Van Halen
Van Halen was an American rock band formed in Pasadena, California, in 1972. Credited with restoring hard rock to the forefront of the music scene, Van Halen was known for their energetic live performances and the virtuosity of their guitarist, Eddie Van Halen.
From 1974 to 1985, Van Halen consisted of guitarist, keyboardist, backing vocalist and primary songwriter Eddie Van Halen, his older brother, drummer Alex Van Halen, lead vocalist David Lee Roth, and bassist Michael Anthony. Released in February 1978, the band's self-titled debut album reached No. 19 on the Billboard 200 the following month, and 18 years later, in 1996, had sold over 10 million copies in the United States, achieving a Diamond certification by the Recording Industry Association of America. By 1982, the band had released four more albums: Van Halen II, Women and Children First, Fair Warning, and Diver Down, all of which have over time been certified multi-platinum. By the early 1980s, Van Halen was among the most commercially successful rock acts. The album 1984, released in January 1984, was a commercial success with, by February 1999, U.S. sales of 10 million copies and four successful singles. Its lead single, "Jump", was the band's only number-one single on the Billboard Hot 100.
In 1985, Roth left the band to embark on a solo career and was replaced by former Montrose lead vocalist Sammy Hagar. With Hagar, the group released four U.S. number-one, multi-platinum albums over the course of 11 years: 5150 in 1986, OU812 in 1988, For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge in 1991, and Balance in 1995. The group released a double-platinum live album, Live: Right Here, Right Now, in 1993. Hagar left the band in 1996 shortly before the release of the band's first greatest hits collection, Best Of – Volume I. Former Extreme frontman Gary Cherone replaced Hagar and recorded the commercially unsuccessful album Van Halen III with the band in 1998, before parting ways in 1999. Van Halen went on hiatus until reuniting with Hagar in 2003 for a worldwide tour in 2004 and the double-disc greatest hits collection, The Best of Both Worlds. Hagar again left Van Halen after the tour in 2004. Roth returned in 2006, but Anthony was replaced on bass guitar by Eddie's son, Wolfgang Van Halen. In 2012, the band released their final studio album, A Different Kind of Truth, which was critically and commercially successful. It was also the band's first album with Roth in 28 years and the only one to feature Wolfgang. Eddie was diagnosed with cancer in 2001, and died of the disease on October 6, 2020. A month after his father's death, Wolfgang confirmed that Van Halen had disbanded.
, Van Halen is 20th on the RIAA's list of best-selling artists in the United States; the band has sold 56 million albums in the U.S. and more than 80 million worldwide, making them one of the best-selling groups of all time., Van Halen is one of only five rock bands with two studio albums to sell more than 10 million copies in the United States and is tied for the most multi-platinum albums by an American band. Additionally, Van Halen has charted 13 number-one hits on Billboards Mainstream Rock chart. VH1 ranked the band seventh on its list of the "100 Greatest Hard Rock Artists".
History
1972–1977: Formation and early history
The Van Halen brothers were born in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, Alex Van Halen in 1953 and Eddie Van Halen in 1955, sons to Dutch musician Jan Van Halen and Indonesian-born Indo Eugenia Van Beers. The family moved to Pasadena, California, in 1962. Eddie began learning classical piano by ear, and became so proficient he won an annual piano recital contest two or three years in a row, despite never mastering sight-reading sheet music. The brothers began playing music together in the 1960s, with Eddie on drums and Alex on guitar. However, while Eddie was delivering newspapers to pay off his drum set, Alex secretly developed a passion and proficiency at them. Eventually, out of frustration and brotherly competition, Eddie told Alex, "OK, you play drums and I'll play your guitar."The Van Halen brothers formed their first band, the Broken Combs, in 1964. As they gained popularity playing backyard parties and local high school functions, they changed their name first to the Trojan Rubber Co, then in 1972 to Genesis, later to Mammoth when they discovered Genesis was already in use by a major-label British band. At this time the band included Eddie on both vocals and lead guitar and friend Mark Stone on bass. They rented a sound-system from Indiana-born Pasadena transplant David Lee Roth for $10 per night. Roth fronted a local R&B influenced rock band the Red Ball Jets. Roth's uncle Manny owned Cafe Wha? in New York City until 1968. Partly to save money, they invited Roth to join as their lead vocalist despite previous unconvincing auditions. Ultimately Roth's charismatic "Jim Dandy" approach would be both an artistic foil to Eddie's circumspect, guitar prodigy talents as well as allowing Eddie to focus his energies on song composition.
