The Mighty VH Podcast
This ain’t yer mom's podcast.
This is a high-voltage, back-alley, nitro-burning, chrome-plated oral history of the loudest, proudest, most uncontainable rock band ever to plug in and blow the doors clean off the building.
Every episode, your hosts Tommy London & Tor kick open the vault, flash a fake backstage pass and stroll past the velvet rope like they own the place. Albums get peeled apart track by track. Tours get relived night by night, bruise by bruise. Legends get mythologized, demystified, and then mythologized again.
The Mighty VH Podcast is where the riffs sweat, the stories stretch, and the truth comes flying in sideways wearing ass-less chaps.
You want news and rumors? We tell you what’s real, what’s noise, and what’s pure beautiful nonsense, with a wink and a raised eyebrow.
This is the place where genius gets examined, ego gets celebrated, and excess gets its rightful crown. Where guitars talk, drums thunder, and the spirit of rock and roll doesn’t politely knock, it jumps the fence, cannonballs the pool, and steals your girlfriend’s attention span.
The Mighty VH Podcast
Ep: 008 Author & VH Expert Greg Renoff
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Greg Renoff has become one of the most respected voices in Van Halen history. As the author of Van Halen Rising and Ted Templeman: A Platinum Producer's Life in Music, he has uncovered stories and firsthand accounts that have helped reshape what fans know about the band's remarkable journey.
In Episode 008 of The Mighty VH Podcast, Tommy London and Tor sit down with Greg for a wide-ranging conversation that spans nearly the entire Van Halen story. From the legendary Gene Simmons demos and the band's earliest club days to the arrival of Sammy Hagar, the making of iconic albums, and the often misunderstood Van Halen III era, no topic is off limits.
Along the way, Greg shares the research, interviews, and behind the scenes insights that have made his books essential reading for Van Halen fans. Whether you've followed the band since the beginning or are discovering their history for the first time, this is a conversation packed with fascinating stories, fresh perspectives, and a deeper appreciation for one of rock's greatest bands.
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Email at themightyvanhalenpodcast@gmail.com
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Mighty Van Halen podcast once again. I am your host, Tommy London, along with my buddy Tor. We love to deliver these shows to you and Van Halen fans alike worldwide here. And we thank you as always for joining us. We have a very special guest today, Greg Renoff, who has written two amazing books in my collection and Tor's collection: The Autobiography for Ted Templeman, who's produced all the Van Halen albums with Dave Lee Rog, and Van Halen Rising, which is uh a fantastic book. And these are both must-haves for any Van Halen fan. And uh thank you so much for being here with us today, Greg. It's awesome.
SPEAKER_02Hey, thank you guys for having me on. I'm excited to be uh an early adopter, early visitor to the podcast, and you guys are off to a great start. Thank you.
SPEAKER_00Thanks so much. Thank you so much. Hey, so uh just to kick things off, and and we're just getting right into it today, just because we have so many questions for you. So you're the bona fide VH expert, and we're gonna sort of ring you dry today. I hope you don't mind. Um so but let's start at the beginning. Like, what was your introduction to Van Halen? Like where, why, and where and how? Let's give us give us the basics.
SPEAKER_02Okay, so I grew up in suburban New Jersey. I uh graduated high school in 1987, so I was saying like exactly that prime peak Van Halen fandom, I sort of hit that tail end of that of uh with 1984. So yeah, I I always tell people I I certainly had heard Pretty Woman on the radio, and I was like, Oh, that was a cool song, but I was you know like 12 or whatever. And then uh I ended up scalping a ticket like for like from like literally like you know, like fast times Ridge Mount High Thing, a kid behind me in Home Room in my high school New Jersey had a ticket to uh the 1984 tour and it was sold out. I mean, it sold out like you know, like the next day it was sold out, or that night it was sold out. No tickets, and uh I'll you know, I'll spare the details, but it was a you know, I bought the ticket for uh $50, which at the time my mom was like, you know, basically like, you know, here's your checking account, you're responsible now. And then I was like, what did you do? You broke the drawing, you know. But in retrospect, of course, it was a great investment. And so I went to the show and uh yeah, it just blew my mind. I saw them at the Meadowlands in New Jersey, it was April 1984. I was I saw them on the second, and so I saw the first night, and they were uh they were unbelievable. I don't need to tell anyone who was listening to this podcast what it was like. It was so loud and it was just so uh mind-boggling. I mean, one of the things that was kind of uh funny was uh I'd been to a couple of shows before, um, but nothing like Van Halen. And I remember Roth was like, you know, basically like cursing and telling people like, fuck the rest of the show, let's go get drunk across the street. And I was like, you could do that, like you know, it was sort of like at the time where, like, you know, on broadcast TV you couldn't curse and stuff like that, but I was like, wow, you know, you could, and then it was just the whole thing was so over the top with Roth just being able to control the audience. I mean, to me, beyond the the Van Halen, the Eddie Van Halen factor and the whole Van Halen thing, which was so incredible, but just the the way that Roth could absolutely control the audience was just incredible. I mean, I've never I still have never seen a performer do that, uh, the way he did that that night. And uh, you know, after that, it was I was a fan for life. I'd had uh, you know, I'd bought the 1984 album, but then I started going back and buying the other records. And so that was, yeah, the magical summer of 1984 or MTV, Martha Quinn, the whole nine yards. That was all, you know, Mark Goodman, the whole Van Halen thing was up and running, uh, particularly on MTV, but on the radio. And then uh yeah, so that was sort of my beginning. And uh later on saw the Hagar tours, saw the Roth Edom and Smile Tour twice in New Jersey. And, you know, I just kind of went along with my uh my fandom and and did my my thing and just kept uh my education going. And so ended up uh going to grad school and getting a PhD in history, which is the other kind of twist of this whole plot. And uh yeah, that was sort of what led me to do the books eventually.
SPEAKER_01That's awesome. So was Van Halen your number one band growing up?
SPEAKER_02Were there other bands you were into that brought you to Van Halen, or maybe Van Halen opened the door for you know, and what interesting, like when it I don't know if you guys remember, I'm sure you guys do actually remember that in the like the like 8180, there was the whole Apocalypse Now Doors legacy thing, which really became like you know, Morrison was on the cover of Rolling Stone. And for whatever reason, in my LM elementary school, I don't know, like you know, the doors tapes were being passed around, and I started listening to the doors, and I actually, you know, uh that was really the first band that I really, really got into. And um, you know, that was, you know, in some ways with the whole LA sound thing, which was obviously the psychedelic era and the whole thing, but you know, when I started to read about Van Halen's beginnings, like, oh, they played the whiskey like the, you know, like the doors, they played the whiskey and sort of understanding the whole LA scene as being the you know, just such fertile soil for growing so many amazing bands over the years. So, you know, it didn't lead me necessarily to my Van Halen fandom, but it definitely made me oh, Van Halen came out of LA. Well, of course, they didn't come out of like, I don't want to mention any other cities that are, but you know, there are other cities in the United States, you'd be like, What, like what? There's no way that band came out of that city. Obviously, like you know, LA, New York, Chicago would be like the big, you know, the big, particularly at LA and New York. So it kind of like made sense. You're like, oh, this makes sense about that. But um, yeah, I mean, that was kind of the first, the doors was the first band that I really, really, you know, bought the tapes and had that. And then I uh Van Halen came along and kind of uh replaced them in some ways.
