provided
the guitar riffage
by paying homage to the AC/DC track Dog eat Dog. Back in 1981, Eddie's wife Valerie had
bought a Lamborghini from Rod Stewart and had given it to
Eddie as a wedding present, and at one point Eddie brought
the 1972 Lamborghini to the studio to record the engine's
rumble as a sound effect, but it wasn't initially
intended for "Panama". That idea came up later after
Roth added the vocal track. Two months into the tour, the band shot the video for
"Panama" over three days in Phil
adelphia on March 19th, 20th, and 21st it would seem that
Roth working with director Pete Angelus had his revenge on
"Jump" video producer Robert Lombard by making sure the
action scenes David shot for "Jump" appeared in the "Panama" video, and yes, the footage of Roth being
arrested was staged. If you've ever wondered why
the video begins with a plane flying, it was cheap stock footage and
it connected the dots to when the band members are flying around. On the stage in the video, Michael Antho
ny's base shaped
like a bottle of Jack Daniel's whiskey made its world
premiere. Anthony's bass tech. Kevin Dugan said Anthony asked
him to come up with a custom bass that would be
associated only with him, kinda like Eddie with Frankenstein. The conversation occurred while
the two passed a bottle of JD back and forth, so
Dugan suggested to Anthony, what if we make your bass
like a bottle of Jack Daniels? At first, Anthony thought
it was the dumbest idea, but after a couple of days
he told Dugan
to run with it. The first thing he did was get
permission from Jack Daniels. They made a handshake deal
that they never produced more than three of them
without their permission. The bass got built and became
iconic in its own right. The "Panama" video and single
was released mid-June 1984 and the song peaked at number 13 on Billboard Guitar builder, Steve Ripley had handed Eddie
a prototype stereo guitar to try out which Ed would use on Top Jimmy. Eddie was able to designate
each of the guitar
strings to either the left or right
speaker of a stereo system. As a result, the opening harmonics, the chime like notes could
ping pong between the left and right speakers, which the listener hears
more clearly when wearing headphones. Top Jimmy started out as an
instrumental named Ripley. Later Eddie would use the name
Ripley for a piece of music. In his score to the
1984 film, The Wildlife, he also reused the original
music for the song Blood and Fire, which appeared on Van Halen's
a Differe
nt Kind of Truth in 2012. Top Jimmy represented one of the
few times when Roth lyrics had some conventional biographical
and factual content rather than just conveying
excitement. James Koneck, the front man of a band called
Top Jimmy and the Rhythm Pigs was the top Jimmy in the song
his nickname came from his days running a Top Taco stand
outside the A&M Records lot in Hollywood. Around the end of 1980, Roth joins Koneck circle of
friends by taking on the role of unknown financial benefactor
fo
r the Zero Zero an after hours establishment that at
the time was passing for an art gallery due to its lack of
a liquor license on stage, Roth frequently performed with
the Top Jimmy and the Rhythm Pigs, and additionally, Jimmy did indeed possess
a pig named Nadine. The Zero Zeros regulars included
most of the members of the LA's exploding punk and alternative scene, as well as notorious party
animals like soon to be dead. John Belushi. Somehow Top Jimmy got the
attention of aging comedian lege
nd Lucille Ball. Oh. That's my kind of music. You have Benny Goodman, Glen Miller, no Top Jimmy in the Rhythm Pigs. Zero Zero is where Roth
would also meet Black Flag's. Henry Rollins, who would later be instrumental
in Roth's book Crazy From The Heat. For the Next Track
on 1984, Marilyn Monroe, long regarded as the ultimate
American sex icon served as Roth's lyrical inspiration
for Drop Dead legs. Dig that steam a line from
the song alludes to a scene in Marilyn's 1959 film Some like it Hot in
which she
strolls along a locomotive blowing off steam while toting
a violin case. Roth said, I wish I could have been that
violin case she was carrying. Considered one of 1984
best deep album cuts. Drop Dead Legs was also one
of the first songs demoed for 1984 and was another AC/DC
influence song Ed said that was inspired by AC?DC's Back in Black. I was grooving on that beat, although I think that
Drop Dead Legs is slower, whatever I to somehow is
filtered through me and comes out differently.
