The Making of the 1984 Album | The Van Halen Fan-Made 1984 Documentary Episode 3

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Early in the band's career, Eddie made his producer and band mates uncomfortable with his interest in incorporating keyboards into Van Halen's sound during a studio session for the band's third album, Women and Children First Ed surprised Templeman by playing a Wurlitzer electric piano through a Marshall stack while the band tracked the anthemic And the Cradle will Rock. Since most fans would mistake the instrument for a guitar Roth and the band were less vocal about Eddie's use of keyboards on that occasion. However for live performances bassist Michael Anthony would be the one playing keyboards on the song. Ed noted that was my first encounter with a band not wanting me to play keyboards. Battles over creativity, keyboards and Eddie's status as a guitar hero continued into the eighties. The guitarist pinned some songs from 1981's, Fair Warning, like "Hear about it Later" on piano, even though he played them on guitar on the album. However, he sold the band and Templeman on an evil sounding instrumental called "Sunday Afternoon in the Park," which saw Van Halen utilize an Electro-Harmonix micro synthesizer and which was inspired by the stress of his upcoming wedding to Valerie Bertinelli. The sessions from 1982's Diver Down helped bring this long simmering conflict to a head. Eddie had developed an amazing new riff on a mini Moog synthesizer and shared it with Templeman and Roth. Soon after the pair hijacked Eddie's synth composition for "Dancing in the Street", a cover song that Ed disliked in the end. Eddie told Guitar World, Ted and Dave are happy and I wasn't. Fast forward to spring 1983, Eddie is in his new studio with no one telling him not to mess with those pesky keyboards, so he had the opportunity finally to do it his way. He felt he and Donn Landee were going to show the world, especially Roth and Templeman, how a Van Halen record should really sound Instrumentals were nothing new for Van Halen, but they never opened an album with one. In contrast to Fair Warnings, murky synthesized drone on Sunday afternoon in the Park, which abruptly gave away to the fierce shred fest of One Foot out the Door. 1984 function as a lead in to the following track on the lp, although most people only regarded it as an eerie guitar free introduction to "Jump". The song marked a significant shift in the group sound and revealed who was in charge of that sound moving forward. As with much of Van Halen's history, there are two stories on the origins of the track. 1984, Ed told Steve Rosen that it came from 45 minutes worth of Eddie Noodling that Landee had secretly recorded, but Michael Anthony's bass technician Kevin Dugan said he and Anthony wrote it. According to Dugan, the opening title track originates from a Roland bass synthesizer passage created as an intro for Anthony's in concert bass solo. Dugan stated Edward liked it so much that he made it the intro to the 1984 album. Eddie brought the first draft of a keyboard song that sounded like a mashup of the Rolling Stones. Get off my Cloud and Hall and Oats Kiss on my List to the band and Templeman. Somewhere around 1982 later, Ed admitted to Darryl Hall that his song did Influence "Jump". Roth responded to Eddie with his customary, you're a Guitar hero, no wants to hear you play the keyboards. They shelved the song for another year. In the spring of 1983, Ed played his song ideas for Mike, Al, Dave and Templeman, including the same "Jump" demo he had played for them the prior year. Afterward, Templeman remarked I signed a heavy metal band. When Van Halen uses keyboards, they should sound nasty like they do on And the Cradle will Rock or Sunday Afternoon in the Park, they should shatter your senses and make your ears bleed. This riff sounds like keyboard playing you'd hear between innings at a baseball stadium, so I'm not crazy about it. Van Halen wasn't a pop band to Templeman. He wanted them to maintain their edge and rawness Ed persisted however and firmly informed Templeman that he was mistaken. Later at 5150, Ed, Alex and Landee worked nonstop to create the foundational tracks for "I'll Wait" Dropped Dead Legs and "Jump". The first two were more rough sketches, but Templeman felt that "Jump" had significantly improved, so he asked Roth to create some lyrics with the instrumental recording on a cassette tape. Roth headed out to work on the lyrics and vocal melody in his own odd way by having one of his roadies drive him around in his 1951 Mercury Low rider while he composed the lyrics in the back seat. Templeman remembers it differently saying Ted and Dave sat in Dave's car outside of 5150 and passed a clipboard back and forth. Dave wrote and Ted commented and offered his opinion. After witnessing a suicide attempt on LA's Arco Towers being broadcast live on local news, Roth came up with a title and the phrase, go ahead and jump in. An interview with Rock Video Magazine in July, 1984. Roth said. I was watching television one night and it was the five o'clock news and a fellow