We recently put "Five Questions" to author Greg Renoff about his new book Van Halen Rising: How a Southern California Backyard Party Band Saved Heavy Metal. It is Greg's first book and it's a burner! It's out now on ECW Press.
The backyard party scene and Battle of the Bands played a large part in the VH history, giving them ample opportunity to play live before gigs were available. They were also able to play what they wanted and for as long as they wanted. How did this ultimately shape the band? Are there any other bands from that unique scene that rose to stardom?
Best of my knowledge, none of the other 1974-circa Pasadena “backyard party bands” ever made it. But of course, Van Halen worked for another three years before they got signed, and by that time, they’d begun gigging alongside some well-regarded local hard rock/heavy metal bands in Hollywood.
These groups expected they’d be next in line to get the major label deal after Van Halen signed with Warner Bros in early 1977. But that never happened. Instead, punk rock had come into Hollywood like a tsunami that year, and labels seemed more interested in finding the next Sex Pistols or Blondie than the next Van Halen.
In the end, though, a number of musicians from that scene did make it. Most famously, these include guitar players like George Lynch of Dokken, the late Randy Rhoads of Ozzy Osbourne fame, and Rusty Anderson, who now is a member of Sir Paul McCartney’s band.
Early on we can see the disdain that the Van Halen brothers (and their audience) had for David Lee Roth. However, he pushed them in ways they might not have gone: stagecraft and dress, shorter and catchier songs. What was the balance of power like early on?
Great question. I interviewed Van Halen’s keyboard player, who was in the band for some time before and after Roth joined in 1973. He made clear that Roth went along with what the brothers wanted early on in his tenure, and gamely singing hard and heavy stuff that he didn’t love, like Grand Funk and Black Sabbath. He also dressed more like the other guys in the band than the way he did he had before he joined the band, meaning that he abandoned his more “Diamond Dave” fashion choices for the jeans and t-shirts that the brothers preferred. But as time went on, his stage clothes got tighter and brighter, and he began pushing for more of an R&B and pop-flavor to the band’s sound. This included things like Billy Preston’s “Will it Go Round in Circles” and even James Brown’s “Cold Sweat,” which Van Halen eventually performed. Perhaps the best example I can give you of how compromise came was when the band decided to do “Superstition.” Roth wanted to do the Stevie Wonder version while the brothers wanted to do it Beck, Bogert & Appice-style. In the end, Roth sang it like Wonder did and the brothers played it like BBA. (Author's Note: Oh God, please, please, please let there be a recorded version of that somewhere!)
As Roth’s vision and direction proved correct, did the band’s audience change as it grew?
Roth’s instinct was to try to look beyond the backyard party scene to find gigs playing nightclubs. The problem was that while Van Halen was a great band that could play as well as anyone while putting their own stamp on the songs they covered, Van Halen didn’t do a good job of accurately reproducing the songs they covered. In other words, when Roth sang, he didn’t sound much like the original artists. And when Edward played, he didn’t play the songs in a way that carefully tracked with the record. That’s part of the reason why the band ended up playing biker bars and dives, rather than the better paying and “classier” Top-40 clubs in LA. So, yes, Roth’s vision helped broaden the band’s audience, but probably not in the way he imagined it, because I find it hard to believe that his “master plan” was to target bikers as a demographic to successfully broaden the band’s fanbase.
I was really surprised by — and totally unaware of — Gene Simmons of KISS’ involvement with than band, in financing and producing a demo. What was Simmons interest and what do you think he envisioned had he succeeded in pushing Roth out?
I’ve given this a lot of thought. I really think Roth’s fears about Simmons were unfounded. Did Gene see the Van Halen brothers as special talents? I think he did. But Roth’s notion that Simmons intended to conspire to dump Ace and Peter from KISS and bring the brothers into that band is absurd. In late 1976, KISS was the biggest band in America, and Gene was hell-bent in trying to make KISS into the Beatles of the 1970s. He wanted to make each individual member of the band stand alone as a figure of interest to the fans, hence the 1978 KISS solo albums. How does that square with bringing Edward and Alex into KISS? Not to mention the fact that there’s zero chance the brothers would have wanted to join KISS. Something else to consider: in February 1977, while KISS is on the road, Van Halen signs with Warner Bros. At that point, Gene was going to have to deal with Warner Bros. Records if he wanted to do anything of significance with Van Halen, in any form.
Hopefully, there’s more of Van Halen’s story in future books from you, but we have to ask: Did David Lee Roth take all of Van Halen’s fans with him? The “Van Hagar” edition sure seemed to be more of a “bro band.”
I can tell you a couple of funny stories here in reply. In October 1986 my buddy Bill and I took my younger sister and her friend Anna to see DLR in concert at an arena in NJ. They were both about fourteen. The two of them snuck down close to the stage and watched the show from there. I'll never forget: they both came back to find me and Bill after the show with this knowing look in their eyes. My sister exclaims, "Oh my God! We were so close we could see the sweat on Dave's chest!" Bill and I looked at each other and knew it was time to make sure we got these two back to the car and back to our sleepy town. Still, I think in 1986 there were a lot of female Van Halen fans like my wife and her sister, who loved the pop-friendly "Van Hagar" sound. They wore out their copy of 5150 and didn't have much use for anything Van Halen had done prior.
I can tell you my own story here. I think in 1985-1986, when the Van Halen split was hot news, I was like a lot of kids in my high school who thought, well, now we have two cool bands to like! That said, I wasn’t too fond of the moments when Hagar would go out of his way to mock Roth while onstage with Van Halen while the brothers laughed along. But I suspect that there were a lot of Van Halen fans who thought like I did in 1986: it was inevitable that the brothers and Roth would reconcile before too long. Little did we know it would take until 2007 for that to happen!
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