Drop Dead Legs is almost a
jazz version of Back in Black. The descending progression is similar, but I also put a lot more notes in there. Some of those extra notes are
played during Ed's 58 Gibson Flying V outro solo, which according to him was
motivated by legendary prog rock guitarist Allan
Holdsworth. Many months prior, ed and Ted Templeman worked
together to get a record deal for Holdsworth. The Holdsworth Eddie Templeman
story in itself is filled with drama and rumored betrayal. Eddie want
ed to play with his hero. Templeman wanted a record he
could sell and Allan wanted to create his own music with
band members of his choice. In the end, no one got what they wanted. Post-release of the mentioned
Holdsworth album Road games, Eddie would say Allan was impatient
and he could not wait for him to be free to work on the album. He never wanted Ed to play
on it in the first place. Both Allan and Templeman agreed
they didn't like working with each other. Commercially Road Games failed, bu
t fans of Holdsworth
thought it was another classic Holdsworth album. If you wanna learn more about
this interesting tale of a rockstar trying to help his idol, I will add links in the description, but heads up all of it
goes horribly wrong. The true spirit of Van Halen
arrived on this track with a vengeance. It's raunchy. roadhouse worthy riff would
inspire Roth to conjure up a learing scenario of scholastic smut. "Hot for Teacher" would be the
fourth and final single off of 1984 and was record
ed in the
late summer of 1983. On Hot For Teacher You can hear the Van Halen
brothers drawing inspiration from two classic songs. One of
Eddie's favorite bands, Cactus and their Parchman Farm
song from the 1970s was the inspiration for the
guitar boogie and beat, And it sounds like Alex copped
his double bass drum intro from Billy Cobham Quadrant Four. Depending on who you
listen to, once again, there are varying stories of
how Alex got the intro drums to sound the way they did. According
to pro
ducer Ted Templeman, the first five seconds of Alex
drums are not drums but the exhaust of Ed's Lamborghini. He said, engineer Donn Landee found a way
after much tinkering to match the drums to the sound of the
idling engine with space being an issue at 5150, Alex used electronic Simmons
drum kit to cut out any bleed over. If you dig around on the internet, you will find many people who
say it's not a Lambo in the beginning, but it's just
Al with his sticks and kit. Their theory is that Alex
had
adjusted his electronic Simmons drum kit so that the
TomToms and kick drums sounded almost identical and so
was able to play the songs stuttering, idling hot rod
of an intro in a single shot. Alex did say the drums were
done in one take but never answered explicitly if it had
an exhaust sound at the start. So in the beginning of "Hot for Teacher", do we hear a Lamborghini or
an innovative drumming by Al? Roth and Ed both publicly
stated that Templeman had very little to do with the sound of 198
4, but it is worth noting that
there is a strong indication that Ted was actually in the
control room during the cutting of "Hot for Teacher". So maybe there was a studio
experiment with the engine noise and the Simmons drums, and
that's what Templeman remembers. But then Alex figured out a way
to make the drums sound like an engine. Backing this theory is a quote from
the must-have Van Halen book, Eruption Conversations with
Eddie Van Halen where Ed says, speaking about Alex, when he started pu
tzing around
with that, we were going, holy shit, it really does sound
like a hot rod or dragster. You can only pull that off
with the Simmons drums. It's so unique on regular drums,
it doesn't sound the same. Eddie once again played his
Gibson Flying V to record this, which allowed him to switch
between pickups for the quiet and loud parts of the song. There is a rumor that Ed played
the bass parts instead of Anthony and he had to dumb it
down a bit so Anthony could play it live. Ed lifted the
song's bombastic
ending from one of Van Halen's, 1977 Warner Brothers demo songs. Voodoo Queen. By the way, the main riff from Voodoo Queen
turned into Mean Streets off of Fair Warning. One story credits Roth whose
mom's Sybil was a music and language teacher until Roth
was born as the one who came up with the idea to give the
track a middle school vibe. Dave set up a little classroom
in the studio with bottles and cans on some school desks. Landee set up a mic and rolled
tape while the guys wer
e wisecracking and knocking over
sitting at the school desk. However, according to some, the idea for the Hot for
Teacher video did not come from Roth. For years we have all thought
it was exclusively Diamond Dave and Pete Angelus's vision, but according to a few
people from the video crew, this may not be true. Don't forget Roth was in
Europe on tour until just days before the shoot started.