SPEAKER_00Right. And at some point you felt so passionate, as we've talked about this on other episodes, where as a fan, and especially pre-internet days, you you want to get closer to the band. You want to do what can I, how can I? And a lot of a lot of guitar players especially will build their own Eddie guitar and paint it and do all of that stuff. And for you, it was I'm gonna write a book, right? Like, tell us about that decision or how you came to write Van Halen Rising.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I mean, definitely. I mean, so I was an early, I don't know, early, but I like one of the things I started doing fairly early on in my fan event, and so it should have been 84 was trading tapes. Um, you know, I've talked to other guys who did that too, and actually, you know, and now have become friends with some of the guys I sort of traded tapes with through the mail. It was like you you went in the back of Circus Magazine and it said like bootleg albums. And I actually, uh one of my broke prize possessions was I got a copy, like a lot of people did back then of a copy of the Van Halen 1984 tour uh show from Montreal on video, like right. So, like, you know, at that point it was like, you know, it's so funny now, like, you know, the the a very good copy is on YouTube and didn't watch anytime, but it was like third generation, and it was like, you know, but it was it was very similar, if not almost exactly the same, to the show I saw in New Jersey. So that was actually in some ways really cool too. Uh and you know, that was part of building my interest in Van Halen history. You know, I would get tapes from like 78. There was a tape that came out um that was kind of a classic bootleg that was recorded in Paris, and they played an early version of Mean Street called Voodoo Queen, which never made it to a record, obviously, until 81, and it had different lyrics. And so you're like, oh, they had, you know, they had other earlier songs, and you'd get little bits of demos, a little bit of the Gene Simmons demo was being traded back then. Um, you know, so that sort of, you know, as a guy who was very history-minded, I was raised by uh a professor, and it's just sort of was my way of thinking of things about about things, about history and about the origins of things. And so that was kind of a good, you know, I I'd read some of the Van Halen Allen books that were sort of the more popular, like fan-driven, cheapy paperbacks in the 80s and stuff. And but by the time I got, you know, by the time I got to be uh a professional historian, I my whole thought process at that time when I started doing uh Van Halen research or whatever, it was just for something for fun to blow off some steam. It was really, you know, my day job, I was a professor at the time and teaching at a university in the Midwest, and I just wanted to, you know, do something for fun one summer. And I just started to snowball into like, oh um, I talked to a guy who was a club owner of a place called the Rock Corporation in Van Nuys, which was the club where Van Halen played wet t-shirt contests. It was definitely one of the pioneering clubs in LA that actually had like a wet t-shirt contest as like a come to the come to our bar tonight, there's gonna be a wet t-shirt contest. And you know, hearing those stories from him, and Roth had talked a little bit about that in some interviews, I was like, holy, you know, this stuff, there's something really here. And then got to talk to some guys in Pasadena who either wrote it for them or held backyard parties. And I sort of realized that there was a you know a book there. And in particular, I I one thing I'd really want to emphasize was that back then you'd go on Wikipedia and there'd be like three paragraphs or five paragraphs, you know, three like at the most three paragraphs about Van Halen's beginnings. It'd be like the brothers came from the Netherlands, they came to America, they met David Lee Roth, the band was called Mammoth, they became Van Halen, they played in bars and played in clubs, they played the whiskey. It might mention Gene Simmons, it probably mentioned Ted Templeman, but none of the dates were right. And it was just sort of this black hole of time. And, you know, I started to really get driven by that, wanted to fill that gap. I kind of, you know, no offense to the to the brothers or to uh I never thought they were gonna, I'm glad Alex did a book at that time. I really thought like Alex would probably never do a book. Eddie didn't seem to be particularly motivated to do a rock bio. And I really wanted to try to fill not you know, not replace their perspective on things, but basically try to document this history, especially because, you know, at the time I'm 56, you know, a lot of the guys who were they're they're there, they were older. They were like, you know, and you sort of realize that this is perishable, not that they were on their deathbeds, but you know, it's just if you don't do it, like 20 years later, like half those people may have been passed. And so I just wanted to sort of talk document how hard those guys worked to make it too, because that was really what came through when talking to so many people who were, you know, I talked to over 200 people to do the Van Hill and Rising book, and that included, you know, just regular a lot of guys who were just like went to high school, it was like, you have no idea how hard these guys work. They would like play four or five nights a week, they'd play at guizares, they play at you know, biker bars, they'd play at backyard parties, and just you know, beyond the fun of that, what how fun those stories were, it was just sort of you realize they weren't really making any money. They were just busting their ass doing this because they loved it. And honestly, you know, 1976, 1977 comes around. They they, you know, late 76 before Gene, they probably didn't have a super lot of hope that they were going to get a deal. I'm sure they were, you know, as optimistic as they could be, but you know, at that point, they had been at it for a couple of years and they had not gotten a record deal after playing everywhere across Los Angeles before Gene came along and then Ted, and that's a different story.
SPEAKER_01After all the interviews uh for Van Halen Rising, uh, what was the biggest myth about the early VH there that turned out to be wrong?
SPEAKER_02Wow, that's a really, really good uh good question. Um what was the the biggest myth? I think for me, the biggest eye-opener was how Roth was perceived. You know, Roth has always cultivated an image, and rightly so, for of being a superstar, ultimate front man. And so when I started to hear these stories from guys who were fans of the brothers' band Mammoth, which was a power trio at the time, and then had a keyboard player. I won't get into the weeds on that, but when they when Roth was brought in, and again, we understand this was like their local high school circuit of like friends, we're talking like, you know, whatever, however many, three, four hundred people who would have been like into their band at the time, like playing in Pasadena, they really weren't playing in other towns. Um, we're like, this is a disaster. Like, why are you hiring this guy? This guy sucks, he can't sing. He's you know, he's basically there was there was a lot of opposition, and even um to really see how driven and how confident, and I don't even know if confidence the right word, but just basically how single-minded Roth was and how much more I admired him after seeing, like when you heard that from people, um, one of the best stories I heard was from a guy who said, like one of the first, um, he went to one of the first parties that Roth was the front man. And again, it was not very, even Roth talks about that in his book. It was not very together. They were like, you know, it was just not great. Like they were still learning their uh learning each other and hadn't really fit together. And the guy, this guy, friend of Eddie's, went up to him and said, You got to get rid of this guy. And Eddie turned around and pointed to him and said, You don't understand, we need this guy. Like the brothers had sort of realized that, you know, this is what we need. He has talent, it's just, you know, it needs work, basically. And they and they but you know, they had his back, basically. And that was, you know, really made me admire those guys and also admire Roth for kind of standing in the face of that sort of like mockery, basically, and sort of be like, oh, you know, I'm gonna, I'm gonna um hang with this and continue to build into something better rather than going, I'm not cut out for this. Like a lot of people would be like, right, you know, you get just basically like, you know, when when the band's fans, and again, understand we're talking about uh, you know, a few hundred people, we're not talking like tens of thousands of people, but when the fan base, the guys who basically pay to get the parties to see you are basically of the opinion that this was a terrible mistake and they should get rid of you as the singer, it's just it can't be like a great feeling to kind of go up there. But he, you know, he always like just got up there and did his thing, and so that's that really made me admire Roth. So the myth of like Roth was like, you know, this magical front man from the beginning of the eyes of everybody. Um, it wasn't true. But of course, you know, he probably was doing the similar stuff that he would do later that people would cheer, but basically to them Mammoth was like this dark black Sabbath, the guys they all wore flannels, their base, you know, it was just not a flashy thing. It was like those guys getting up there in jeans and flannel shirts and then playing like Black Sabbath and like cream perfect songs. They didn't have a guy who was wearing, you know, uh just outrageous outfits, satin, like literally like satin and all this stuff, like you know, top hat and cane, all this stuff that was like kind of glitter, like you know, basically like the Alice Cooper glitter thing, Roth, not exactly, but you guys get it. He was like more influenced by that type of look, and to have that vibe be brought to Van Halen for what it was at the time, that was very eye-opening to see, like, oh, there was actually Roth had to basically you know come into his own as the front man of Van Halen and be kind of accepted by their local pasty and fans.
SPEAKER_00For sure. I mean, that's the first uh line of defense is you got to get past your friends, right? You gotta convince somebody that you're worth watching. And and let's just take into account that so you've got guys coming up to Eddie and Al saying, hey, you got to get rid of this guy. What were the ladies saying, right? The ladies weren't saying that, right? Dave was bringing the ladies.