was standing on top of the Arco Towers in Los Angelus and he was about to check out early. He was going to perform the 33 story drop and he was about to do it. When I heard a large group of people shouting, don't "Jump", don't "Jump" from the parking lot below, I recorded it and it eventually appeared on the record, albeit in a much more positive light. It's simple to interpret it as a go for its mentality in a positive type of affair from how you hear it on the record. In fact, the song's original title was "Go Ahead and Jump", and at one point it had the fame "Panama" Engine rev sound on it. Ed told writer Steven Rosen, we have a song called "Go Ahead and Jump", which is a synthesizer song and sounds real good. We did it at an out of the way studio and Donn and Ted are mixing it right now. The chorus goes, go ahead and jump, jump Vroom and just for a joke, we thought we'd tried the car, we played it backwards and it might work and it might not. After the song was a proven success. Roth's response when asked about vetoing the songs two years later was. Man, there is so much music, so many snippets of good riffs and bad riffs. Who knows what is getting thrown out After a while, I don't remember from two years ago, maybe it wasn't right for two years ago. We hear all these bits and pieces and then we have to sift through them. We can't possibly put everything on the album. "Jump" made it there. Eventually. At the time, MTV was gaining popularity along with late night video programs like Night Tracks and Friday night videos, so a music video needed to be made for their first single "Jump". The band decided to take a far more minimal approach for "Jump" after investing a lot of time and money in the Pretty Woman video from Diver Down only to have a band by MTV. In contrast to the other high production videos at the time, it would be more personal. The director of the Pretty Woman video, Robert Lombard was brought in to produce "Jump" Van Halen's lighting director and Roth creative partner, Pete Angelus was there too. According to Lombard, Pete Angelus operated one of the cameras, but we never used any of his footage because he didn't know how to operate a 16 millimeter camera to save his life. Lombard had hired David Lewis, who actually shot the footage. With the band's fracture over Roth starting to mount Lombard told the band he would shoot the video in sections. Lombard said I didn't shoot them together until the end of the day. I was trying to keep the peace because I felt tension amongst them. David thought he was bigger than the rest of them. Roth preferred more than just a simple video. He wanted more focus on himself. According to Lombard, Dave wanted the performance video intercut with him doing crazy like driving his chopped Merck hot rod and hanging out with midgets and girls in maids outfits. So he shot hours of footage. Lombard disagreed, so he had the video edited and used none of the extra Roth footage taking it to Eddie and Alex for approval. Guys, I'm taking a stand here. If you put in this crazy footage, the video isn't gonna have the impact it should. Eddie and Alex said, we agree with you 100%. We're not gonna release this video unless it's done this way. Two days later, I got fired. Noel Monk, their manager said, you don't do that. You don't go behind Dave's back. Here's your check. Never wanna see you again. The $6,000 or $600 according to Roth low-fi video would premier on MTV at midnight on January 1st, 1984 and be nominated later for three MTV Awards winning best stage performance on February 25th, 1984 "Jump" became Van Halen's first and only Billboard number one song dethroning Culture Clubs Karma Chameleon. It was the group's biggest hit topping the charts for five weeks and one of the best selling rock songs of the 1980s selling over 3 million copies. Hardcore fans that may have been bummed out by the keyboard driven poppy "Jump" were quickly satisfied by hearing the third cut off of 1984. As with most Van Halen songs, two essential parts were the genesis for "Panama", the lyrics and the guitar riff. When Roth realized that he hadn't written specifically about a car and was constantly asked if his lyrics were only about partying cars and sex, he set out to do something different this time that ultimately inspired the lyrics for "Panama", which were based loosely on a stripper he knew from Arizona and a dragster car called "Panama" Express he had seen in Vegas. Eddie provided the guitar riffage by paying homage to the AC/DC track Dog eat Dog. Back in 1981, Eddie's wife Valerie had bought a Lamborghini from Rod Stewart and had given it to Eddie as a wedding present, and at one point Eddie brought the 1972 Lamborghini to the studio to record the engine's rumble as a sound effect, but it wasn't initially intended for "Panama". That idea came up later after Roth added the vocal track. Two months into the tour, the band shot the video for "Panama" over three days in Philadelphia on March 19th, 20th, and 21st it would seem that Roth working with director Pete Angelus had his revenge on "Jump" video producer Robert Lombard by making sure