Van Halen "1984" (1984): Track by Track!

<v Speaker 1>I'm Jeff Johnson with a film by podcast here with
<v Speaker 1>the co creator of our show and my best friend
<v Speaker 1>of thirty plus years, Brad Kozo.
<v Speaker 2>Wow thirty years now, you remember that spring break we
<v Speaker 2>had in panamng Oh.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, that was the trip we hung out poolside with
<v Speaker 1>that girl who had the drop dead legs.
<v Speaker 3>I tried to warn you she was a girl gone bad.
<v Speaker 2>We didn't agree about her, but we do agree on
<v Speaker 2>the things that matter, Like, obviously, the greatest guitarist of
<v Speaker 2>all time is Eddie.
<v Speaker 1>And Helen, which is why it goes without saying that
<v Speaker 1>the greatest rock band of all time is Van Halen Halen.
<v Speaker 2>I don't want to jump to conclusions, but it's safe
<v Speaker 2>to say we agree on the band's best front man
<v Speaker 2>though too.
<v Speaker 3>Right.
<v Speaker 1>Well, sure, David Lee Hagar, hold up, you think Diamond
<v Speaker 1>Dave is better than the Red Rocker. Next, you're gonna
<v Speaker 1>tell me that nineteen eighty four is a better album.
<v Speaker 3>Than fifty one to fifty. Well it is.
<v Speaker 4>I don't know how long you'll need to convince me
<v Speaker 4>of that, but I'll wait.
<v Speaker 2>I think I'll let Jason Indeed do that for me,
<v Speaker 2>because this week the surely you can't be serious podcast
<v Speaker 2>is rocking out. Track by track van Halen's nineteen eighty four.
<v Speaker 4>Hey, everybody heard you missed us.
<v Speaker 3>We're back.
<v Speaker 4>Brought my pencil, Give me something to ride on. I
<v Speaker 4>don't feel tardy.
<v Speaker 3>That's my favorite line. I wanted that line. How's it going, everybody?
<v Speaker 3>We are back again for another van Halen episode. Now,
<v Speaker 3>in twenty twenty, we did van Halen Versus van Hagar
<v Speaker 3>as a kind of collective. We reviewed basically all of
<v Speaker 3>the history of van Halen for our first two episodes,
<v Speaker 3>and then for our final third episode, we kind of
<v Speaker 3>talked about the transition into van Hagar. Jason was a
<v Speaker 3>van Hagar fan. I was a van Halen fan. Not
<v Speaker 3>that he's not, but right, there's definitely he sided with
<v Speaker 3>van Hagar and I sided with van Halen. Now, since then,
<v Speaker 3>it was six years ago. Yeah, since then a lot
<v Speaker 3>of things have happened, most notably the passing of Vennie
<v Speaker 3>van Halen.
<v Speaker 4>Sure, sure, and you know we've had six seasons to
<v Speaker 4>get better that those first episodes. I actually listened to them. Yeah,
<v Speaker 4>I don't think our mic was as good, and maybe
<v Speaker 4>my voice wasn't as strong as I would have liked,
<v Speaker 4>but the information I think is there. And if you
<v Speaker 4>want to know about Van Halen, go back and listen
<v Speaker 4>those episodes.
<v Speaker 3>There's some of my favorite episodes. We did a rerun
<v Speaker 3>of them back in like I think twenty twenty two
<v Speaker 3>or so. And here's my oath to you all. Today.
<v Speaker 3>The information would give you is going to be copious,
<v Speaker 3>and I'm going to say ninety percent of it stuff
<v Speaker 3>that's not in those old episodes. So if you want
<v Speaker 3>more of the history, you haven't heard those old episodes,
<v Speaker 3>go check them out. I still love listening to them.
<v Speaker 3>I listened to them before we did this podcast just
<v Speaker 3>to kind of refresh my recollection. But today I'm giving
<v Speaker 3>you all kinds of new information. So don't skip this
<v Speaker 3>one just because you've heard those old ones and the
<v Speaker 3>other on about me. I got new information too you.
<v Speaker 3>I don't know what you This is part of what
<v Speaker 3>we do. I don't know what he has. He doesn't
<v Speaker 3>know what I have. We just come and we just go,
<v Speaker 3>right and yeah, we come and go. And also what's
<v Speaker 3>happened since then is we've covered one more Van Halen album.
<v Speaker 4>We did Long Cold Winter by Cinderella versus Ou eight
<v Speaker 4>one two we did that two seasons ago.
<v Speaker 3>I think, yeah on.
<v Speaker 4>The wall right there, Yeah, and uh and I love
<v Speaker 4>that album as well. So one of these days we'll
<v Speaker 4>probably work our way through most of the van Halen catalog.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, so here we are season seven. I mean that
<v Speaker 3>one we did album to album, but we didn't include
<v Speaker 3>a Van Halen a David Lee Roth album against the
<v Speaker 3>Van Hagar album. This one. Once again, we're back with
<v Speaker 3>Van Halen versus Van Hagar and two sequential albums. Right,
<v Speaker 3>we have nineteen eighty four, which came out in nineteen
<v Speaker 3>eighty four, and then just a year later we have
<v Speaker 3>fifty one to fifty fifty eighty six. So they recorded
<v Speaker 3>an eighty five released an eighty six. That's right.
<v Speaker 4>The reason why they named this album nineteen eighty four.