SPEAKER_02No, and that was and that was the other, that was the other interesting too. So Roth had this band called you know, Red Ball Jet, which was kind of an also rant against Van Halen, but they always were kind of a um thing that people wanted to go see. The basic, you know, it was they uh that you know, that it was Roth was the was the show, and he had four guys behind him basically playing like rhythm and blues or like early rock and roll or whatever, stones and like playing like Chuck Berry songs. And um, yeah, I mean, Roth always drew attention, and and Roth definitely brought the female angle. And that was the thing, too. Like the the brothers really saw it as it seems like the early version of Van Halen was just like the show is the music, right? What you go to, and that's why they had so many, like, especially male musician friends, were like people were blown away. Like they played entire sides of of Live at Leeds. They play the whole first side, every single song. And again, it was, you know, it was a shorter album, it's not like that CD today, but it was like you know, 15, 18 minutes or whatever it was. They'd play that whole thing no for note, and then they'd play, you know, um, a cream song from from Wheels of Fire or something like that. And they would, you know, Eddie was singing, and so that was the that was the sort of the sell for that. And then have this guy come in who's like more flashy and stuff, Roth, but they knew the brothers recognized Eddie knew that he wasn't up for singing, or Alex could see it too that they weren't up eventually. He was like, Yeah, we need you can't do it, right? You're not gonna be able to do this, even if Roth was not Ian Gillen or I mean that's the thing, right? You're you're comparing him to these guys who in the era, like that was the type of stuff Roth was trying to sing, and clearly Roth's not really cut out to sing like you know, just sing like Ian Gillen. That's not his style. Um, covering black covering deep purple songs, but you know, Roth won people over, and Roth, yes, the girls definitely were were were drawn to Van Halen because Roth, more girls, for sure.
SPEAKER_00For sure. And you and you work with what you've got and you and you lean into you know your your attributes. Let me ask you this. Um if you can remember, I know that uh Van Halen Rising came out a little while ago, but um are there any stories that you recall that for whatever reason, space, time, etc., um, any stories that stick out that didn't make it into the book that are noteworthy?
SPEAKER_02I mean, there was one which I never was able to verify, which at the end of the day I couldn't, for obvious reasons when you hear the story, I couldn't really like press too hard. There was supposedly a girl who who agreed to hire a Van Halen on the on the uh and pay whatever amount of money, but she was she demanded to sleep with Roth. And supposedly that happened, which again is like in retrospect, is like, well, sure, like of course that probably happened, but um actually a guy I a guy I you know, a guy I interviewed was actually like, I know the girl, and I was like, Yeah, I don't, I don't, you know, if she, you know, here's my number, if she wants to pass along, I'm not gonna like call up and be like, so I'm gonna interview you for my book. So you tell me about like, you know, I didn't want to like walk it up to that to be because it may have been something she's like, yeah, like I have like five kids now, and I'm not really happy. But I, you know, that was one thing that I would, you know, in theory, I would have liked to do a deep dive, do a deep dive on that and get all the details. But you know, there was all sorts of like, you know, just just um the the you know, the one story about Eddie overdosing, which actually Alex ended up talking about in his book, and out and Eddie had talked about um in a couple of radio interviews where he took PCP instead of cocaine. That was something that I had heard from a couple of guys who were there, and one person in particular, a woman who was there who helped get Eddie into a car to come to the hospital. I mean, that was that was probably the most, I don't know, shocking thing that um I would had heard firsthand from people. But and again, Eddie had talked about that in an interview in the 90s where he said I took, I thought it was coke and it was PCP, and I like had a seizure basically. And um, it's crazy. I mean, I think about what could have happened because he was uh apparently was just yeah, was like like completely seizing from that.
SPEAKER_01And so um, yeah, but uh, but yeah, the girl story would have been the one that would have been like, yeah, just let me ask you this because sure, you know, I'm I'm not a writer, I've never written a book. I don't think I probably ever will. I don't think it's in my DNA.
SPEAKER_02I don't recommend it, it doesn't make you any money really in the life. You don't get rich remember you guys are better, like YouTube's the way to go.
SPEAKER_01But what I'm curious about is where do you start? Right. Like what what's the like do you uh do you go after the interviews with the artists? Do you do you go after uh these people over here do you talk to someone working? Where does it begin? And and how does it snowball where others will start to take you seriously? Like well, what's that route?
SPEAKER_02That's a great, that's a great question. I think the thing if you're near Neil Strauss and you have like the endorsement of the band, right? You can call up anybody. Like if you're doing the Motley Crew story, you can call up like you know, all the guys in Cheap Trick and say, hey, I've got, you know, I'm doing the Motley Crew book, and they're immediately going to talk to you, right? And so, but in doing the book I was doing, I was a history professor with an interest in Van Halen. And so I started grassroots, right? I was just talking to locals, talking to guys who had been promoters. I ended up talking to people like eventually kind of working my way up the food chain, so to speak, talking to like Marshall Burrell, Don Landy, Ted Templeman, talking to Mike Anthony. You know, the last people I asked to talk to was I I I um sent an email to um to Ed and um his wife at the time, Janie, very politely said, Hey, you know, Ed's not gonna whatever, just Ed's not available for interviews. Good luck with your project. She was very polite, very nice. And so um that was a pass. And then I I ended up sending a message to uh Roth through her through his manager. And about two weeks went by and I heard to know too. And but they were the like they were the last of the last, right? I mean, because it was clearly not something where it was never they were never going to like sign on early with an unknown quantity. And I knew those guys, you know, Roth had done his book, and I kind of knew that that point my understanding was that the brothers were not particularly interested in doing books. That changed, I think, after Ed passed, and Alex wanted to kind of tell his story of his brother, which I'm really glad it's uh it was a great read. But um, so yeah, I mean that but at that point, you know, it was just I had already done 90% of the work on the book, and I was just actually, I honestly had general questions for those guys. And it, you know, would have been great for my project to be like I interviewed David Lee Roth, like I could say I interviewed Mike, Anthony, but um, you know, I wasn't looking for them to re to re reframe my story at that point because I had done the done the work, you know, and sort of in setting it up the way I I sort of saw it happening. And again, Alex was going to tell his story his way. And if Mike ever writes a book, that would be fantastic, and he would kind of tell that origin story too his way. But it was my you know, my take on what it was based on what I learned through my research and my interviews and stuff.
SPEAKER_00And and you're probably better off because to your point, you know, had anybody else gotten involved, the book might have been edited a little differently. Oh, sure. You know, um it's interesting, it's interesting that you uh then go, obviously, the success with the book, because then you're asked to do the Ted Templeman story, you know, Van Halen's producer. Right. That's a that's a nice jump for you. How did that come about?
SPEAKER_02Right. Well, it was actually the I actually asked Ted, yeah. It was like, so um, so Ted, you know, that was one of the more again. I'm a guy, you know, grew up a Van Halen fan. I was never um had some master plan 20 years ago to write a Van Halen book, it happens, whatever. And so I ended up doing a book event, and I had a friend uh in Pasadena at Romans Books, and that was going to be kind of the book launch in Pasadena. And a friend of mine was talking to him, and I said, Oh yeah, um, you know, Ted lives pretty close. I should ask him to come down. He's like, Why don't you ask him to come up and do the QA? And I was like, Oh no. And he was like, Ask. So I'd interviewed Ted a couple of times for the book, and he was great. Uh he was great. And uh I called him up and I just said, Hey, I'm doing this book launch. If you want to come down and sign some books and hang out, answer questions, I think people would love that. And he was like, Oh, oh yeah. And so it had turned out that Ted had actually worked at Vroman's um as a as a young person. I think he worked either, he either applied for a job. Or worked there because he lived in Pasadena. And so he was very familiar with the bookstore. And he was like, Oh, yeah, that sounds like fun. Okay, when? I told him and he was like, Okay, yeah, I'll be there. And he he showed up. And so he answered questions and did this, the videos on YouTube. And just, you know, he hadn't really been out and about in public very much and had been, you know, he's retired as he is. And just uh it was just fantastic. And at the end of the night, I just sort of said to him, I said, I kind of like fill on myself and been like, someone should write your story. And he was like, Oh no, no one would ever want to read that. And I was like, no, I think they would. And he was like, okay, and we talk a little bit more about it. And, you know, I think at the beginning, honestly, he kind of thought like Greg's a nice guy, like his Van Halen book. If he wants to like muck around with this for a couple of, you know, a few weeks and kind of like lose interest, he'll lose interest. And I, you know, I knew there was a great story there. Ted was um Ted grew up in Santa Cruz, was kind of a surfer guy, went to college, played jazz, was a a bit of a musical prodigy as a kid, and then was in a band called Harper's Bazaar. They had a couple of pop hits in the late 60s, and then he goes to work for Warner Brothers and so on and so forth. And I sort of sort of knew there was an interesting journey there, a life journey of rather being like a guy who just like, you know, joined a band, got got signed, and then did the usual rock and roll thing. Ted was a executive for Warner Brothers and then was a producer and was a musician, played on a lot of the records he produced. And so uh I knew that that was going to be a quite a you know, quite a great story, just beyond the Van Halen part. I mean, he did, you know, like go through Little Feet, uh Doobie Brothers, right? You know, he worked with some yes, and the list is absolutely endless. So that whole um that's how that it just I pitched to him and I just sort of started building some momentum, and he was like, Great. Okay, and then he would send me emails and we would call and I'd call him up and interview him, and I just kind of kept putting it together, did a lot of research for that one too, to kind of you know fill out things that were um just you know, things he didn't recall in terms of like when that happened, I'd have to go back and look and sort of to flesh it all out. But um, yeah, it was a great honor and it was an awesome experience.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, for sure. I bet I wonder if um, you know, what what's your opinion on Ted's greatest contribution to the to the Van Halen uh you know story that that fans might not be aware of? You know, I mean we all know that he was the producer and you know he he produced these albums, right? What are some of the things that maybe he he's not credited for that he should be?