the action scenes David shot for "Jump" appeared in the "Panama" video, and yes, the footage of Roth being arrested was staged. If you've ever wondered why the video begins with a plane flying, it was cheap stock footage and it connected the dots to when the band members are flying around. On the stage in the video, Michael Anthony's base shaped like a bottle of Jack Daniel's whiskey made its world premiere. Anthony's bass tech. Kevin Dugan said Anthony asked him to come up with a custom bass that would be associated only with him, kinda like Eddie with Frankenstein. The conversation occurred while the two passed a bottle of JD back and forth, so Dugan suggested to Anthony, what if we make your bass like a bottle of Jack Daniels? At first, Anthony thought it was the dumbest idea, but after a couple of days he told Dugan to run with it. The first thing he did was get permission from Jack Daniels. They made a handshake deal that they never produced more than three of them without their permission. The bass got built and became iconic in its own right. The "Panama" video and single was released mid-June 1984 and the song peaked at number 13 on Billboard Guitar builder, Steve Ripley had handed Eddie a prototype stereo guitar to try out which Ed would use on Top Jimmy. Eddie was able to designate each of the guitar strings to either the left or right speaker of a stereo system. As a result, the opening harmonics, the chime like notes could ping pong between the left and right speakers, which the listener hears more clearly when wearing headphones. Top Jimmy started out as an instrumental named Ripley. Later Eddie would use the name Ripley for a piece of music. In his score to the 1984 film, The Wildlife, he also reused the original music for the song Blood and Fire, which appeared on Van Halen's a Different Kind of Truth in 2012. Top Jimmy represented one of the few times when Roth lyrics had some conventional biographical and factual content rather than just conveying excitement. James Koneck, the front man of a band called Top Jimmy and the Rhythm Pigs was the top Jimmy in the song his nickname came from his days running a Top Taco stand outside the A&M Records lot in Hollywood. Around the end of 1980, Roth joins Koneck circle of friends by taking on the role of unknown financial benefactor for the Zero Zero an after hours establishment that at the time was passing for an art gallery due to its lack of a liquor license on stage, Roth frequently performed with the Top Jimmy and the Rhythm Pigs, and additionally, Jimmy did indeed possess a pig named Nadine. The Zero Zeros regulars included most of the members of the LA's exploding punk and alternative scene, as well as notorious party animals like soon to be dead. John Belushi. Somehow Top Jimmy got the attention of aging comedian legend Lucille Ball. Oh. That's my kind of music. You have Benny Goodman, Glen Miller, no Top Jimmy in the Rhythm Pigs. Zero Zero is where Roth would also meet Black Flag's. Henry Rollins, who would later be instrumental in Roth's book Crazy From The Heat. For the Next Track on 1984, Marilyn Monroe, long regarded as the ultimate American sex icon served as Roth's lyrical inspiration for Drop Dead legs. Dig that steam a line from the song alludes to a scene in Marilyn's 1959 film Some like it Hot in which she strolls along a locomotive blowing off steam while toting a violin case. Roth said, I wish I could have been that violin case she was carrying. Considered one of 1984 best deep album cuts. Drop Dead Legs was also one of the first songs demoed for 1984 and was another AC/DC influence song Ed said that was inspired by AC?DC's Back in Black. I was grooving on that beat, although I think that Drop Dead Legs is slower, whatever I to somehow is filtered through me and comes out differently. Drop Dead Legs is almost a jazz version of Back in Black. The descending progression is similar, but I also put a lot more notes in there. Some of those extra notes are played during Ed's 58 Gibson Flying V outro solo, which according to him was motivated by legendary prog rock guitarist Allan Holdsworth. Many months prior, ed and Ted Templeman worked together to get a record deal for Holdsworth. The Holdsworth Eddie Templeman story in itself is filled with drama and rumored betrayal. Eddie wanted to play with his hero. Templeman wanted a record he could sell and Allan wanted to create his own music with band members of his choice. In the end, no one got what they wanted. Post-release of the mentioned Holdsworth album Road games, Eddie would say Allan was impatient and he could not wait for him to be free to work on the album. He never wanted Ed to play on it in the first place. Both Allan and Templeman agreed they didn't like working with each other. Commercially Road Games failed, but fans of Holdsworth thought it was another classic Holdsworth album. If you wanna learn more about this interesting tale of a rockstar trying to help his idol, I will add links in the description, but heads up all of it goes horribly wrong. The true spirit of Van Halen arrived on this track with a vengeance. It's