According to Jerry Kramer, it was his vision for the
"Hot for Teacher" video. During the eighties, Krame
r was the go-to producer
from Michael Jackson to Van Halen for Van Halen. He produced "Jump" "Panama" Hot
for Teacher and went on to produce Roth solo videos. Kramer storyboarded the
"Hot for Teacher" video, found the location of Leonardo
DiCaprio's old high school, John Marshall High and did all
the casting with the actors, even comedian Phil Hartman did
The voice of Waldo because he was a close friend of Kramer's. I'm nervous and my socks are too loose. Kramer also put together
a first class v
ideo crew, including cinematographer Daniel Pearl, who started his career with
a Texas Chainsaw Massacre and has since worked with everyone
from Michael Jackson at Guns N Roses to the Rolling Stones. Kramer also knew it was key
to have a brilliant stage designer and hired Ron Volz. Volz was responsible for the
Alice Cooper stage show from the early seventies and many
music videos in the eighties and nineties, including
Roth post Van Halen videos. Kramer also brought in
director Rick Frieberg, wh
o had helped cast and
plot out the video shoot. Frieburg and Roth would clash, which led to Frieburg being
fired after most of the shooting had been done. After the shoot, Kramer brought in "Panama" video
editor Christopher Willowby to put it all together. Willowby told me that the
sound of Waldo screaming is an owl, not a whale as reported elsewhere. Did Roth and Angelus's add
any value to the video shoot? Absolutely. Things like wardrobe and
performance were a hundred percent Roth and Pete, bu
t the video's vision and
execution were all the work of Kramer and his talented
video crew. Roth and Angelus taking credit for Hot for
Teacher would be like DeNiro taking credit for Goodfellas
instead of Martin Scorsese. Some other facts about
Hot for Teacher video. Eddie gave one of the guitars
to Brian Hitchcock who played the young Eddie in the video. Hitchcock would sell the
guitar in 2020 for $50,000. In late 2022. It went up on eBay for $220,000
and in May, 2023 Eddie's actual guitar in th
e video sold
at auction for 3.9 million. According to the kid that played
Michael Anthony Yano Anaya at 10:00 AM during the shoot, Alex gave him a beer and
challenged him to shotgun his beer even though he was only
13. If Yano looks familiar, you might remember him from
the movie A Christmas story. Some Van Halen fans believe
there is a hidden message on the chalkboard when deciphered. It supposedly spells out
holy shit in reverse. Each number corresponds with
a placement in the alphabet. Four o
f the five people we
interviewed that were part of the video knew nothing about it, but one that could know best
said it was a hundred percent true. The $200,000 video
would premiere on MTV on September 23rd, 1984 and
almost exactly a year later, big brother would play it
for the US Senate Commerce Committee conservatives and
the strict SEC known as the Washington Wives. Wives of the political elite
in Washington DC criticized the clips imagery of scantily
dressed women in positions as educators
. The Parents Music Resource
Center, PMRC, co-founder, Tipper Gore, wife of Democrat Al Gore
mentioned the video in a Newsday article titled The Smut and
Sadism of Rock. She stated, when my eight-year-old asked
me why is the teacher taking off her clothes and school, I started paying attention to
the videos my children watch. On September 19th, 1985, congressional hearings began
to address the growing fuss over music lyrics. First to speak
was US Senator Paula Hawkings, a Republican from Florida
. She held up a series of quote
of offensive unquote album covers by Def Leopard and WASP.