<v Speaker 3>Do you know this because it was nineteen eighty four.
<v Speaker 4>Well, one would think that George Orwell no, but I
<v Speaker 4>will say that Van Halen I think did a lot
<v Speaker 4>as far as wrestling the nineteen eighty four title back
<v Speaker 4>from George Orwell, okay, to be a positive thing. We've
<v Speaker 4>talked about how nineteen eighty four might be the greatest
<v Speaker 4>year in pop culture.
<v Speaker 3>By the way, go check out our friend David Wright
<v Speaker 3>def Dave's new podcast he's just come out with Just
<v Speaker 3>come Out. It is all about the year nineteen eighty.
<v Speaker 4>Four chronologically through nineteen eighty four. It's called Deaf Dave's
<v Speaker 4>nineteen eighty four.
<v Speaker 3>Go check it out. So he argues it is the
<v Speaker 3>best year in eighties history, which would make it the
<v Speaker 3>best year in our lifetimes. I suppose, very very possibly. Yeah.
<v Speaker 4>But the reason why the Van Halen Brothers decided to
<v Speaker 4>call this nineteen eighty four was because the record company
<v Speaker 4>was pushing them to get this thing out before it
<v Speaker 4>was ready aka nineteen eighty three, right, and they're like,
<v Speaker 4>we're gonna call this nineteen eighty four so as a
<v Speaker 4>get off our back and let us do our thing right.
<v Speaker 3>So we've got tons of songs to talk about. I
<v Speaker 3>just got a real quick I got to say this.
<v Speaker 3>This was one of the first three cassettes that I
<v Speaker 3>ever owned. Okay, it was Minute Work, it was Wham
<v Speaker 3>Make It Big, and it was this. Those were the
<v Speaker 3>three first tapes that I owned. And that's a that's
<v Speaker 3>a variety of that.
<v Speaker 4>That's a good selection. Wham Make It Big We've already
<v Speaker 4>covered yep, go check that out minute work we're covering in.
<v Speaker 3>Just a few weeks yep.
<v Speaker 4>And then this week, of course we're covering today. And
<v Speaker 4>those are three great tapes. I can't fault you.
<v Speaker 3>Michael Jackson in there somewhere. Well, Michael Jackson was my
<v Speaker 3>first LP. I had him before I had any of
<v Speaker 3>the cassettes. I had Thriller on vinyl.
<v Speaker 4>Okay, So this album was released January ninth of nineteen
<v Speaker 4>eighty four. Although I did play a trivial pursuit game.
<v Speaker 4>The question was when was Van Helen's nineteen eighty four
<v Speaker 4>album released, and it said December thirty first, nineteen eighty three.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, And there was something about the release of a single.
<v Speaker 4>But the video for Jump was released at midnight nineteen
<v Speaker 4>eighty four, right, so.
<v Speaker 3>It's midnight where on the East Coast where MTV was,
<v Speaker 3>because it would probably still be in December thirty first
<v Speaker 3>for the three other time zones in the US.
<v Speaker 4>For US, namely exactly good point, good point. So this
<v Speaker 4>is the last album to feature David Lee Roth until twenty.
<v Speaker 3>Twelve Sixth Studio Album.
<v Speaker 4>Sixth studio album. This album only reached number.
<v Speaker 3>Two because of Thriller.
<v Speaker 4>Because of Thriller which was helped by.
<v Speaker 3>Eddie Van Halen solo on the beat It album.
<v Speaker 4>Right now, most people will say either you're nineteen eighty
<v Speaker 4>four and before fans, or you're fifty one to fifty
<v Speaker 4>and beyond. But to me, I think that the split
<v Speaker 4>really happens pre nineteen eighty four. From that point on,
<v Speaker 4>Eddie was in love with the synthesizer, and so to me,
<v Speaker 4>that's the more logical split. But we'll talk about that.
<v Speaker 3>So I you know, I thought of that very thing.
<v Speaker 3>I think that keyboards and synthesizers are that point of transition.
<v Speaker 3>I think this. I disagreed with you back when we
<v Speaker 3>have Van Halen versus Van Haanguard six years ago. I'm
<v Speaker 3>going to go ahead and say, even though there have
<v Speaker 3>been other synthesizers in their catalog before this, this is
<v Speaker 3>a different transition and I will tell you why. But
<v Speaker 3>I want to tell you after we cover our first
<v Speaker 3>song on the album, which is nineteen eighty four. Okay,
<v Speaker 3>so there's a lot of synthesizer over here. I mean
<v Speaker 3>it's kind of making its announcement, right. I got no drums, nope,
<v Speaker 3>and no bass, right, I got no guitar, right? This
<v Speaker 3>is a van of Haleen song with no guitar. Yes,
<v Speaker 3>what the heck is happening here?
<v Speaker 4>Last synth?
<v Speaker 3>Okay, so I've mentioned before this isn't the first time
<v Speaker 3>that they've used a synthesizer or keyboards in their stuff,
<v Speaker 3>right right, Okay, So do you you remember what album
<v Speaker 3>came out right before this album? Now, it wasn't even
<v Speaker 3>supposed to be an album.
<v Speaker 4>You know that they released the single pretty Woman, and
<v Speaker 4>it did so well that the record company is like,
<v Speaker 4>you guys got to have an album to go along
<v Speaker 4>with a song, and so they rushed through. It's basically
<v Speaker 4>a bunch.