SPEAKER_02Sure, that's a great question. I mean, beyond I think most people knew that you know Ted was the guy who went down to the Starwood and saw them. I you know, I think the one thing I really tried to emphasize in Van Halen Rising, which I think is very accurate, is that at that point, pretty much every record record executive in LA kind of knew about Van Halen because they had played the whiskey for a long time. And again, these at the this was a time at a time when you know A and R guys sent their their assistants down, or they went down and they they sat and they would listen to bands and watch bands and kind of get their, you know, hoping to catch lightning in a bottle and sign sign bands. This had this went on on the strip, obviously, in the 80s, big time, and it was going on in the 70s and even the 60s. And so people knew about Van Halen in the industry. Um, and then Gene had come along, Gene Simmons, and had done a demo with them in uh New York and finished it off in LA, and then uh excuse me, LA and then finished it off in New York. And then, you know, he doesn't able to get them a deal. And that's detailed in my book, and Gene has talked about this too. Basically, the other guys in KISS were kind of like, meh, you know, and kind of it seemed like there was a kind of a there was mo there was a lot of um, I don't want to say collusion, but there was basically like beyond management of KISS and KI and the other guys in KISS were not really interested in Gene becoming like the new mogul of Apple Records for KISS or they're like the little, like the little boutique label. So they kind of scotched that whole Van Halen thing. Um, so the the signing of Van Halen, but I think the other thing that people, you know, which is detailed, I think, pretty well in the in the Templeman book, is how hard Ted worked um arranging with those guys and work with those guys. I mean, producers do a lot of good producers do a lot of pre-production work. And Roth uh had the house in Pasadena that his his father owned, and they the brothers and Mike and Dave spent a lot of time in the basement of the Pasadena house, the one that Roth still lives in today, the mansion. And Ted lived only, you know, lived like minutes away from that house. He had a house in Pasadena too, with and he would go over there after he got done at Warner Brothers or working in the studio in Hollywood. He would go and like sit in the basement and listen to the songs. You know, he and he talked about working with those guys to arrange those songs. He one of the things he really loved to talk about was just basically how how Incinct Ed and Al were, where Ed would play some riff and Mike and Al would be like, oh, what about that other part? And they were like trying to arrange the songs and basically put parts together and maybe change things and like, oh yeah. And like they basically shared the same musical brain, and then Ed would remember and do this thing, and then Al could play along. Uh so Ted spent a lot of time working with those guys in pre-production. The other thing that Ted did a lot with, Ted was a vocalist in his band Harper's Bazaar, and had sort of the trademark of doing harmonies with the dubies and all this stuff. I think he was really somebody who was most responsible for sort of sculpting Roth's vocals on record. So if you listen to the Gene Simmons demo, Roth says some says some fine performances on there, but really, you know, especially with things like Running with the Devil and sort of I'm the one and some of the other stuff, this sort of kind of captures the the whole David Lee Roth vocal approach that kind of becomes his trademark. Ted was important for sort of figuring out, I think, as I often explain it to people, just basically telling to Roth, like, don't do that, do this. Like I'd listened to the demos, um, some of the leaked Van Hillen demos with with Gene, but also with the stuff that was done with Ted that leaked on bootlegs in the 90s. And Ted would just say that was like flat out unacceptable. And he wasn't like trying to trash Roth, but he's like, that's the type of stuff that would like Roth was trying to hit something, and he's like, it doesn't sound good. Like he just needed somebody to basically coach him. Um, so I think there was a lot of work done with Roth, probably less work done with Ed in terms of like in the studio, like Ed and Don Landy really hit it off. And so Ted spent a lot of time um working with with uh Dave. And in fact, he often talked about, which again, I you know, yeah, I really admire Roth. Like basically there was part, you know, parts that they need to read to redo. They were going to uh their comp parts together, and like they they would send Roth would stay and he'd send the other guys home. He, you know, he'd just be like, Oh, we're done. And like Roth, he's like, Dave, you stay. And like they would work alone at some listening, you know, playing, playing back and just working on this is the melody you want for tomorrow, whatever, like whatever he wanted him to do to sort of like prep him. And he didn't want he told me he had the other guys leave because he's like he didn't want to see one of the other guys to see him struggling, basically. He wanted to give Roth the ability to kind of be, I don't know, you know, coach him in private, basically, to be like, get him ready, like prep him up. Like, so like, you know, you're not seeing like an actor's first rehearsal. So when he was in the studio with the guys, the next day he'd be ready to go and working really hard to try to make that um that all work together. So I think that would be one thing. Roth and um, you know, Roth and Ted really had a also very similar mind with with lyrics. So, you know, a lot of the uh lyrics and um songs, so one of the great stories is something, you know, like uh when they were gonna do you know you know good, or these other songs that sort of got to be uh kind of dicey with the with the brothers and with the cover songs later. But basically, more than Ed and Al, you know, Roth and and Ted had the same sort of Motown um early musical education where they had that sort of early 60s radio songs in their mind and sort of the harmonies and the stuff is as Roth has talked about so eloquently about like you know, Van Hanlen's like the basically putting the the harmonies of the temple, uh the temptations on top of like Black Sabbath, basically, is like what he said, like you know, tongue in cheek. But um, you know, Ted really knew that that song craft and like they were able to sort of connect on those, like knowing the same parts and songs, and you know, because the songs got popular. I mean, they really did, and a lot, and a lot of the the last thing I'd say that Ted did too is like if you listen to the 25-song demo, which is on YouTube and it's been leaked a number of times, a lot of them were like dirty heavy metalists. There's songs like Light in the Sky and these other songs that really never made records that were much more like like Ted got rid of all that stuff and just basically said, like, yeah, we want some stuff to be like atomic punk and be aggressive, but he wanted it to be like, as he said, a sunk-kissed pop sound, like the Beach Boys harmonies over heavy metal. That's what Ted saw, and that's what he had tried to do with mantras, not as not as maybe heavily with the harmonies, but he wanted to make pop-friendly at what the time would have been called heavy metal. Like I was stressed this to people. It's like at the time, 1976, Blue Isher Cult was heavy metal. Like there's like that was it. Like they were like, It's true. Why did you call the book Saving Heavy Metal? It wasn't they're not heavy metal. Well, 1976. If you look on Circus Magazine, you know, at least they were saying Van Halen's heavy metal, kiss is heavy metal. You know, Ted wanted to make, and really that he was the one who I think, along with Roth, but particularly saw, like, let's really streamline the songs, like maybe cut Ed solos down a little bit, just make it more pop-friendly for the radio. Um, you know, Dance the Night away, this other stuff is kind of the ultimate, the ultimate of that type of stuff. But that was really Ted's Ted's uh contributions.