raunchy. roadhouse worthy riff would inspire Roth to conjure up a learing scenario of scholastic smut. "Hot for Teacher" would be the fourth and final single off of 1984 and was recorded in the late summer of 1983. On Hot For Teacher You can hear the Van Halen brothers drawing inspiration from two classic songs. One of Eddie's favorite bands, Cactus and their Parchman Farm song from the 1970s was the inspiration for the guitar boogie and beat, And it sounds like Alex copped his double bass drum intro from Billy Cobham Quadrant Four. Depending on who you listen to, once again, there are varying stories of how Alex got the intro drums to sound the way they did. According to producer Ted Templeman, the first five seconds of Alex drums are not drums but the exhaust of Ed's Lamborghini. He said, engineer Donn Landee found a way after much tinkering to match the drums to the sound of the idling engine with space being an issue at 5150, Alex used electronic Simmons drum kit to cut out any bleed over. If you dig around on the internet, you will find many people who say it's not a Lambo in the beginning, but it's just Al with his sticks and kit. Their theory is that Alex had adjusted his electronic Simmons drum kit so that the TomToms and kick drums sounded almost identical and so was able to play the songs stuttering, idling hot rod of an intro in a single shot. Alex did say the drums were done in one take but never answered explicitly if it had an exhaust sound at the start. So in the beginning of "Hot for Teacher", do we hear a Lamborghini or an innovative drumming by Al? Roth and Ed both publicly stated that Templeman had very little to do with the sound of 1984, but it is worth noting that there is a strong indication that Ted was actually in the control room during the cutting of "Hot for Teacher". So maybe there was a studio experiment with the engine noise and the Simmons drums, and that's what Templeman remembers. But then Alex figured out a way to make the drums sound like an engine. Backing this theory is a quote from the must-have Van Halen book, Eruption Conversations with Eddie Van Halen where Ed says, speaking about Alex, when he started putzing around with that, we were going, holy shit, it really does sound like a hot rod or dragster. You can only pull that off with the Simmons drums. It's so unique on regular drums, it doesn't sound the same. Eddie once again played his Gibson Flying V to record this, which allowed him to switch between pickups for the quiet and loud parts of the song. There is a rumor that Ed played the bass parts instead of Anthony and he had to dumb it down a bit so Anthony could play it live. Ed lifted the song's bombastic ending from one of Van Halen's, 1977 Warner Brothers demo songs. Voodoo Queen. By the way, the main riff from Voodoo Queen turned into Mean Streets off of Fair Warning. One story credits Roth whose mom's Sybil was a music and language teacher until Roth was born as the one who came up with the idea to give the track a middle school vibe. Dave set up a little classroom in the studio with bottles and cans on some school desks. Landee set up a mic and rolled tape while the guys were wisecracking and knocking over sitting at the school desk. However, according to some, the idea for the Hot for Teacher video did not come from Roth. For years we have all thought it was exclusively Diamond Dave and Pete Angelus's vision, but according to a few people from the video crew, this may not be true. Don't forget Roth was in Europe on tour until just days before the shoot started. According to Jerry Kramer, it was his vision for the "Hot for Teacher" video. During the eighties, Kramer was the go-to producer from Michael Jackson to Van Halen for Van Halen. He produced "Jump" "Panama" Hot for Teacher and went on to produce Roth solo videos. Kramer storyboarded the "Hot for Teacher" video, found the location of Leonardo DiCaprio's old high school, John Marshall High and did all the casting with the actors, even comedian Phil Hartman did The voice of Waldo because he was a close friend of Kramer's. I'm nervous and my socks are too loose. Kramer also put together a first class video crew, including cinematographer Daniel Pearl, who started his career with a Texas Chainsaw Massacre and has since worked with everyone from Michael Jackson at Guns N Roses to the Rolling Stones. Kramer also knew it was key to have a brilliant stage designer and hired Ron Volz. Volz was responsible for the Alice Cooper stage show from the early seventies and many music videos in the eighties and nineties, including Roth post Van Halen videos. Kramer also brought in director Rick Frieberg, who had helped cast and plot out the video shoot. Frieburg and Roth would clash, which led to Frieburg being fired after most of the shooting had been done. After the shoot, Kramer brought in "Panama" video editor Christopher Willowby to put it all together. Willowby told me that the sound of Waldo screaming is an owl, not a whale as reported elsewhere. Did Roth and Angelus's add any value to the video shoot? Absolutely. Things like wardrobe and performance were a hundred