<v Speaker 3>Of covers, right, and you remember that we I mean,
<v Speaker 3>they couldn't come up with enough new material that fast.
<v Speaker 3>So yeah, they've made a lot of covers. But Dave
<v Speaker 3>had initially said I want to do Dancing in the streets.
<v Speaker 3>Eddie was like, I don't know how to van Haal
<v Speaker 3>and eize that there's no part for me. Yeah, so
<v Speaker 3>Eddie said let's do pretty Woman instead. Pretty Woman, as
<v Speaker 3>you said, becomes a hit and they are demanding a
<v Speaker 3>new album and they're rushing to get moved more music.
<v Speaker 3>So they do covers, including Dancing in the Streets. Yes,
<v Speaker 3>but part of what they're doing with Pretty Woman is
<v Speaker 3>they've got that video, which we discussed at link. It
<v Speaker 3>is a crazy video which yes, does involve a woman
<v Speaker 3>who appears to be chained up being attacked.
<v Speaker 4>By a little less by little people, yes, who was
<v Speaker 4>not really a woman, which was news to me.
<v Speaker 3>So as it turns out like they spent a whole
<v Speaker 3>lot of money on that video, Okay, and the video
<v Speaker 3>the idea that they had for the video was significantly
<v Speaker 3>longer than the song had to play, right, and so
<v Speaker 3>they came up with an introduction to the part and
<v Speaker 3>that is called Intruder. Yeah, right now, Intruder uses keyboards
<v Speaker 3>in it, he does. Yeah, And you know what, it's
<v Speaker 3>the fourth song that they've had that uses keyboards, the fourth. Okay,
<v Speaker 3>So Intruder was written by David Lee Ross so that
<v Speaker 3>they could fill this space in this music video that
<v Speaker 3>they've done. All right, they spend all of this money
<v Speaker 3>and the video ultimately gets banned. They don't even get
<v Speaker 3>to show it.
<v Speaker 4>On it because because you have a transnational being molested
<v Speaker 4>by little.
<v Speaker 3>People one of many reasons I share it. And so
<v Speaker 3>you've got so this is Intruder is the fourth one.
<v Speaker 3>The first one was and the credible rock. The second
<v Speaker 3>one is so this is love okay, and also off
<v Speaker 3>a fair warning? Is this song called Sunday in the
<v Speaker 3>Park okay, now sending the park. I sent it to
<v Speaker 3>you earlier today. It is. It's definitely keyboards, but it's
<v Speaker 3>like the dark kind of rush, you know, like mystic
<v Speaker 3>sounding keyboards. It sounds ominous. And eddievan Halen actually wrote
<v Speaker 3>this about the Valerie Bertinelli as they were engaged and
<v Speaker 3>he was frustrated and angry. It's like this dark and
<v Speaker 3>foreboding thing. Playfleek titled Sunday in the Park, which sounds
<v Speaker 3>much much nicer. Right. So there have been four solid
<v Speaker 3>songs that they have done with keyboards in them. And
<v Speaker 3>everybody is up in arms about this album being the
<v Speaker 3>synth album and they've gone synth pop and is it
<v Speaker 3>really different? And I'm gonna say the answer is yes,
<v Speaker 3>it's different. It's different, okay. And it's different because of
<v Speaker 3>the next song that we're about to play. Yes, obviously
<v Speaker 3>before I get into jump, because we're not there yet, right,
<v Speaker 3>let me tell you a story. In eighty one, they
<v Speaker 3>in their Fair Warning tour. Then they have this hit
<v Speaker 3>song they have to produce diver down. In April of
<v Speaker 3>eighty two, Eddie Van Halen goes to see a guy
<v Speaker 3>named Alan Holtzworth play. He is a guitarist guitarist and
<v Speaker 3>is incredibly good and Eddie is not only watching him
<v Speaker 3>but playing with him a little bit. And do you
<v Speaker 3>know who is in the crowd there with him? A
<v Speaker 3>young guitarist who's Frank Zappa's guitarist, a guy named Steve Vi.
<v Speaker 3>Steve Vi. And so Steve I meets Eddie Van Halen.
<v Speaker 3>They talk for a bit and Steve is like, Hey,
<v Speaker 3>if you ever want to meet Frank, here's my number.
<v Speaker 3>Give me a call. I'll get you guys hooked up.
<v Speaker 3>So Eddie does want to meet Frank because he is
<v Speaker 3>a guitar virtuo, soho he is, And so he calls
<v Speaker 3>and Steve isn't there, but Steve's roommate gives Eddie the number.
<v Speaker 3>Eddie calls gets Frank's wife, Gail, who has a kind
<v Speaker 3>of weird accent, and she's like, Frank, You've got a
<v Speaker 3>call from Eddie Edvard Edvard van Halen, And so Frank's
<v Speaker 3>talking to him and he's like trying to figure out
<v Speaker 3>is this really Eddie Van Halen that I'm talking to here,
<v Speaker 3>and he's like Duezel, who's twelve at this point, He's like, Duezel,
<v Speaker 3>you like Van Halen. He's like yeah. He's like, come here,
<v Speaker 3>tell me if this is really him. Like they talking
<v Speaker 3>a bit and he's like, yeah, I recognize in his
<v Speaker 3>voice from like fair Warning or something like that, which
<v Speaker 3>it wasn't even anyway, that's not a portant. He was wrong,
<v Speaker 3>it wasn't even any but anyway, Yeah, he's like, yeah, Dad,
<v Speaker 3>that's really Eddie van Halen. And then Eddie van Halen
<v Speaker 3>shows up at their house and he's like playing with
<v Speaker 3>him a little bit. He's like, I want to hear
<v Speaker 3>more of your stuff. So he goes back to his
<v Speaker 3>own house, which is a few blocks away, gets three
<v Speaker 3>Van Halen albums, brings them back, and Frank Zappa is like,
<v Speaker 3>I gotta tell you thank you for reinventing.