SPEAKER_01Let me uh let me ask you this. I've always been curious about this. Uh the word is when they were recording that first Van Halen record, Ted Templeman wasn't completely sold on Davidly Roth. And uh rumor has it he was actually talking about Sammy Hagar, which 10 years later about became a reality. Um Ted produced Sammy's solo record, you know, VOA. And I guess what I've always been curious about was when Dave and Van Halen parted ways, Ted went with Dave, which was a shock to me that we didn't stay with Van Halen. And why did that come about? Why did that happen? Was there a bond that tight from the things you're telling me? They they hung out in the studio themselves, and there was a trust factor there and and uh guidance. And was there tension between uh Ted and Van Halen uh after that? Were they ever in communication or anything of the sort that you know of?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so there's a lot to unpack there. I'll start with the with the Sammy thing. So what Ted told me, and it's in the Templeman memoir, is that you know, he loved when he saw Van Halen in the club, he really, really loved them. But when he got them in the studio a few months later, and he really heard Dave under the microscope of a studio microphone, like, you know, like there's no escaping from that in the demos, he was just like, I don't know. He was like, I I don't know. Um, he felt there was just, I mean, he did he just didn't know if it was the right, the right fit. Now, Ted has told the way Ted always told the story was like that basically he may have whispered this to Don Landy, the engineer who just late engineer who was such an amazing part of the Van Halen story and just passed away. But he never told the brothers and he never told Mike because and he never told Dave because he, you know, he didn't want to like have that sort of like negative impact on the band. Uh Ted said that you know, soon enough he figured out like within like whatever, going back to the basement, working with those guys, and how how brilliant Roth was, and he sort of saw the raw materials there to work with. And again, what I talked about already, which is sort of like, okay, stop doing this, and you're gonna do this, and we're gonna work on sort of exent uh like anyone accentuating your strengths. So he said he sort of like tossed that idea out. Now, I I think the thing is the brothers did know about that. I'll just jump ahead and I'll jump back. The brothers did know about that, um, because when Van Halen split, they often talked about that in circus magazine, like, yeah, we should have just gotten Sammy back in 1970 eight or whatever. So I suspect that Don probably told them at some point along the way that he had mentioned that, maybe maybe even after like they split. He may have mentioned, I don't know when that exactly that came to about that he told them, but the brothers did know. But Ted, to be clear, Ted said he would have been making one of the biggest probably he said like the biggest mistake in rock history, right? That he just said it wouldn't have worked with Sammy then. Um the irony is that Ted opposed the to Sammy joining Van Halen uh in 1985 and was like pretty vocal about that. Um, but in terms of the you know the difficulties, I think I think one of the things that ended up happening, there were there were troubles making fair warning. And I mean troubles insofar as that um from what I remember from talking to Don, who had passed away in a little bit of a Ted about this, is that just basically there was there was um Ted didn't, I think the records, the records had been declining in sales, like basically the records had been kind of tearing down, and I think there was sort of a sense among Ted that he really wanted the um wanted to try to direct those guys towards being more commercial. And Ed at that time was really, especially the stuff on Fair Warning, it's much more dark and much more, it's there's really not a great single. I mean, so we all love Unchained, but Unchained was not going to play on AM radio in 1981, right? Just as not a it's not like a dance the night away, it's not pretty woman, it wasn't that type of single. And so there was definitely some um tension between Ed and Ted at that point. And so that really was what kind of started to spark the the thinking, I think, in Ed's mind about building a studio. The way uh I was told the story was that initially they really just wanted to have a demo, basically Don and Ed wanted to build a demo studio in Ed's backyard, thinking that if we can present really well-crafted demos from like studio quality demos to Ted, we might have a better case and sort of like making, you know, again, not wanting to split with Ted at this time, but they wanted to make the case for for Ed's vision for songs. But as the studio was built and it sounded so great, and this is late 1982, early 1983, they pitched the idea to Ted to doing the record there, and Ted agrees, and they agree to do the record in in um Ed's backyard. But what you know, what it really I think ended up happening was there was um if you make a record in your backyard, right? It's it's your it's your playground, it's your sandbox. And I think a lot of that was sort of like this Don Landy, who, as I mentioned, um, was their engineer, was basically living there, you know, around the clock, and he would they would do a lot of work when Ted wasn't around, which Ted was okay with, but I think the the sort of like Ted as the arbiter of things ultimately, Ted realized that things were sort of slipping away, and there was a lot of um just sort of a I think a which Ted would say in retrospect was just sort of a disconnect, maybe caused by substances and other stuff that sort of like oh you know, Ted's trying to stop us from do this or doing that. And really, you know, Ted's whole point was that when something like Jump came along, Ted talked about how at first he was like, I don't know about like I don't like I don't know. Like it's a good song, but I don't know if Van Halen should be putting this out as a Van Halen branded song. Ted's position on that kind of I think gets misconstrued. Like Ted was always kind of like, you know, I didn't like it. And I think what he means is I didn't like it for Van Halen. Like he's like, you know, he he could recognize that it was catchy, right? He was like, but I don't know if they should those guys should like do that that that much of a a shift. So I think that probably offended offended Ed. And again, all these songs like I'll wait, that Ted was very lukewarm on Jump, which um Ted's favorite favorite joke about that is that he told Ed that it sounded like something you'd be played in like Dodger Stadium. So like duh du, you know, like that. And so, like, and then he's like, sounds like he'd be playing a stadium, and they must have had some sort of disagreement about that.
SPEAKER_00Um, and uh listen, jump is a is a long way from unchained, right?
SPEAKER_02Like, and then five, yeah, and then five years, you know, and then like whatever a year later, like Ted is a I mean, I don't know if he will be on the TV or on Dodger Stadium, he's like they're playing jump, and he's like, I was right, you know, so I mean you know, in you know, it was um it was a difficult, it was a difficult split for for uh Ted. You know, he had he had discovered the band and produced their records, and it was pretty clear that it just was it was probably best that those guys go in a different direction. Uh it's a longer story. I mean it's a long, it's a long ass story about how all that that went down, which is I think they tailed accurately in the in the in the book. Um, but yeah, he ended up going with Dave. And I, you know, the thing I would say too is that there was this sort of mythology that there was like this deep hatred, like the you know, and again, I'm not I'm not doubting that the brothers were pissed off at at Ted, and I'm not doubting that Ted was pissed off at the brothers or or whatever. Um, but when they went to sequence 5150, Don Don, Landy, their engineer, and Ed, and probably Alc went to to Ted's office at Warner Brothers and they listened to the songs, and Ted like helped sequence them. You know, he's an executive of Warner Brothers. It wasn't like he was like, get those guys the fuck out of here. I want to see him, you know, it wasn't like that. Um, but uh it was, you know, it was definitely a uh a sad a sad thing for for Ted. I mean, he was just, you know, he loved, as he said, loved, loved the original Van Halen. That was one of the reasons why, which was so awkward in some ways, so which also made this more complicated, was that the initial thought was like, We've got Sammy. You you basically, I don't know, it's discovered mantros, basically, like signed mantros. You were the one who basically did their first record, which is a classic, and we're the first vocalist, it was the first, excuse me, the first, um, the first vocalist of Montrose for the first two records which Ted produced. Ted was working with Sammy, and like, like, why would you not want that? But you know, Ted's position was that to me, it was the original. I'm kind of putting words in Ted's mouth, but it'd be like, oh, we're gonna replace Robert Plant with somebody. We're gonna replace Robert Plant with Ian Gillen. Like, it's not Led Zeppelin anymore. I'm sorry it's not. And that was Ted's position on that. And uh that ended up being kind of a yeah, uh uh an impasse that was, you know, got, I just I don't know, I don't want to say got toxic. That's an over-exaggeration, probably, but it was just like they just didn't see eye to eye about that. And of course, Sammy was pissed off, obviously. It's like you're like, you know, I thought we were friends, and now you're like, you know, like you're basically like trying to like, you know, basically not put the endorsement on this new version of Ann Halen. But that was, I mean, I don't know if I answered the whole question, but that's basically the whole thing.