Hawkins proceeded to have the video "Hot for Teacher"
played in the hearing pre. TV. I brought along two videos
from which to choose, which I believe are
representative of the kind of presentation which have caused the furor. We will show them. The first
is by the group Van Halen. When it was stopped right in
the middle of Eddie's solo scattered laughter and applause
broke out in the chamber. That video. N
one of that. That video is called. No wait, no, wait a second. Senator Hawkins, just a minute. No, this is a very large crowd
today we have allowed people in beyond the capacity of this room. We're not gonna have any
demonstrations. No applause, no demonstrations of any kind. I thank the chairman. The title of that tape was Hot
for Teacher and we will give each senator a copy of the
words they'll promise not to distribute them beyond
their own possession. "I'll Wait" arguably is the closest the
Roth incarnation of Van
Halen ever came to a love song, and the only time Roth sing
about delayed gratification. I'll Wait was another track that
caused division between producer Ted Templeman and Ed. Templeman
would bust Ed's balls by humming Argent's Hold your Head
Up when he played it for him. Up up your head up. That division remains today
in the various versions of how the song even came to be. The song was one of the
earliest tracks demoed, but by the fall of 1983, it still needed to be
co
mpleted. On one side. Ed championed it while on the other side, Templeman hoped it would go away, but Ted understood the passion
for the song felt by Ed Alex and Landee, so he decided he should be a
team player and push it forward by laying down the track.
Templeman commented to be frank, it hadn't grown on me since I
first heard Ed's demo back in April. It's slogged along
like a jeep stuck in the mud. Maybe I had it all wrong, but I just didn't love
Ed's new keyboard stuff. Templeman gave the n
od to
Roth to move forward with the track, but Roth couldn't come up with
a melody or lyric to go with Ed's keyboard track.
Templeman was stumped too. Then Roth suggested bringing
in one of Temple Man's good friends, Doobie Brothers, songwriting legend Michael
McDonald who said, sure, according to McDonald, Templeman gave him a copy of
the instrumental track and then he created the lyrics and
melody on his own and recorded himself singing over the
top of the uncompleted song. Templeman had Roth
and McDonald
meet in his office to make sure Roth was good with
it. According to McDonald, none of his lyrics were
changed. If this is true, then Roth's story of how he
came up with the lyrics while looking at a Calvin Klein ad
with a girl in men's underwear could be Roth Spin to add
his own rockstar flair to the story later. McDonald would be rightfully
furious when the album came out and his name was not
included in the credits. According to Templeman, the ball was dropped somewhere
in the Van
Halen camp, but who did it is unknown. Ed's
side of the story is this. He believed Templeman secretly
recorded McDonald when they met in Templeman's office and
then later Templeman and Dave tried to hide this from Ed
when they were in the studio. Ed said Ted was using a little
micro-cassette recorder. He held under his desk to
record what Michael was improvising to it. Ted
came up here the next day. I saw Ted and Dave in the
control room and he was playing something to him on this
cassette reco
rder. I asked, what is that? And they
both went, oh, nothing don't worry about it. So when
they got sued by McDonald, Ed stated he didn't
know anything about it. Templeman stands by the fact
that everyone knew McDonald co-wrote the song. Maybe the story Ed tells
has a grain of truth. My speculation is that maybe
Roth and Templeman brought in the tape of McDonald's singing
on the tape he gave them as a guide for Roth, maybe Diamond Dave didn't want Eddie to
think he needed help from McDonald, so
they steered clear of
letting Ed know McDonald came up with the lyrics and melody.