<v Speaker 4>The electric guitar, inventing the electric guitar.
<v Speaker 3>Because I thought you guys were just another ac DC
<v Speaker 3>and I was wrong. And of course Dweezel a starstruck
<v Speaker 3>because he loves Van Halen well.
<v Speaker 4>And remember Frank Zappa is notorious for being incredibly hard
<v Speaker 4>on musicians.
<v Speaker 3>Oh, Steve Lucather got.
<v Speaker 4>Thrown out, like laughed out of the room for being
<v Speaker 4>terrible on guitar.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, Steve I is the virtuoso that he is because
<v Speaker 3>he was whipped into submission by Frank Zappa. So Frank, Eddie,
<v Speaker 3>and Steve Vai all are together jamming at Frank's house.
<v Speaker 3>In Frank's studio. Dewezl is there. He's trying to help
<v Speaker 3>and take part in things, and Eddie actually help helps
<v Speaker 3>Dewesel write his first song. He's got a little twelve
<v Speaker 3>year old band and a song is called My Mother's
<v Speaker 3>a Space Cadet. Right, And on the credits it was
<v Speaker 3>a pressed album. On the credits, the Vards are listed
<v Speaker 3>as the Vards because he was Edward.
<v Speaker 4>Yes, before you go for the quick trivia question for you, Okay,
<v Speaker 4>we'll see how you do on this. Yeah, we're getting
<v Speaker 4>ready to cover a movie pretty soon that has deesel
<v Speaker 4>Zappa in it. I don't know pretty in Pink has
<v Speaker 4>disel Zappa. He was dating Molly Ringwold at the time
<v Speaker 4>they filmed that movie.
<v Speaker 3>Wow. So there's that.
<v Speaker 4>And then Steve I of course leaves Frank Zappa and
<v Speaker 4>goes on to play for Davily Roth and then of
<v Speaker 4>course White Snake after that.
<v Speaker 3>Yep. So I tell you all this to say Eddie
<v Speaker 3>was inspired by what Frank was able to do because
<v Speaker 3>he was one of the guys who had fought against
<v Speaker 3>Warner Brothers for a long time to be able to
<v Speaker 3>do his own stuff. And the way he kind of
<v Speaker 3>made that work was he built his own studio.
<v Speaker 4>I'll do it at my house where nobody is there
<v Speaker 4>but me. Yes, And I do think that that's the
<v Speaker 4>key shift here, because Eddie takes notes from this and says,
<v Speaker 4>I'm tired of Dave and Ted Tembleman bean over my
<v Speaker 4>shoulder all the freaking time. Yes, I'm building a studio
<v Speaker 4>at my house.
<v Speaker 3>Yes, which I'm going to talk about in just a second,
<v Speaker 3>but real quick. Just as a kind of cute side story, Yep.
<v Speaker 3>Dweezle ultimately ends up doing Running with the Devil with
<v Speaker 3>his band. At a talent show. He calls Eddie because
<v Speaker 3>it's like my guitar keeps going out of tune, and
<v Speaker 3>so Eddie goes to visit him, goes back to his
<v Speaker 3>house and brings him a guitar that has these locking nuts.
<v Speaker 3>This is Floyd Rose brand new gear. You put these
<v Speaker 3>locking nuts on the guitar and it helps it from
<v Speaker 3>going out of time tune when you use the whammi bar,
<v Speaker 3>which you have to in Running with the Devil, and
<v Speaker 3>he gives him the guitar, just gives it to him.
<v Speaker 3>Here you go. Here's an Eddie Van Halen Floyd Rose
<v Speaker 3>locking nut guitar. Oh, by the way, you're not playing
<v Speaker 3>that right, let me show you how to really play it.
<v Speaker 3>Teaches him how to actually play it for his talent show.
<v Speaker 3>There's a lot of question about whether whether Eddie is
<v Speaker 3>a good guy or an asshole, and I think it's
<v Speaker 3>probably both. Probably both, And I mean Shirley substance abuse
<v Speaker 3>had something to do with all of that. He did
<v Speaker 3>a lot of this, He did a lot of a
<v Speaker 3>lot of stuff. Yeah, but he definitely has a lot
<v Speaker 3>of moments of being a genuinely nice guy. I think
<v Speaker 3>that's true. This is one of those moments, right. Yeah.
<v Speaker 3>So Eddie and Don Landy the light is shown, they're like,
<v Speaker 3>we have to build our own studio. They don't go
<v Speaker 3>for the top technology. They go for what sounds good
<v Speaker 3>and what they can find at the part store.
<v Speaker 4>Imagine working at radio shack and Eddie walks in, Oh yeah,
<v Speaker 4>I'm looking for some parts and build my.