In 1973, Mammoth changed its name to Van Halen. According to Roth, this was his idea. He felt it was a name that held long-term identity, artistic and marketing advantages, like Santana. They continued to play Pasadena, San Bernardino, and Venice at clubs, festivals, backyard parties and city parks like Hamilton, drawing up to 2,000 people. Traffic jams and noise complaints to the local police often ensued, as far away as San Pedro. Van Halen subsequently played clubs in Los Angeles and West Hollywood to growing audiences, increasing their popularity through self-promotion, passing out flyers at local high schools. This tenacious self-promotion soon earned them a loyal local following.
File:Van halen flyer.jpg|thumb|upright=0.7|Flyer handed out at La Cañada High School show. Eddie playing an Ibanez Destroyer.
By 1974, Roth had been in the band for about a year, and they decided to replace the ambivalent Stone, who was unsure about a career in music. Michael Anthony Sobolewski, a Pasadena college music-classmate of Eddie's, joined the group after an all-night jam session. He had sung and played bass in a number of less successful Arcadia backyard-party bands, including Snake. Although he was hesitant, his bandmate in Snake encouraged him to seize this opportunity. The band had a major break when it was hired to play regularly at the Sunset Strip club Gazzarri's. The Doors had "broken" there in the late 1960s. Owner Bill Gazzarri had previously claimed Van Halen was too loud for the venue. However, their new managers, Mark Algorri and Mario Miranda, took over the club's hiring and booked them through 1976. By the Spring of 1975, they were the regular Tuesday night band at Myron's Ballroom. They had succeeded in becoming a staple of the Los Angeles music scene during the mid-1970s, playing at clubs like the Whisky a Go Go on Sunset Strip.
Rodney Bingenheimer saw Van Halen at Gazzarri's in the summer of 1976, and convinced Gene Simmons of Kiss to see them perform. Impressed, Simmons produced a 29-track Van Halen demo tape, entitled "Zero", at Village Recorder studios in Los Angeles, with post-production overdubs completed at Electric Lady Studios in New York. Simmons suggested changing their name to "Daddy Longlegs." However, a very disappointed Simmons could do no more once Kiss management decided that Van Halen "had no chance of making it".
1977–1985: Breakthrough and initial success with David Lee Roth
Doug Messenger, Van Morrison's band leader guitarist, knowing that Ted Templeman was looking for a "guitar hero" act, had seen Van Halen at the Starwood in Hollywood and placed a number of calls to Warner Records for Ted to check them out. "I don't know if it was 4 calls or 10, but I knew this was exactly the act Ted wanted. So on a horrendously rainy night in mid-1977", Warner Bros. executive Mo Ostin and producer Ted Templeman saw Van Halen perform at the Starwood in Hollywood. It was Van Halen's first booking at the Starwood and the first time they hired their own roadies. "We wanted to come on with a little class and we couldn't be seen setting up our own stuff in Hollywood," explained Roth. Although the audience was negligible – Messenger claims only a barmaid and himself were there until Ostin and Templeman arrived – the Warner Bros. reps were so impressed that they wrote a letter of intent on a napkin, and within a week met at a local diner with the band, their future manager Marshall Berle and Warner touring manager Noel Monk, who had just guided the Sex Pistols across the United States. According to Noel Monk's book, the band's car had broken down en route to the meeting at the diner, and rather than leave the Warner Bros. reps waiting and appear to be an irresponsible band, the members of Van Halen actually ran the remaining distance of several miles to arrive only slightly late. Warner offered the band a two album recording contract, one that heavily favored Warner, paying the band $0.70 per unit sold, a deal that would leave the band over $1 million in debt at the conclusion of their first supporting tour as the opening act for Journey and Ronnie Montrose. The group recorded their debut album at Sunset Sound Recorders studio from mid-September to early October 1977, recording guitar parts for one week and then vocals for two additional. All of the tracks were laid down with little overdubbing or multi-tracking. Minor mistakes were purposely left on the record and a very rudimentary instrument set-up was used to give the record a live feel. During this time, they continued to play various venues in Southern California, including concerts at the Pasadena Convention Center produced by their promoter and impresario, Steve Tortomasi.Van Halen reached No. 19 on the Billboard pop music charts, one of rock's most commercially successful debuts. It was regarded as both a heavy metal and hard rock album. The album included songs now regarded as Van Halen classics, like "Runnin' with the Devil" and the guitar solo "Eruption", which showcased Eddie's use of a technique known as "finger-tapping", leading into what became the band's first single, a cover of "You Really Got Me". The band toured for 9 months more, opening for Black Sabbath and establishing a reputation for their performances. The band's chemistry was based on Eddie Van Halen's guitar technique and David Lee Roth's charisma. The band returned to the studio for two weeks in late 1978, to record Van Halen II, a 1979 LP similar in style to their debut. This record yielded the band's first hit single, "Dance the Night Away", which peaked at 15 on BB Hot 100.