percent Roth and Pete, but the video's vision and execution were all the work of Kramer and his talented video crew. Roth and Angelus taking credit for Hot for Teacher would be like DeNiro taking credit for Goodfellas instead of Martin Scorsese. Some other facts about Hot for Teacher video. Eddie gave one of the guitars to Brian Hitchcock who played the young Eddie in the video. Hitchcock would sell the guitar in 2020 for $50,000. In late 2022. It went up on eBay for $220,000 and in May, 2023 Eddie's actual guitar in the video sold at auction for 3.9 million. According to the kid that played Michael Anthony Yano Anaya at 10:00 AM during the shoot, Alex gave him a beer and challenged him to shotgun his beer even though he was only 13. If Yano looks familiar, you might remember him from the movie A Christmas story. Some Van Halen fans believe there is a hidden message on the chalkboard when deciphered. It supposedly spells out holy shit in reverse. Each number corresponds with a placement in the alphabet. Four of the five people we interviewed that were part of the video knew nothing about it, but one that could know best said it was a hundred percent true. The $200,000 video would premiere on MTV on September 23rd, 1984 and almost exactly a year later, big brother would play it for the US Senate Commerce Committee conservatives and the strict SEC known as the Washington Wives. Wives of the political elite in Washington DC criticized the clips imagery of scantily dressed women in positions as educators. The Parents Music Resource Center, PMRC, co-founder, Tipper Gore, wife of Democrat Al Gore mentioned the video in a Newsday article titled The Smut and Sadism of Rock. She stated, when my eight-year-old asked me why is the teacher taking off her clothes and school, I started paying attention to the videos my children watch. On September 19th, 1985, congressional hearings began to address the growing fuss over music lyrics. First to speak was US Senator Paula Hawkings, a Republican from Florida. She held up a series of quote of offensive unquote album covers by Def Leopard and WASP. Hawkins proceeded to have the video "Hot for Teacher" played in the hearing pre. TV. I brought along two videos from which to choose, which I believe are representative of the kind of presentation which have caused the furor. We will show them. The first is by the group Van Halen. When it was stopped right in the middle of Eddie's solo scattered laughter and applause broke out in the chamber. That video. None of that. That video is called. No wait, no, wait a second. Senator Hawkins, just a minute. No, this is a very large crowd today we have allowed people in beyond the capacity of this room. We're not gonna have any demonstrations. No applause, no demonstrations of any kind. I thank the chairman. The title of that tape was Hot for Teacher and we will give each senator a copy of the words they'll promise not to distribute them beyond their own possession. "I'll Wait" arguably is the closest the Roth incarnation of Van Halen ever came to a love song, and the only time Roth sing about delayed gratification. I'll Wait was another track that caused division between producer Ted Templeman and Ed. Templeman would bust Ed's balls by humming Argent's Hold your Head Up when he played it for him. Up up your head up. That division remains today in the various versions of how the song even came to be. The song was one of the earliest tracks demoed, but by the fall of 1983, it still needed to be completed. On one side. Ed championed it while on the other side, Templeman hoped it would go away, but Ted understood the passion for the song felt by Ed Alex and Landee, so he decided he should be a team player and push it forward by laying down the track. Templeman commented to be frank, it hadn't grown on me since I first heard Ed's demo back in April. It's slogged along like a jeep stuck in the mud. Maybe I had it all wrong, but I just didn't love Ed's new keyboard stuff. Templeman gave the nod to Roth to move forward with the track, but Roth couldn't come up with a melody or lyric to go with Ed's keyboard track. Templeman was stumped too. Then Roth suggested bringing in one of Temple Man's good friends, Doobie Brothers, songwriting legend Michael McDonald who said, sure, according to McDonald, Templeman gave him a copy of the instrumental track and then he created the lyrics and melody on his own and recorded himself singing over the top of the uncompleted song. Templeman had Roth and McDonald meet in his office to make sure Roth was good with it. According to McDonald, none of his lyrics were changed. If this is true, then Roth's story of how he came up with the lyrics while looking at a Calvin Klein ad with a girl in men's underwear could be Roth Spin to add his own rockstar flair to the story later. McDonald would be rightfully furious when the album came out and his name was not included in the credits. According to Templeman, the ball was dropped somewhere in the Van Halen camp, but who did it is unknown. Ed's side of the story is this. He believed Templeman secretly recorded McDonald when