<v Speaker 3>I mean in the one ads you know, probably the
<v Speaker 3>equivalent of Craig Craig list in nineteen eighty two. Right,
<v Speaker 3>they come across this Bill Pullman recording board, which I
<v Speaker 3>mean was state of the art at the time. But
<v Speaker 3>this thing was a piece of crap, and Eddie said,
<v Speaker 3>we bought it, and it was a piece of crap,
<v Speaker 3>like it was useless. But Don Landy tinkered around with
<v Speaker 3>it for a few days and basically rewired the whole thing,
<v Speaker 3>and then it became the soundboard that they used in
<v Speaker 3>the new studio.
<v Speaker 4>Well, and that goes along with Eddie before. What we've
<v Speaker 4>talked about before is he took a cast off guitar
<v Speaker 4>body and made the Frankenstrat out of it. Yes, he's
<v Speaker 4>kind of a tinkerer. He's got about four different patents
<v Speaker 4>at the US Patent Office for his tinkering around with stuff, right,
<v Speaker 4>that's right, including a little lever behind the guitar so
<v Speaker 4>you can play with both hands.
<v Speaker 3>Yes, like a piano.
<v Speaker 4>Like a piano.
<v Speaker 3>So Eddie is on tour, so he's only kind of
<v Speaker 3>partially taking part in this, so Don Landy, Bill Weiss
<v Speaker 3>and Valerie's brothers, the Burton Earlier brothers are over there
<v Speaker 3>working on the studio while Eddie's touring. And apparently the
<v Speaker 3>requirement was that they have blazing saddles playing at all times,
<v Speaker 3>and Valerie would continually bring out dacrease for everybody to
<v Speaker 3>be drinking. Excuse me, well, I whipped this up. And
<v Speaker 3>so oh and the other thing was zoning laws in
<v Speaker 3>California at that that area. Yeah, yeah, no, studios not allowed.
<v Speaker 3>So you know what eddievan Alan did what he built
<v Speaker 3>a racketball court. That's good. He built a racketball court
<v Speaker 3>which was allowed, and then it ended up having a
<v Speaker 3>bunch of recording equipment inside of it.
<v Speaker 4>Oddly enough, I have a story about that same studio
<v Speaker 4>in about three socks.
<v Speaker 3>Okay. Their first problem is there's an am antenna very
<v Speaker 3>close to the house and they're concerned about it getting feedback,
<v Speaker 3>so they literally wrap the thing in chicken wire and
<v Speaker 3>then cement around the chicken wire so that it eliminates
<v Speaker 3>all of the you know, the bleeding in of any
<v Speaker 3>radio signals. So it's they keep it at sixty four
<v Speaker 3>degrees the entire time it's so thick. They shoot a
<v Speaker 3>forty four magnum at it, and it does and penetrate
<v Speaker 3>it so that the studio is literally bulletproof.
<v Speaker 4>I mean, I'd like to be there the day that
<v Speaker 4>somebody's like, well, let's test it out, let's see what happens.
<v Speaker 3>Well, so after they test the gun, then they have
<v Speaker 3>to test the sound. The first tape that they put
<v Speaker 3>in is My Mother is a Space Cadet by duezels App.
<v Speaker 3>Oh that's cool, Yeah, I love it. Okay, So there
<v Speaker 3>you go. There's the history of the studio, which is
<v Speaker 3>how we get this album. Now you get you're gonna
<v Speaker 3>tell me about nineteen eighty four. This wee.
<v Speaker 4>Well, before we go into these tidbits, the name of
<v Speaker 4>the studio, Oh right, I mean we got to talk
<v Speaker 4>about that, right, sure. Yeah, the name of the studio
<v Speaker 4>is fifty one fifty.
<v Speaker 3>Fifty one was fifty, which on our previous episode we
<v Speaker 3>talked about how that's the call sign for somebody being
<v Speaker 3>involuntarily committed for being crazy, and.
<v Speaker 4>Of course we'll be talking about fifty one to fifty
<v Speaker 4>next week.
<v Speaker 3>There you go.
<v Speaker 4>So I've got a couple of tidbits on the creation
<v Speaker 4>of this intro. Okay, there is two stories about who
<v Speaker 4>wrote it.
<v Speaker 3>Yes.
<v Speaker 4>One of them is that Eddie wrote it because he
<v Speaker 4>was nooling around on the keyboard, which I find to
<v Speaker 4>be the most likely to be true, okay. And then
<v Speaker 4>the second is that Kevin Dugan, who was Michael Anthony's
<v Speaker 4>bass tech, said no, Michael Anthony, I wrote that song
<v Speaker 4>as an intro to Michael Anthony's bass solo in the concerts. Yeah,
<v Speaker 4>seems like different origin stories to me, significantly different origin stories.
<v Speaker 3>And I listened to the like the live version of
<v Speaker 3>the intro song that plays for Michael Anthony's bass solo,
<v Speaker 3>and it is that that sound, but I didn't hear
<v Speaker 3>any of the rest of it, So I think maybe
<v Speaker 3>it's a nomination, maybe blending of the ideas. Yes, Yeah,
<v Speaker 3>And apparently like Don Landy was supposed to have recorded
<v Speaker 3>Eddie noodling around on the keyboards for forty five minutes
<v Speaker 3>and just kind of plucked these things out as tight
<v Speaker 3>as this is, I find that hard to believe as well.
<v Speaker 3>So it's it's probably a mishmash, probably a combination. Yeah.