SPEAKER_01It's uh side note after producing Eat Him and Smile, um, Ted did not hop on skyscraper. Was that uh Dave saying, I want to take the reins on this one with uh Steve Vai, or did Ted offer his services and was declined? Uh, what happened there? Do you know?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that was, you know, um, so I'm going back in my memory banks about how all that went down. I know that Ted passed up on it on um at that time. Ted had done Done with Mirrors, right? He'd done uh Eatham and Smile and he'd done Done with Mirrors with Aerosmith. There was a he was in the running to do the Aerosmith follow-up, which ended up not happening. He and Claudner didn't see eye to eye, and I think Claudner was just sort of like, yeah, we need something different. It didn't work with Done with Mirrors. Um and then there was I I I'm it's escaping my my brain. What was the other Ted Ted passed up on something that was a fairly significant project because he's like, No, I'm doing the fucking doing the album with Roth. And as Ted tells the story, it's not not very um, doesn't really shine the grit the best light on on Roth, but he went to like Roth's you know office basically and be like, Hey, what you know, when are we gonna get started? And Ted's like, basically, after all these records, he's like, Well, I'm going in a different direction, I don't need your services anymore. So Ted was obviously pretty pissed off about that. And uh Steve and and uh Dave decided to produce Skyscraper. Um, you know, Billy Billy left as well around that time. I'm not sure exactly when Billy left, but I think after the recording session, Billy Sheehan left. But um, yeah, that was a uh a surprise to Ted. And he had um, you know, I think I don't think I'm putting words in his mouth to say that he really felt like he'd he had basically gone to bat for Dave a lot of times at Warner Brothers, which just stuff like you know, the EP, like everything like that had worked out well, but basically he had always been there to sort of help promote and basically support Dave and his creative endeavors, and basically had, you know, obviously sided sided with Dave during the whole split, but that was what um yeah, that's what happened. And then they did skyscraper without him, which you know the I think that's up to the public to decide. I'm not I'm not a big fan of skyscraper, but um, that's what ended up happening, Steve. And and uh, I mean, I guess the one thing I would say is if you listen to Skyscraper, you know, you can really hear Steve and Dave did like an enormous amount of layering of tracks, right? Whereas like with Edom and Smile, it's basically like one guitar, bass, drums, just the original like Van Halen formula, which is very few overdubs, relatively live takes, and just sort of raw in-your-face rock and roll, um, which is what Ted did with Done with Mirrors, too, by the way. Uh, but that was just a different, a different approach. And I, you know, I think it was just a surprise to Ted, and he had he was um blindsided by it and had, as I said, had passed up. I can't remember the name of the band, which band he passed up, but it was a fairly big project that would have been um you know, basically being left with nothing, right? Like he'd be passed off thinking that they were gonna start.
SPEAKER_00And then I think he went on to produce, if I'm not mistaken, the Bullet Boys uh correct, correct.
SPEAKER_02He did like Honeymoon Sweet and stuff like that. He did a Bull Boys, a Bullet Boys debut. So that's an interesting story because um at the time, um Ted Ted's sister was an AR rep at um at Warner Brothers. And uh the she's the one who actually Ted's younger sister was an AR rep and did you know she had she had helped sign Devo and Dire Straits. She had a very, very successful um career. And uh she was the one who kind of put bullet boys on his radar, and they did that. And that was engineered by Jeff Hendrickson, who I'm a big um a big fan of. Jeff did um did that when he did the cheap trick, woke up with a monster. He did a bunch of other um uh things he did, he didn't even smile, he did voa. So when Ted and Don Landey split in terms of working together, uh Jeff became Ted's right hand man, and that that is an incredible sounding record. And yeah, that was um that was a uh yeah, that was uh they got the right man for the job for that one for sure. That was like the right guy for that.
SPEAKER_00I can remember hearing that that or seeing the video for the first Bullet Boys single and being like, who is trying to cop Vanhelm this week? Right, right. They went all they went all in. They went all in, yeah. Yeah, they really went all in. But interesting that you bring up the whole uh skyscraper thing. Um, you know, I think that uh that record was a product of the times. Um, you know, Edom and Smile was pretty raw sounding and very Ted Templeman esque in terms of of the production. Um, and Edom and uh skyscraper quite the opposite. But if we all recall at the time, bigger Was better back then, layers upon layers. And also, as far as a product as a producer goes, the the first I don't want to say rookie mistake you make, but usually more is better. Let's let's keep adding more track. It sounds better. But as a producer, as a seasoned producer, you know that that's not always sometimes that's the way to go, but not always the way to go. Right. And it was a much different sound for Roth, and for better or worse, you know, you get skyscraper uh because of it. But interesting. I, you know, uh uh let's uh let's sort of step away and step back a little bit and and come out from under the microscope and and go onto a broader sort of subject for you as a Van Halen fan and for someone who has really, you know, you really are the consummate expert in terms of of the history of this band. Um if you as a fan could go back to any uh period or era of the band or album or tour, where where would you want to be a fly on the wall? Where would you, you know, what's the most interesting era to you or moment in the band's history that you'd really like to know more about?
SPEAKER_02Well, uh okay, I'll take the esoteric one first, the one that's uh not going to be on anybody's radar, but I would have liked to have been in the car uh leaving LAX when they got back from uh New York after they hadn't gotten the deal with Gene. Like I can just imagine, right, that that was the disappointment there must have been absolutely you know stunning. I don't know. It's excuse me, it's like being like a 12-point pick favorite in the Super Bowl, and you're like, we're definitely gonna, this is definitely gonna work for us. You're gonna win. And you're like, what do you mean? Like we've lost and like we have nothing. And so just to um, you know, I actually interviewed the guy who actually picked them up at the airport and drove them back. It was one of Roth's friends from uh from high school, and he was like, Yeah, in the book, he read about it. He's like basically like, you know, the brothers were were pretty despondent. Ross like was basically like it's not over, like it's you know, you know, we're gonna it's gonna work, and like basically like kind of pumping those guys up to be like it's and it's just incredible, right? To be to go from that level of of disappointment and still have your you know David Lee Roth there is as sort of like being like Mr. Optimus and being like we're gonna we're gonna break through. Um and it did happen. Uh, but you can imagine the the devastation of thinking like, okay, at the time, Gene Simmons is you know, one of this 1976, one of the biggest rock stars in the world. I mean, there's like you know, Kiss is like absolutely at the pinnacle of their success. Sure. And Gene Simmons can't get you a record deal. Who's no one's gonna get you a record deal in theory? Like, like who's Gene Williams was per not just said like called made a call to a record company, actually like recorded her demo, personally was advocating for it. And again, there's a bigger story right there. That was basically, you know, Gene didn't go like obviously Gene didn't shop the demo, he didn't go to like every record company in America try to shop it, but basically, um, after the in-house kiss thing didn't work out for wanting to sign bans, he just basically tore up their contract. It was credit, tore up their contract and said, You guys are on your own, go for it, uh, do whatever you want with the tape and and good luck. And that was uh really speaks well to Gene. He didn't take like you know 20% of their future earnings or something like that. And um, but I would have loved to have a lot of people.
SPEAKER_00All that can be said about Gene, right?