Over the next four years, the band toured non-stop, never taking more than two weeks to record an album. Their album Women and Children First was released in 1980, and further cemented Van Halen's platinum-selling status to Warner Bros. It yielded two hit singles, "And the Cradle Will Rock..." and "Everybody Wants Some!!". For the first time, an amplified Wurlitzer electric piano was used to complement Eddie's guitar.
In 1981, during the recording of Fair Warning, Eddie's desire for darker, more complex songs in minor keys was at odds with Roth's pop tastes and style. Nonetheless, Roth and veteran Warner Bros. rock producer Ted Templeman acquiesced to Eddie's wishes on this album. Doug Messenger recalled how Ed and engineer Don Landee rerecorded the "Unchained" solo hours after Ted "stormed out of" the studio. This darker album only reached platinum status after $250,000 of payola pushed it up nationwide from 400,000 copies.
Planning to release a cover single, then take a hiatus, Roth and Eddie agreed upon a remake of the 1960s Roy Orbison song "Oh, Pretty Woman", which peaked at 12 on BB Top 100. "Oh, Pretty Woman"'s comical video helped its success, but was also banned by MTV. Due to much pressure from Warner Bros., the hiatus was canceled and the Diver Down LP was squeezed out, again, within two weeks time. Roth's preference for pop covers prevailed this time and with Eddie's synthesizer and guitar riffs Diver Down charted much better. The band earned a spot in the Guinness Book of World Records for the highest-paid single appearance of a band: $1.5 million for a 90-minute set at Steve Wozniak's 1983 US Festival, a show that both Noel Monk and Doug Messenger considered artistically a disaster, Roth having consumed alcohol to the point of forgetting lyrics. Despite this return to form, Roth and Eddie's differences continued, and this caused friction with other band members. Billy Sheehan, after his band Talas completed a tour with Van Halen, claims he was approached by Eddie to replace Michael Anthony; the reasons for this were never completely clear to Sheehan, as nothing came of it. During this time, Eddie contributed the score and instrumental songs to the film The Wild Life. The score was laden with drum machine and hinted at sounds and riffs that would come with their next two albums, 1984 and 5150.
1984 was a commercial success, going five-times platinum after a year of release. Recorded at Eddie's newly built 5150 Studios, the album featured keyboards, which had only been used sporadically on previous albums. The lead single, "Jump", featured a synthesizer hook and anthemic lyrics inspired by news coverage of a suicidal jumper. It became the band's first and only No. 1 pop hit with Roth, garnering them a Grammy nomination.
Other singles included "Panama", "I'll Wait", and "Hot for Teacher". Three of the songs had popular music videos on MTV. 1984 was praised by critics and peaked at No. 2 on the Billboard charts behind Michael Jackson's Thriller.
Following the 1984 Tour, Roth decided to quit and form a new band. Group members have given different reasons for the split, but all were firmly rooted in control of the band's sound, artistic direction, singles released and pace. Roth was concerned about Eddie playing music outside of Van Halen. Roth was also launching a successful solo career with two hit cover songs off his Crazy from the Heat EP, a remake of the Beach Boys' classic "California Girls" and a pairing of the classic Al Jolson standard "Just a Gigolo" and "I Ain't Got Nobody", which had previously been paired together by Louis Prima. Roth was offered a $20-million film deal for a script titled Crazy from the Heat. Roth hoped Van Halen would contribute the soundtrack; however, the film deal fell through when CBS Pictures was reorganized in 1986.