they met in Templeman's office and then later Templeman and Dave tried to hide this from Ed when they were in the studio. Ed said Ted was using a little micro-cassette recorder. He held under his desk to record what Michael was improvising to it. Ted came up here the next day. I saw Ted and Dave in the control room and he was playing something to him on this cassette recorder. I asked, what is that? And they both went, oh, nothing don't worry about it. So when they got sued by McDonald, Ed stated he didn't know anything about it. Templeman stands by the fact that everyone knew McDonald co-wrote the song. Maybe the story Ed tells has a grain of truth. My speculation is that maybe Roth and Templeman brought in the tape of McDonald's singing on the tape he gave them as a guide for Roth, maybe Diamond Dave didn't want Eddie to think he needed help from McDonald, so they steered clear of letting Ed know McDonald came up with the lyrics and melody. McDonald would win his case and make tremendous money from it, saying it's probably one of the most lucrative things I have ever done in my entire career. Ironically, in 1978, McDonald and Ed had contributed to Nicolette Larson's Templeman produced debut album, but on that one, McDonald was credited and Ed wasn't. The Warner Brother execs wanted to stay with a keyboard winning formula of "Jump", so they decided to rush I'll Wait as the second single off 1984. There was not enough time to make a video, but it still hit number 13 on the billboard charts. The intro to the second to last track was a bit of an instrumental departure for the band. Eddie started the song with a big airy plucked out chords, reminiscence of Jimmy Page and the opening of a Achilles last stand. Under Eddie's guitar work, you can hear Alex Fast ride symbol building a lot like Rush's Neil Peart in the opening of La Villa Strangiato, except Alex's beat was more swinging as they hit the change up. Before going into the main song, Eddie ripped a series of wicked arpeggios, not unlike Rush's, Alex Lifeson, and again, Al hammered out a Peart like run on the Toms. As most fans know, when Eddie got the idea for this particular song, he hummed and whistled it into a micro-cassette in the closet of a hotel room while Valerie was sleeping. As mentioned earlier, hints of Girl Gone Bad were played at the US Festival during the breakdown of Somebody Get Me a Doctor. But Ed has mentioned that he disliked playing the Tune saying, I often dreaded playing the intro of Girl Gone Bad because the B stringing always sounds a tad flat on the chords that I play. House of Pain. One of the band's heaviest tracks had been around in various forms even before the group had a record deal when they initially signed with Warner Bros in 1977, the song was once again demoed, but it did not make the cut for the debut album. Additionally, it was included in the mix during the diver down recording sessions, but the classic bashed out Van Halen album closer didn't come to be until Alex had the notion that a new revised version should be recorded for 1984 with fresh lyrics and a more flowing arrangement. With only nine songs on the album there has been speculation that a few more were recorded, but left off. Eddie confirmed this in a 1983 interview with Steve Rosen claiming that they had tracks finished for 13 tunes. However, Eddie didn't like putting on more than 35 or 40 minutes on a record because he felt that you lost fidelity the longer the record was or you might blame left out songs on Roth and Templeman. Ed had plenty of tunes. He told Editor-in-Chief for Guitar for the Practicing Musician magazine, John Stix. I wrote 15/16 tunes and we put them all down. Then it was, should we use this one or that one? The guys got at me because I wouldn't stop writing. I'm serious. Ted Templeman and Dave really got uptight. They were seriously pissed They said, cut that shit out. Quit writing. Wilson Pickett's. In the Midnight Hour was the band's only cover song come confirmed to have been recorded. Roth and Templeman wanted to cut the track for the previous Diver Down album, but Eddie had protested. The song was brought up again for the 1984 sessions and by some accounts was even one of the first things they worked on at Eddie's new studio. Again, Eddie vetoed the idea of releasing it and to this day, if it was recorded, it remains unreleased, Roth suggested Just a Gigolo, but that also got rejected. Other Van Halen tracks rumored to have been recorded were anytime any place eat thy neighbor baritone slide and lie to you. By late October, 1983, recording the tracks was done. Producer Ted Templeman believed the mixing was done as well, so it was time to master the album, but by November, Templeman had still not received the mix tapes from Ed and Landee. Templeman had an analog backup copy of the masters, but the quality would be diminished if he mastered with those. Templeman went over to 5150 to get the tapes where he was met by Ed saying that Landee had the recordings but he didn't know where he was. Landee was actually on the property with the tapes and a walkie-talkie. Once Ed got rid