McDonald would win his case and make tremendous money from it, saying it's probably one of the
most lucrative things I have ever done in my entire career. Ironically, in 1978, McDonald and Ed had contributed
to Nicolette Larson's Templeman produced debut
album, but on that one, McDonald was credited and Ed wasn't. The Warner Brother execs
wanted to stay with a keyboard winning formula of "Jump", so they decided to
rush I'll
Wait as the second single off 1984. There was not enough
time to make a video, but it still hit number 13
on the billboard charts. The intro to the second to
last track was a bit of an instrumental departure for the band. Eddie started the song with a
big airy plucked out chords, reminiscence of Jimmy Page
and the opening of a Achilles last stand. Under Eddie's guitar work, you can hear Alex Fast ride
symbol building a lot like Rush's Neil Peart in the
opening of La Villa Strangiato,
except Alex's beat was more
swinging as they hit the change up. Before going into the main song, Eddie ripped a series of wicked arpeggios, not unlike Rush's, Alex
Lifeson, and again, Al hammered out a Peart
like run on the Toms. As most fans know, when Eddie got the idea
for this particular song, he hummed and whistled it
into a micro-cassette in the closet of a hotel room
while Valerie was sleeping. As mentioned earlier, hints of Girl Gone Bad were
played at the US Festival during the breakdow
n of Somebody Get Me a Doctor. But Ed has mentioned that
he disliked playing the Tune saying, I often dreaded playing the
intro of Girl Gone Bad because the B stringing always sounds
a tad flat on the chords that I play. House of Pain. One of the band's heaviest
tracks had been around in various forms even before the group
had a record deal when they initially signed with Warner Bros in 1977, the song was once again demoed, but it did not make the
cut for the debut album. Additionally, it was in
cluded in the mix
during the diver down recording sessions, but the classic bashed out
Van Halen album closer didn't come to be until Alex had
the notion that a new revised version should be recorded for
1984 with fresh lyrics and a more flowing arrangement. With only nine songs on the album there has been speculation
that a few more were recorded, but left off. Eddie confirmed this in a 1983
interview with Steve Rosen claiming that they had
tracks finished for 13 tunes. However, Eddie didn't li
ke putting on
more than 35 or 40 minutes on a record because he felt that you
lost fidelity the longer the record was or you might blame
left out songs on Roth and Templeman. Ed had plenty of tunes. He told Editor-in-Chief for
Guitar for the Practicing Musician magazine, John Stix. I wrote 15/16 tunes and we put
them all down. Then it was, should we use this one or that one? The guys got at me because
I wouldn't stop writing. I'm serious. Ted Templeman
and Dave really got uptight. They were seri
ously pissed
They said, cut that shit out. Quit writing. Wilson Pickett's. In the Midnight Hour was the
band's only cover song come confirmed to have been recorded. Roth and Templeman wanted to
cut the track for the previous Diver Down album, but Eddie had protested. The song was brought up again
for the 1984 sessions and by some accounts was even one of
the first things they worked on at Eddie's new studio. Again, Eddie vetoed the idea of
releasing it and to this day, if it was recorded, it rem
ains unreleased, Roth suggested Just a Gigolo,
but that also got rejected. Other Van Halen tracks rumored
to have been recorded were anytime any place eat thy
neighbor baritone slide and lie to you. By late October, 1983,
recording the tracks was done. Producer Ted Templeman believed
the mixing was done as well, so it was time to master
the album, but by November, Templeman had still not received
the mix tapes from Ed and Landee. Templeman had an analog
backup copy of the masters, but the qualit
y would be
diminished if he mastered with those. Templeman went over to 5150
to get the tapes where he was met by Ed saying that Landee had
the recordings but he didn't know where he was. Landee was actually on the
property with the tapes and a walkie-talkie. Once Ed got rid of Templeman, Landee would come back into
the studio and they would continue mixing. Ed said this game of cat and
mouse was because he was still unhappy with the mix. Templeman was concerned about
the tapes for many reasons,
not the least that Landee and
Ed were staying up days on end, snorting copious amounts of
blow and drinking according to Templeman. Valerie Bertinelli would verify
this by asking Templeman to step in and help. Templeman said she was just
as worried but more for her husband than the tapes. It got so heated that
reportedly it may have gotten physical. You like that old man.