<v Speaker 3>By the way, fifty Studios was so noisy that the
<v Speaker 3>neighbor complained who the neighbor.
<v Speaker 4>Was, Lindsay Wagner. And you're still in my story bionic woman. Yes, yeah, yes,
<v Speaker 4>she would call Valerie Bartonelli and tell her to shut
<v Speaker 4>the doors because people are trying to sleep around here. Oh,
<v Speaker 4>by the way, I have bionic hearing.
<v Speaker 3>So Eddie is a keyboardist at heart, right, like he's
<v Speaker 3>a concert pianist right, trained classically, never learned to read music,
<v Speaker 3>but could from his ear be able to play all
<v Speaker 3>these classical pieces, which is why you get a whole
<v Speaker 3>lot of classical in the solos that he does. But
<v Speaker 3>he was really pushing to do more keyboard stuff and
<v Speaker 3>was getting a lot of resistance from Ted Templeman and
<v Speaker 3>from David Lee Roth. Right. He even composed something on
<v Speaker 3>the Moog synth that Ted Templeman and David Lee Roth
<v Speaker 3>stole and put in Dancing in the Streets, so you'll
<v Speaker 3>hear you'll hear a synth in Dancing in the Streets
<v Speaker 3>that Eddie wrote, but not for that song, like, so
<v Speaker 3>he was pissed that they put it in that song.
<v Speaker 3>So he has this, he has this song. Eddie says,
<v Speaker 3>this is a blending of the rolling Stones. Get off
<v Speaker 3>of my cloud and Your Kiss is on My List
<v Speaker 3>by Holland Oates. I know Man. So he plays it
<v Speaker 3>for David Lee Roth in nineteen eighty two, and davidly
<v Speaker 3>Roth says, you're a guitar god. No one wants to
<v Speaker 3>hear you play the keyboards. Yes. He plays it for
<v Speaker 3>Ted Templeman in nineteen eighty three, and Ted Templeman is like,
<v Speaker 3>you're a heavy metal band. If we're going to have keyboards,
<v Speaker 3>it needs to sound like Sunday afternoon in the park
<v Speaker 3>and needs to sound deep and dark. And what you're
<v Speaker 3>playing for me right now sounds like what they would
<v Speaker 3>play between the innings in a baseball game. I heard that. Yeah,
<v Speaker 3>at some point, Eddie Van Halen just said, you're wrong,
<v Speaker 3>and we're going to do this song. And now that
<v Speaker 3>we're doing it in my own studio, I'm going to
<v Speaker 3>make it sound the way I want it to sound.
<v Speaker 3>And here's how he wanted it to sound. So this
<v Speaker 3>was one of three songs that they had worked up
<v Speaker 3>that Eddie Van Hanlon, Alex and Don Landy had worked up.
<v Speaker 3>They had worked up all Wait, they'd worked up Dropped
<v Speaker 3>Dead Legs. Those were more sketches, but Jump they had
<v Speaker 3>really fleshed out as you know the bass track, and
<v Speaker 3>so Ted Templeman is like, Okay, I can live with this,
<v Speaker 3>and he says, Dave, go write some lyrics. And do
<v Speaker 3>you know how Dave writes his lyrics.
<v Speaker 4>He has one of the roadies drive him around in
<v Speaker 4>his car and he sits in the back and hey,
<v Speaker 4>crank it up and I'll get my sunglasses on. We'll
<v Speaker 4>drive around town and I'll think of something.
<v Speaker 3>His fifty one low writer Mercury.
<v Speaker 4>So he's driving around and he remembers the story where
<v Speaker 4>there was a guy on top of the Arco towers
<v Speaker 4>in LA who was going to commit suicide and they
<v Speaker 4>were news reporters there, and you know, there's a bunch
<v Speaker 4>of people like please, no.
<v Speaker 3>Don't do it, and he's only jump.
<v Speaker 4>There's always one person in the crowd who's like, go
<v Speaker 4>ahead and jump, jump, jump. And he thought that is
<v Speaker 4>a great line number one, some rebellious attitude, but it's
<v Speaker 4>also this kind of take a leap, do something, you know,
<v Speaker 4>go out and live life, you know, do it how
<v Speaker 4>you want.
<v Speaker 3>To do it. Yeah, davidly Ross said that people kind
<v Speaker 3>of gave it this motivational inspiration, but really it was
<v Speaker 3>good to jump, jump and jump. He said, the guy
<v Speaker 3>was going to check out early, going to take the
<v Speaker 3>thirty three story drop. I love it. I love it.
<v Speaker 4>By the way, I've got a quote for you on
<v Speaker 4>what Eddie van Halen said. His actual quote in regards
<v Speaker 4>to the pushback he was getting on the synthesizer. He
<v Speaker 4>said there were some people, namely Ted Templeman and davidly Roth,
<v Speaker 4>who did not want him to play the synthesizer, and
<v Speaker 4>his quote was, I'll play the freaking Bavarian cheese whistle
<v Speaker 4>if I can do it well, right, I'm doing this right,
<v Speaker 4>And I thought, man, the Bavarian cheese whistle.
<v Speaker 3>Let's go. Yeah, I can't play the Bavarian cheese whistle. Actually,
<v Speaker 3>can you really? No, I have no idea.
<v Speaker 4>Yes, I don't even know.