of Templeman, Landee would come back into the studio and they would continue mixing. Ed said this game of cat and mouse was because he was still unhappy with the mix. Templeman was concerned about the tapes for many reasons, not the least that Landee and Ed were staying up days on end, snorting copious amounts of blow and drinking according to Templeman. Valerie Bertinelli would verify this by asking Templeman to step in and help. Templeman said she was just as worried but more for her husband than the tapes. It got so heated that reportedly it may have gotten physical. You like that old man. You want a piece of me? I don't want a piece of you, I want the whole thing. Oh, the September, 1984 issue of Music magazine, Hit Parader reported reports emanating from Los Angelus described in alleged fight that took place between Edward and the band's longtime producer Ted Templeman, evidently Templeman, who is also a vice president of Warner Brothers, the band's record label criticized Edwards increasingly egotistical attitude. This forced the ax slinger to retort with verbal and physical force. The confrontation may sever the longstanding partnership between Templeman and the band. Actually, the situation had been building up for quite a while. A West Coast source reported. The band produced virtually all of 1984 by themselves and they only put Templeman's name on the record out of a feeling of commitment. Ted wasn't thrilled by being left out of the recording process and guessed there was a bit of hostility on both of their parts. It's something that will probably blow over in a couple of months. The band would neither confirm nor deny the reports of the Templeman Van Halen feud. With Templeman not only being Van Halen's producer, but also Warner Brothers vice president, he had to find a solution. During the second week of November, Templeman grabbed Warner Brothers chief engineer and entered Sunset Sound with the 16 track safety reels working as quickly as they could, they mixed 1984 from scratch. Templeman felt Landee and Ed were out of their minds and may never deliver their master tapes. Finally, Landee showed up with the master tapes, but according to Templeman, he'd been up for days. He was just manic and all messed up sweating and crazy. Landee handed over the tapes and the mastering process was finished. Ed said later nobody was happy with Don and me. They thought we were crazy and out of our minds. Ted thought that Donn had lost it and was going to threaten to burn the tapes, that was all bs. We just wanted an extra week to make sure that we were happy with everything. It should be noted that on the next Van Halen album 5150 Landee would again be accused of holding the master tapes hostage, but this time the accusation would come from the producer Mick Jones, Jones said, Landee locked himself in the studio for a day and threatened to burn the tapes. They resolved the issue after a tense standoff. Ultimately, it's unclear whether Ted Templeman actually produced the 1984 album in part or in whole, and it was no secret that Ed wanted to show Templeman how to produce Van Halen the way Ed saw fit. So did Templeman actually do any producing on 1984. Surprisingly, the band member closest to Templeman at the time said he didn't do much. In March of 1984, several newspapers ran an article with surprisingly harsh words from Temple Man's one-time ally David Lee Roth, who said. After five years of compromising, we just said no more. This time there was a big altercation about who was going to mix the record. It was mixed almost entirely without Ted Templeman. Ed and the engineer. Donn Landee did all the mixes on the songs and the sound is radically different, I think, than any of the other Van Halen albums. There are a lot more subtleties, a lot more overt tricks. The most abominable sounding record we ever made was the second one, and that's cause it was entirely in Ted's hands. It was thin and vapid sounding and everybody was disgusted with it. There are some fabulous songs on there that went unnoticed because they made no impression sonically. So we started getting involved more and more. When asked if Templeman would be on hand for the next album, Roth said. Who knows what it'll be the next time around. I know, but I'm not gonna tell you. I don't want to get anybody upset before we burn the bridge. According to the paper, Templeman could not be reached for comment. For the most part, Van Halen has never been known for great album covers. Many felt the artwork for 1984 changed that perception, at least for that one album. Graphic designer, Margo Nahas created the painting that became the 1984 cover, but Nahas had initially declined to create anything for Van Halen. More specifically, the band first asked Nahas to create a painting of four chrome women dancing in various stages of being undressed, which she refused. Two hours after the refusal, Warner Brothers called to see more of her work. Nahas husband Jay took her portfolio to Van Halen, which included the smoking angel baby. They immediately knew and chose the existing painting of the cherub. By the way, the