You want a piece of me? I don't want a piece of you, I want the whole thing. Oh, the September, 1984
issue of Music magazine
, Hit Parader reported reports
emanating from Los Angelus described in alleged fight
that took place between Edward and the band's longtime
producer Ted Templeman, evidently Templeman, who is also a vice president
of Warner Brothers, the band's record label
criticized Edwards increasingly egotistical attitude. This forced the ax slinger
to retort with verbal and physical force. The confrontation may sever
the longstanding partnership between Templeman and the band. Actually, the situation had be
en
building up for quite a while. A West Coast source reported. The band produced virtually
all of 1984 by themselves and they only put Templeman's
name on the record out of a feeling of commitment. Ted wasn't thrilled by being
left out of the recording process and guessed there was
a bit of hostility on both of their parts. It's something that will
probably blow over in a couple of months. The band would neither confirm
nor deny the reports of the Templeman Van Halen feud. With Templeman not on
ly
being Van Halen's producer, but also Warner Brothers vice president, he had to find a solution. During the second week of November, Templeman grabbed Warner Brothers
chief engineer and entered Sunset Sound with the 16
track safety reels working as quickly as they could, they
mixed 1984 from scratch. Templeman felt Landee and Ed
were out of their minds and may never deliver their master tapes. Finally, Landee showed up with the master tapes, but according to Templeman,
he'd been up for days. H
e was just manic and all
messed up sweating and crazy. Landee handed over the tapes
and the mastering process was finished. Ed said later nobody was
happy with Don and me. They thought we were crazy
and out of our minds. Ted thought that Donn had lost
it and was going to threaten to burn the tapes, that was all bs. We just wanted an extra week
to make sure that we were happy with everything. It should be noted that on
the next Van Halen album 5150 Landee would again be accused
of holding the mas
ter tapes hostage, but this time the accusation
would come from the producer Mick Jones, Jones said, Landee locked himself in the
studio for a day and threatened to burn the tapes. They resolved the issue
after a tense standoff. Ultimately, it's unclear whether Ted
Templeman actually produced the 1984 album in part or in whole, and it was no secret that Ed
wanted to show Templeman how to produce Van Halen the way Ed saw fit. So did Templeman actually
do any producing on 1984. Surprisingly, the b
and member closest to
Templeman at the time said he didn't do much. In March of 1984, several newspapers ran an
article with surprisingly harsh words from Temple Man's
one-time ally David Lee Roth, who said. After five years of compromising,
we just said no more. This time there was a big
altercation about who was going to mix the record. It was mixed almost entirely
without Ted Templeman. Ed and the engineer. Donn Landee did all the mixes
on the songs and the sound is radically different, I thi
nk, than any of the other Van Halen albums. There are a lot more subtleties,
a lot more overt tricks. The most abominable sounding
record we ever made was the second one, and that's cause
it was entirely in Ted's hands. It was thin and vapid sounding
and everybody was disgusted with it. There are some fabulous songs
on there that went unnoticed because they made no impression sonically. So we started getting
involved more and more. When asked if Templeman would
be on hand for the next album, Rot
h said. Who knows what it'll be
the next time around. I know, but I'm not gonna tell you. I don't want to get anybody
upset before we burn the bridge. According to the paper, Templeman could not be
reached for comment. For the most part, Van Halen has never been
known for great album covers. Many felt the artwork for
1984 changed that perception, at least for that one
album. Graphic designer, Margo Nahas created the painting
that became the 1984 cover, but Nahas had initially
declined to create
anything for Van Halen. More specifically, the band first asked Nahas
to create a painting of four chrome women dancing in various
stages of being undressed, which she refused. Two
hours after the refusal, Warner Brothers called to
see more of her work. Nahas husband Jay took
her portfolio to Van Halen, which included the smoking angel baby. They immediately knew and chose
the existing painting of the cherub. By the way, the same year, her husband designed Prince's
lettering on the cover of Purp