<v Speaker 3>That the Bavarian whistle. Okay, so real quick. The song
<v Speaker 3>number one was originally called go Ahead and Jump, Go
<v Speaker 3>ahead and ju just jump right. It was also the
<v Speaker 3>one they were going to put the car sounds in
<v Speaker 3>The car sounds that we're gonna hear in our next
<v Speaker 3>song originally were in this song, but they were like, nope,
<v Speaker 3>doesn't fit right. Take it out.
<v Speaker 4>You know where it was where what was so in
<v Speaker 4>the chorus where he's like, might as well jump, it
<v Speaker 4>was in place of the echoing jump.
<v Speaker 3>Oh nice. OK, So there you go.
<v Speaker 4>Before you talk about the music video, which I'm dying
<v Speaker 4>to talk about. This song hit number one February twenty fifth,
<v Speaker 4>nineteen eighty four. It is their only number one song.
<v Speaker 4>It knocked out Karma Chamelion stayed for five weeks, and
<v Speaker 4>I think there's a case to be made that it
<v Speaker 4>is the most iconic song of the nineteen eighties.
<v Speaker 3>This was on MTV at its inception so much and
<v Speaker 3>after they had spent so much money on the Pretty
<v Speaker 3>Woman video only to have it banned, They're like, let's
<v Speaker 3>go with a minimalist approach to this one.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, there's like black dropcloths and their instruments and nothing else. Right,
<v Speaker 4>They're running around doing a whole lot of nothing. Although
<v Speaker 4>I think you're getting ready to tell me. Yeah, but
<v Speaker 4>they filmed a bunch of sort of stuff that they
<v Speaker 4>did not use in this video.
<v Speaker 3>So the director is Robert Lombardi, Okay, and he's filming
<v Speaker 3>this video. He's doing this minimalist approach. He's got Pete
<v Speaker 3>Angelus also filming. But he says, we didn't use any
<v Speaker 3>of that footage because Pete doesn't know how to use
<v Speaker 3>a sixteen million million camera. Right now, we're going to
<v Speaker 3>talk about Pete Angelis a few times. And I said
<v Speaker 3>to you that the shirt I'm wearing is important. And
<v Speaker 3>do you know.
<v Speaker 4>Why Crazy brothers the Black Crows?
<v Speaker 3>Okay, if you will go back and listen to our
<v Speaker 3>Black Crows album to shake your money maker. Yes, Pete
<v Speaker 3>Angelis was the guy who managed the Black Crows after
<v Speaker 3>he got fired by David Lee Roth after he went
<v Speaker 3>with David Lee Roth because he was the one who
<v Speaker 3>had helped he helped up with the original nineteen eighty
<v Speaker 3>four videos, and he was a big influence in all
<v Speaker 3>of the David Lee Roth videos that immediately followed. I
<v Speaker 3>forgot about that, yeah, And so he was the one
<v Speaker 3>that actually taught Chris Robinson how to be a stage
<v Speaker 3>presence and on the stage. What guy is better to
<v Speaker 3>do that than the guy who spent years with David
<v Speaker 3>Lee Roth? Right? Nobody, right? Okay, So davidly Roth Is
<v Speaker 3>he is pressuring Robert Lombardi to do more stuff. Film
<v Speaker 3>a bunch of more of him, more of David Lee Roth. Right,
<v Speaker 3>lots of footage shot where David is just the center
<v Speaker 3>of attention right driving around. He's getting arrested, and so
<v Speaker 3>Robert Lombardi goes to Alex and Eddie and he's like, listen, guys,
<v Speaker 3>I don't think this fits the video. It just doesn't
<v Speaker 3>seem right. And they're like, we agree with you. We
<v Speaker 3>don't want to use that footage. And so the footage
<v Speaker 3>got cut. Bad part was you don't go behind Davide
<v Speaker 3>Roth's back. And he reported to their management and the
<v Speaker 3>management was like, you're fired. Yeah. So the director not just.
<v Speaker 4>You're fired, here's your check. You're fired. Never want to
<v Speaker 4>see you again.
<v Speaker 3>Right you. And this is the guy who essentially directed,
<v Speaker 3>if not the most, one of the most iconic videos
<v Speaker 3>of course, yeah Crazy.
<v Speaker 4>It goes on to win the VMA Award for Best
<v Speaker 4>Performance Video.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, nominated for a couple of other spots as well.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah Yeah, and Robert Lombard's like, never got my award.
<v Speaker 3>No, it's terrible. Yeah.
<v Speaker 4>By the way, in this song, it has been confirmed
<v Speaker 4>by both Eddie and Darryl Hall that he stole the
<v Speaker 4>riff from Kisses on My.
<v Speaker 3>List Yeah for jump.
<v Speaker 4>We were talking about Hall of Oates here in just
<v Speaker 4>a few weeks.
<v Speaker 3>Oh that's right. Yeah, So who are we comparing Hollow
<v Speaker 3>Notes to.
<v Speaker 4>Man It Work, Jay Giles Band and hol of Oats
<v Speaker 4>three big albums from nineteen eighty one?
<v Speaker 3>All right, another three way?
<v Speaker 4>Okay, so just a couple more things un jump real quick.