SPEAKER_02No, I mean I mean yeah, 100%. I mean, it's like actually like uh there are you know, we all know the stories, right? I've guys who own a piece of certain bands and they their albums come out, and that's kind of the way business was done. Um, but you know, for me, the I always, you know, on on Twitter, I I still do it to an extent, but I used to do it a lot of time as partially as a bit, but it's actually I really think is like the Diver Down gets an unfair. I wish I had seen the Diver Down tour. I mean, I really like, really like Diver Down. I like Diver Down, and again, people are always like you know, it's the worst Roth Van Halen recorded. Maybe it is to them. Um, but to me, it just shows the diversity of the group, the fact that they could do like a sure a Western, you know, a Western a cappella thing. Um, they could do uh just you know the incredible instrumentals, the amazing instrumentals that were done then. Right, right, right. Big band jazz. And I, you know, I know the story of how the album was made as well as anybody. I understand that, you know, at the time, um, you know, the brothers spoke well about the record. They want to sell the record. You're not gonna come out and go our record. We, you know, we're we're pissed off about all the cover songs. You're gonna say it's a good record, right? You know, but I do think there that that over time that sort of became emblematic of like we put up with Roth, we put up with to a lesser extent with Ted's meddling in our vision. And, you know, I think that was one of the things that the brothers kind of harped on is sort of, you know, to basically like, oh, we're gonna kick that record as the as the as the the Davidley Roth emblematic of the of what we dealt with as a the problems where I really, you know, again, I really love the record, and I think it's um it always puts me in a good mood. And I just I always think like, damn, this band is just brilliant. It just shows that. Like you said, like they could do a you know, do a song with their dad playing clarinet and it still sounds like Van Halen. Like, what do you like, you know? And and the thing is, like, we don't have to get into the details on this, but like I've heard other bands we try to do stuff like that on their records, and it just doesn't work. Like Zeppelin could do that. Like sometimes it just feels like it feels like there's no there's no welds, there's no scenes. Like whatever they do, it's like all streamlined and all part of the Van Halen thing, like all part of the Zeppelin thing. And you hear other bands do it and you're like, man, that's don't do that ever again. Like, don't try to do like a rockabilly song. Like, you know, again, they could they they could have done a rockabilly song for sure, and like it would have made it sound like Van Halen. But you know, other bands try to do like, oh, we'll do this little left turn on a record and like get outside of our wheelhouse. And it's like, no, just stick with just stick with your thing because it doesn't, you're not that good, right?
SPEAKER_00And they're a real testament to their time spent as as bar bands, where they were doing all of these different covers. Correct. And you then bring in all of the the Roth, you know, inspirational songs that no one's ever heard of Ice Cream Man and you know, Big Bad Bill, and these songs that like, where are you finding these covers? Right. Um, but you throw in Eddie behind one of those songs, Dancing in the Street. Is there a better cover ever than Dancing in the street?
SPEAKER_02You know, people hate that song, and I actually I absolutely love it. I mean, I think it's like a Dan Hill and disco song. And like you listen to Mike's bass line, he does like disco runs in that. Um, you know, even like um Intruder, you know, that was recorded, you know, all this talk about whatever Mike didn't play on this, Mike didn't play on that, but that was recorded live in the studio. Roth played keyboards on that. They played, they recorded it live in the studio, and again, it's not like super complicated, but like Roth played the keyboards, Ed was playing the Schlitzmalt liquor slide guitar. You know, that's like just just brilliant. Like that's just brilliant shit that you can't, you know, it's gone. Like I said, you can't get that stuff no more. You can't. It's like that was the stuff to me that again, for what it is, I'm glad they did that record instead of like basically, you know, because they could have honestly whatever made any sense to me about that whole period of time is that and Noel's passed away. But um, you know, why they just didn't say to Warner Brothers, like, F you, we're not giving you a record. Like, it wasn't like Warner Brothers is like, we're dropping Van Halen. Like, right. No, I mean, like, no, you're not gonna drop Van Halen, you're not gonna drop one of your most successful bands. I mean, if they just basically put your foot down, I don't know, I don't know what the the leverage was or why that they gave because they always talk about how they didn't want to go on tour and they didn't want to do this, you know. They, you know, and I'm glad we got that fifth Van Halen records. My point is instead of like being pushed off to what became like 1984, because that was what was coming down the you know, coming down the pike or whatever, really, um, in terms of the keyboard stuff. But it just yeah, I I just think it's uh it just really, yes, exactly. Their their versatility again, am I gonna like gun to my head, be like tell you it's like a better record than Fair Warning? No, but like at the end of the day, like I love Diver Down.
SPEAKER_00It's so interesting. Uh you know, we've talked about Diver Down, Tommy and I, many, many times. And I've always found just just to kind of uh cap this off, um, you know, for such a a bad period of time in the band where there was the most friction going on, it's the happiest sounding album, right? Right, it's got the most sun in it, right? You put that album on the sun is shining somehow, you know.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's just that's and that's the thing, too. It's interesting too, because I I I I do really want to again emphasize to people that just from Ted's perspective, which doesn't mean that's a perspective that Alex and Ed and like the guys would care about or would not be like annoyed about at the time, was that you know he's a Warner Brothers senior vice president, his job is to sell records, and so you have something like Fair Warning, which we all love, right? But you know, so this is love is not a great single. It's a it's a great rock and roll song, it's a great, like basically grand funk revisited song. It's awesome, uh, unchained, not a great again, great rock radio single, it's not gonna, it's not gonna go top 40. It's just not. And so from Ted's perspective, he's like, I'm looking at this band that has the sales are declining and declining and declining. And we we need to basically turn that around. And that was really one of the things was like, oh, let's do pretty woman, let's do dancing in the streets, so we can have you know songs. They would rush this album out. If I'm sure if they had more time, Eddie could have come up with something poppier and catchier. But that was basically Ted's thinking was that we need something that's going to get on the radio. And that's the tour sold extremely well. The album did fine. And again, I understand they sort of creatively it was they felt like we have good songs, you know, plus the whole royalties thing, which is another interesting thing. Like you're doing someone else's song, you're you're basically like filling someone else's bank account with publishing money rather than your own, which I understand understandably so would piss me, you know. In retrospect, me I'd be pissed off about that too. But the that was the thinking behind the record is to sort of make it have some pop songs. You can still have your your secrets, which is a more moody, retrospective, you know, moody type of song. Hang them high, you have the big burn, the barn burning songs, and really pop songs.
SPEAKER_00To Ted's credit, though, you just gotta you gotta kind of give him some credit for letting the band do women and children first without a pop hit, letting them do you know Ted let fair warning happen without saying, Hey guys, we really need a hit here. You know, like he let them be create, which is the sign of a great producer, more than a good producer. A good producer will get you hits, but a great producer will let the artist sort of evolve, right?
SPEAKER_02Right, right. And that leaves me a quick side note, which is of course the thing that Ted talked about quite a bit was like, you know, for all the flack that Ted took about uh 1984 and the you know, aftermath was the sort of just basically like a lot of um, you know, this was the real vision we wanted, and luckily Ted wasn't able to meddle the way he wanted at the end. You know, Ted's like, I you know, I I didn't like I'll wait, but I wanted to make sure it got in the record, so I'm the one who basically said, let's call Michael McDonald to get him to finish the song. And I think that story is worth telling really quickly, which is that the way Ted tells the story is that Ed and Al had this keyboard thing that they loved. They love this, like this what was I'll wait, but it was Dave couldn't come up with the lyrics and a melody, right? So that's the thing. It's like Ted always talked about if you don't have if you can't come up with like with a vocal part, you can't just put instrumentals on you know records, right? It's like he's not a song, it's just musical. It's not a song, it's just it's just a musical idea. So they had this musical idea they really liked. And so Dave was like, I'm stumped. And Ed and Al really were like adamant they wanted it on the record. And so he said, let's call Michael McDonald. And then Michael McDonald, Ted, and Dave went into Ted's office at Warner Brothers and Mike came up with the the part. And Don Landy told me himself um that the the tape, uh cassette tape came to the 5150. Ted brought it and they played it back, and it was Michael McDonald singing the chorus for all wait. He'd come up with the chorus and like that that phrase, I'll wait. And Don to Don's perspective, like Don's like, that's yes, that that's what that's it. We can fit we can finish the song. But apparently, you know, there was definitely some uh the brothers were not quite as enthusiastic about having an outsider participate in the song. Um, but you know, just his perspective, he's like, they wanted the song on the record. So I call up the like the world's great songwriter. Like basically, I call this guy up who's like, you know, like like Grammy winning your world songwriter, like to be like, finish the song and help get this song finished. And then I'm like the bad guy, right? And again, it's I'm sure Alex, if he was here, would tell the story differently, and like whatever. It's it's I understand. I don't mean to dis to diss anyone else's perspective on it. I wasn't there, but that's the way Ted told it to me. And just basically, like, he's like, you know, it's like I didn't even like the song, you know, and I I like fought to get it on the record basically.
SPEAKER_01So that's awesome. Hey, what part of the Van Halen story uh do you think fans uh still do not fully understand? Is there anything that comes to mind? This could be a whole other episode. In our next episode, we'll do a lot of things. Stay tuned to be continued.