le Rain. Oh no, let's go. Nahas created the artwork in
1982 by modeling the cherub from her friend's son Carter Helm. Before Van Halen was in the picture, Helm sat enjoying a pack
of candy cigarettes. While Nahas made the artwork. It was the only illustration
Nahas had ever designed for herself in all her years
as a working artist. It was initially commissioned
and illustrated for a reference art publication
called The LA Workbook. Then it became a greeting card, and finally it became the
Van Ha
len iconic album cover. But until Van Halen came along,
it got little recognition. To this day, Margo still owns
the copyright to her image. She smartly only licensed
the art of Van Halen versus selling them the copyright. She gave the original
artwork to Carter's parents. Before the 1984 album was released, Van Halen's manager Noel Monk, fretted over possible
criticism from tight-ass conservatives. Nahas found that notion funny
because her vision for the painting was innocuous. She said, the wa
y I envisioned it in
the first place was the little rebel cherub came down to earth
and decided to try a smoke. Knowing it was wrong, he glanced up to heaven to
see if God was watching. The album cover would be
censored in England by sticker, and the cigarette was airbrushed
out in Korea at the time of release. The speculation was that the
cover was created in Roth's image as a kid. Never wanting
good folk lore to go to waste, Roth would use a photo of himself
all grown up with a set of wings fo
r the cover of his
single, just a Gigolo. Guitar legend Eddie Van
Halen died of cancer today. On on October 6th, 2020, when Margot heard the devastating
news of Eddie Van Halen's death, she started to cry and felt alone. She had protected the
1984 Angel for 34 years. Trying not to let anyone copy
it or use it for any unjust cause, but by that time, she felt the angel belong to
the Van Halen world and she didn't want to be alone and
needed to share her grief. She took out one of the angel
prints
and put a tear in the baby's eyes. She then posted it on Facebook
for Van Halen fans to know they weren't alone. The inside cover of 1984
looks like some huge bullets. An ashtray or maybe assembly
line for R2D2s. They are par cans part of the
lighting rig for a concert. The futuristic numbers were Roth Idea. He wanted them to look like
the comic book made by Mobius, which was the pseudonym for
Jean Gerard, a French artist, cartoonist, and writer. Before Van Halen's album was released, there was
only one thing that
people associated with the number 1984, George Orwell's dystopian social
science novel that had been released in 1949.
Although Roth was well read, the band's decision to
name their new album, 1984 stylized in Roman numerals
as M C M L X X X I V had nothing to do with the classic book. Reportedly the band was insistent
that they not be rushed to complete the album for
a 1983 release date. The title 1984 was intended
as a little jab at the record label to reinforce further the
idea that the album would not be coming out any sooner than
the year it was named after. Critical reviews for 1984
were generally favorable, even with the most read
rock magazine at the time. Rolling Stone. In 1978, when Rolling Stone magazine
reviewed Van Halen's first album, the writer said, mark
my words, in three years, Van Halen is going to be
fat and self-indulgent and disgusting, and they'll follow deep purple
and Led Zeppelin right into the toilet. In contrast, the magazine's four out o
f
five stars for 1984 said, Van Halen is one of the smartest, toughest bands in rock and roll. According to Eddie sympathy
from Michael Jackson kept Van Halen's album from the number
one spot the week the 1984 album was projected to go
to number one on Billboard. Jackson burned his hair
during the filming of a Pepsi commercial. Eddie said when that happened, everyone was going, oh, poor
Michael burned his hair. We'd better go buy his record. Hardcore fans were split. On the one hand you had the
classic sounding Van Halen with "Panama" and "Hot for
Teacher" On the other, you have the more poppish
keyboard songs with "Jump" and I'll Wait. Mainstream music fans came to
the Van Halen camp in droves. 1984 is the second of two Van
Halen albums to achieved the rare RIAA Diamond status, selling over 10 million copies
in the United States alone. The other record is their
first album. Since its release, it's estimated 1984 has
sold over 20 million copies worldwide. By far the biggest
selling Van
Halen album, sorry, Sammy. But the
exact number is unknown, since no certifications
have been done for decades.
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