same year, her husband designed Prince's lettering on the cover of Purple Rain. Oh no, let's go. Nahas created the artwork in 1982 by modeling the cherub from her friend's son Carter Helm. Before Van Halen was in the picture, Helm sat enjoying a pack of candy cigarettes. While Nahas made the artwork. It was the only illustration Nahas had ever designed for herself in all her years as a working artist. It was initially commissioned and illustrated for a reference art publication called The LA Workbook. Then it became a greeting card, and finally it became the Van Halen iconic album cover. But until Van Halen came along, it got little recognition. To this day, Margo still owns the copyright to her image. She smartly only licensed the art of Van Halen versus selling them the copyright. She gave the original artwork to Carter's parents. Before the 1984 album was released, Van Halen's manager Noel Monk, fretted over possible criticism from tight-ass conservatives. Nahas found that notion funny because her vision for the painting was innocuous. She said, the way I envisioned it in the first place was the little rebel cherub came down to earth and decided to try a smoke. Knowing it was wrong, he glanced up to heaven to see if God was watching. The album cover would be censored in England by sticker, and the cigarette was airbrushed out in Korea at the time of release. The speculation was that the cover was created in Roth's image as a kid. Never wanting good folk lore to go to waste, Roth would use a photo of himself all grown up with a set of wings for the cover of his single, just a Gigolo. Guitar legend Eddie Van Halen died of cancer today. On on October 6th, 2020, when Margot heard the devastating news of Eddie Van Halen's death, she started to cry and felt alone. She had protected the 1984 Angel for 34 years. Trying not to let anyone copy it or use it for any unjust cause, but by that time, she felt the angel belong to the Van Halen world and she didn't want to be alone and needed to share her grief. She took out one of the angel prints and put a tear in the baby's eyes. She then posted it on Facebook for Van Halen fans to know they weren't alone. The inside cover of 1984 looks like some huge bullets. An ashtray or maybe assembly line for R2D2s. They are par cans part of the lighting rig for a concert. The futuristic numbers were Roth Idea. He wanted them to look like the comic book made by Mobius, which was the pseudonym for Jean Gerard, a French artist, cartoonist, and writer. Before Van Halen's album was released, there was only one thing that people associated with the number 1984, George Orwell's dystopian social science novel that had been released in 1949. Although Roth was well read, the band's decision to name their new album, 1984 stylized in Roman numerals as M C M L X X X I V had nothing to do with the classic book. Reportedly the band was insistent that they not be rushed to complete the album for a 1983 release date. The title 1984 was intended as a little jab at the record label to reinforce further the idea that the album would not be coming out any sooner than the year it was named after. Critical reviews for 1984 were generally favorable, even with the most read rock magazine at the time. Rolling Stone. In 1978, when Rolling Stone magazine reviewed Van Halen's first album, the writer said, mark my words, in three years, Van Halen is going to be fat and self-indulgent and disgusting, and they'll follow deep purple and Led Zeppelin right into the toilet. In contrast, the magazine's four out of five stars for 1984 said, Van Halen is one of the smartest, toughest bands in rock and roll. According to Eddie sympathy from Michael Jackson kept Van Halen's album from the number one spot the week the 1984 album was projected to go to number one on Billboard. Jackson burned his hair during the filming of a Pepsi commercial. Eddie said when that happened, everyone was going, oh, poor Michael burned his hair. We'd better go buy his record. Hardcore fans were split. On the one hand you had the classic sounding Van Halen with "Panama" and "Hot for Teacher" On the other, you have the more poppish keyboard songs with "Jump" and I'll Wait. Mainstream music fans came to the Van Halen camp in droves. 1984 is the second of two Van Halen albums to achieved the rare RIAA Diamond status, selling over 10 million copies in the United States alone. The other record is their first album. Since its release, it's estimated 1984 has sold over 20 million copies worldwide. By far the biggest selling Van Halen album, sorry, Sammy. But the exact number is unknown, since no certifications have been done for decades.
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Channel: The Tapes Archive
Views: 307,696
Rating: undefined out of 5
Keywords: van halen documentary, Eddie Van Halen, 5150 studio, David Lee Roth, Alex Van Halen, Michael Anthony, Van Halen, Donn Landee, Music documentary, Greg Renoff, 1984 album, ted templeman
Id: SxwxO8ruabY
Channel Id: undefined
Length: 46min 0sec (2760 seconds)
Published: Wed Jul 26 2023
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