SPEAKER_02I you know, I you know, I think what people don't understand, and I don't think I understand. I mean, I'm not I'm not a hundred percent sure I really understand um you know why I just you know basically what went wrong with Roth in uh '96 with the coming of Sharon and all that stuff. That's a sort of, I mean, we have sort of like those brought Dave and Ed's perspective, but I, you know, I I would love to hear Mike's perspective on that. Like I just like as a more neutral party to be like, okay. Like I think he's probably talked about it in the past. When Mike's very Mike is Mike's savvy. He just like says his thing and like he just like gets it out there, but he doesn't like, you know, he doesn't contradict anybody, which I which I respect. But I would love to hear like a sort of somewhat objective third party talking about like what went on um with that whole period of time. I mean, because it's just yeah, that was a real that was a uh that was uh you know, you know, right? It's just yeah, it's a great answer.
SPEAKER_01You you're right. Like what's interesting about what you just said is is all of us who are fans of Van Halen definitely remember the moment when they reunited on MTV. It was iconic when they walked out and watching it, I remember just like, oh my god, every I was standing in my living room as everyone was standing in the auditory. Yeah, okay, it's incredible. And and what was uh wild is you'll watch it and I I remember watching it going, they don't I don't know, something's weird here. Like they're not right. The body language is like standing off to the side of it, yeah. Yeah, but I'm right, and I couldn't put it together then. In hindsight, it's always 2020. So when things started to you know uh unravel and you look back at it now with different eyes, you're like, Oh well, that's why that guy's it's just so uh man, it was just I I get mad at that moment, actually, because that's when they should have made the record. It really that was a right that was an important moment in Van Halen history.
SPEAKER_00And we're gonna have to calm Tommy down. We're gonna have to take five. No, it really takes one minute, everybody.
SPEAKER_02It didn't, it didn't quite do as well. I get really angry at this. My tweet didn't quite do as well as some of the other great great ones with the Truman show meme, which has gone around with the guy, you know, with Ed Harris going like now have this happen. It's like you know, I was like, you know, bring him out on stage with Van Halen on the MTV and music awards. Now get Gary Sharone ready to be the singer. That's what it was like.
SPEAKER_01I was like, wait, what? What? Um, I don't want to interrupt you, but one thing I've always said, Gary Sharone did not replace Sammy Hagar. People say that all the time. It's not true. He replaced David Lee Roth, and that moment was where it happened.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's it's it's um it's yeah, and uh, and you know, again to Gary's credit, Gary has really been very reticent about that. I don't think, you know, I just think he's just not interested in revisiting that other than just say it was an honor, had a great time, you know, kind of and I and I respect that, right? There's no there's no there's no benefit for him to do that. But um, yeah, it was it was all no, no, it's it's just it's just all it's just all uh it's yeah, I mean that whole thing. And then the other thing too is the you know Mike Post, the producer of Van Halen 3 gave an interview fairly recently, and I think it was a non-music podcast, or maybe it was a music podcast, actually, where he just basically, you know, kind of said, like, I let Eddie do his thing, and it just I you know, there are listening to Van Halen 3, there are so many things that I just am puzzled by. I'm sure you guys are like, what like what was the thinking behind this? Even very, you know, even without you, a song I actually like, which is a song When I Listen to Van Halen 3, which you know, that's the song I would listen to. The solo to me is too long, and I just it just is like puzzling to me where like a guy like Mike Post, who is I mean, presumably, you know, great songwriter, obviously very experienced, was brought in to produce the record, and just seems to have just been like, you know, almost like whatever you do is fine. I'll just I'll just sign, sign, you know, and so I didn't it didn't, you know, for all the problems with with um Templeman and with Andy Johns, these other guys who were there, they were you know, they definitely had opinions and definitely voiced it in terms of being like saying, like, I don't think this is gonna work, or or uh whatever the words would be. Um the stuff they did with Erwin Musper sounds incredible. They they they uh did for the best of volume uh collection. I mean, those those all, but to me, I just seemed like there was just uh I don't know, where Eddie wasn't hearing things the right way, and it just seemed like he was the one sort of steering the ship. And again, it's his was his creative vision. He wanted it out, but it just as a record, it just didn't work as a record.
SPEAKER_00It just isn't the most cohesive record, for sure. For sure, for sure. Hey, so uh Greg, one last question uh before we let you go. Before I even ask the question, it's been such a pleasure to have you on the show today. I don't appreciate it. It's been fun, it's been fun. We're you can rest assured you're gonna see an email coming in from us any day now for part two. Because we've clearly got much more to say, and and I definitely want to hear it because I'm hanging on every word, I'm just staying as quiet as possible, just hanging out every single word. You've got me. You've got me. Um, so before but before we let you go, is there anything new you're working on? What's what's your latest project?
SPEAKER_02Okay, great question. So I am uh finishing up um a proposal for a book on the first bad news bears movie.
SPEAKER_01Oh that's awesome.
SPEAKER_00So that's awesome. Yeah, and why why that? What what made you choose that?
SPEAKER_02Oh, there's a whole nother episode of that. No, um, you know, I really I mean for this came in. There, yeah, there it was uh to I saw it in the theaters in 1976. My father brought me to all sorts of movies I probably shouldn't have seen. I was young, I was like seven or eight years old, and that one was like pretty, you know, he took me to see Deer Hunter, which you know, the end of that'll blow anybody's little league blow anybody's mind forever. Like, don't not for children, not for children. I don't care. And it's um, you know, and I always loved it. I played little league baseball, and I just really think it's emblematic of an era and a time that's long gone in America and has a lot to say about you know, without getting into the this, you know, getting into it, it's just about competition and about the the w, you know, sports dads and about travel but ball today and just all the stuff that sort of we sort of think is like you know, sort of related to our own time. It was all sort of very well done by the director there, Michael Ritchie, who kind of like talked about this like misfit team of kids who weren't any good, who were the bums basically, who got mocked and basically refused to to fold up and quit and just kept went out there and tried. And so there's a lot of um interesting stories about the movie and its casting and just about its its legacy. Very quickly, I would just say like Mighty Ducks, uh the Sandlot. There was a whole host of movies that came later, which basically was just like, let's check the let's just just do the same, like to basically like copy the Bad News Fairs in some way. So it's a very influential movie as well.
SPEAKER_01Well, I just I just want to say to all the Van Halen fans out there, make sure you pick up Greg's books. Uh, they're awesome. Uh Van Halen Rising and Ted Templeman's autobiography. And Greg, listen, historian, author, there's one thing I think you need to add to your resume, and that's private investigator. You are a detective. Who tracks down the guy who picked up Van Halen at the airport after failing to get their record deal in New York, but you? I would hire you to track down anyone. Like, I I can't even imagine how you how you even do anything. It's just all word of mouth.
SPEAKER_02I mean, that was really what it was. And that's really again, I'll close with that. I mean, anyone's doing a you know a project like that. I mean, it's like you know, you're not going to be able to Google your way to those types of people. You just have to like talk to people on the phone and they'd be like, hey, you talked to my friend Steve, he did this, or hey, you know, these were, you know, that's what it really was. It was, and again, like we talked about this to kind of bring it full circle, it's about building trust with people when you do a project like this, and just to make sure people know you're not in for you know, fly by night or just in for the wrong reasons that I loved the band and I do love the band. And you know, I do books on things I love and care about. And so that's really when they real people realize that you're invested in it and you care about their story, because I did. I really wanted to hear like, holy shit, you hired Van Halen to play in your backyard, and 600 people came and a helicopter flew over and shined the spotlight. Like that literally happened, and like you heard these stories from multiple people, and you're like, fuck.
SPEAKER_01That's amazing.
SPEAKER_02In the 70s, in the 70s, in the 70s, in in prime days and confused time, man. That was it.
SPEAKER_01Sounds like sounds like an episode of chips. But Greg, thanks again for being here, man. Hey, my pleasure, guys. I'm really enjoying it. Thank you so much. Listen, but uh, we always sign off by saying two words, and I want you to join us in saying these two words and they're happy trails. So at the count of three, one, two, three. Happy trails, bombadita. Thanks again, everybody.