<v Speaker 4>That summer, I remember the Chicago Cubs used it to
<v Speaker 4>introduce all of their baseball games. Yeah, which that's back
<v Speaker 4>when WGN was. Everybody had WGN and you just watch
<v Speaker 4>Cup games all the time. But their retentions already going
<v Speaker 4>on in the band. So Robert Lombard, who you talked
<v Speaker 4>about in the video, he did all of the individual
<v Speaker 4>stuff early in the day. So it's Alex playing the jumps,
<v Speaker 4>it's Michael Anthony run around with the base and he
<v Speaker 4>saved the group stuff until the end of the day
<v Speaker 4>because they were not getting along, Like.
<v Speaker 3>This is the opening track.
<v Speaker 4>They're getting ready to do this twelvemonth own the world
<v Speaker 4>thing and they already can't stand each other.
<v Speaker 3>Right.
<v Speaker 4>Do you want to hear the top ten for February
<v Speaker 4>twenty fifth, nineteen eighty four.
<v Speaker 3>The week that this hit number one?
<v Speaker 4>Oh my god, it brace yourself?
<v Speaker 3>Okay, yeah, here you go.
<v Speaker 4>Number ten an Innocent Man by Billy Joel.
<v Speaker 3>Great One covered it, Yeah.
<v Speaker 4>Number nine, Wrapped Around Your Finger by the Police, Great
<v Speaker 4>One covered it.
<v Speaker 3>Yep.
<v Speaker 4>Number eight Let the Music Play by Shannon made our
<v Speaker 4>best of nineteen eighty four must have been yours.
<v Speaker 3>That wasn't remember that one?
<v Speaker 4>Number seven Nobody Told Me by John Lennon.
<v Speaker 3>Oh oh yeah, yeah yeah yeah.
<v Speaker 4>Number six Joanna by Cool in the Gang.
<v Speaker 3>Yep.
<v Speaker 4>Number five Thriller of course covered it. Number four Girls
<v Speaker 4>Just want to have Fun.
<v Speaker 3>We're going to cover that.
<v Speaker 4>I haven't got there yet, Okay, we will. Number three
<v Speaker 4>ninety nine Left Balloons.
<v Speaker 3>Oh wow Yeah.
<v Speaker 4>Check us out on Patreon.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah.
<v Speaker 4>The number two Karma Kamelion impressive.
<v Speaker 3>List defining the decade.
<v Speaker 4>One more thing in this song you have an incredible
<v Speaker 4>guitar solo, but you also have an incredible keyboard solo
<v Speaker 4>as well. I can't say enough good things about this song.
<v Speaker 3>I love it.
<v Speaker 4>It's iconic. It's one of my f favorite songs.
<v Speaker 3>From the eighties. It is what I would say is
<v Speaker 3>the pinpoint transition of the old van Halen to the
<v Speaker 3>new van Halen. You've made the case, and I say
<v Speaker 3>I now agree with you because even though they have
<v Speaker 3>used keyboards in the past. This is a different sound keyboard.
<v Speaker 3>This is a keyboard up front and at the beginning
<v Speaker 3>in the solo, prominently displayed in the video. This is
<v Speaker 3>a new van Haleen.
<v Speaker 4>It's its own solo. You're right, it's a new Van
<v Speaker 4>Haleen at this point.
<v Speaker 3>Yes, And just in case you were pissed off that
<v Speaker 3>they've made that change, we'll go ahead and bring it
<v Speaker 3>back home to the old style with the next song,
<v Speaker 3>which is Panama.
<v Speaker 4>I'll freaking love this song.
<v Speaker 3>Man.
<v Speaker 4>It rocks my balls.
<v Speaker 3>Man, I think I said back in twenty twenty, this
<v Speaker 3>is my favorite song on the whole album. It might
<v Speaker 3>still be. It's it's between this and hot for teacher
<v Speaker 3>any day of the week.
<v Speaker 4>Right, There's a case to be made for jump as well.
<v Speaker 3>So what do a stripper in Arizona and a dragster
<v Speaker 3>racer from Vegas having gone?
<v Speaker 4>I guess something with the word Panama.
<v Speaker 3>They are both inspirations for this song.
<v Speaker 4>Not the country. Not the country has nothing to do
<v Speaker 4>with the country Panama.
<v Speaker 3>I gotta say it. This will come up again. These
<v Speaker 3>songs are inspired by other songs. These songs are homages
<v Speaker 3>to other songs. I'm gonna have to play dogg Eat
<v Speaker 3>dog By. Oh yeah, you hear it right there.
<v Speaker 4>Just gotta let it get started a little bit.
<v Speaker 3>Oh yeah, there's no question with that drums and that guitar.
<v Speaker 3>It's not an identical copy. No, it's better. Yes, it's
<v Speaker 3>definitely borrowed. Yeah.
<v Speaker 4>I love the inspiration to the creation of this song.
<v Speaker 4>So David Lee Roth is talking to a reporter and
<v Speaker 4>the reporter asks him sort of accuses him of only
<v Speaker 4>writing songs about fast women, partying and fast cars. And
<v Speaker 4>he's like, wait a minute, I haven't written a song
<v Speaker 4>about fast cars. And so he's like, I take that
<v Speaker 4>as a challenge. I am writing a song about a
<v Speaker 4>fast car.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, the Panama Express from Las Vegas.
<v Speaker 4>You know, we talked about this in previous episodes, but
<v Speaker 4>the revving sound in this song is Eddie's nineteen seventy
<v Speaker 4>two Lamborghini that was given to him as a gift
<v Speaker 4>from Valerie.
<v Speaker 3>Yes, wedding gift.
<v Speaker 4>A wedding gift.
<v Speaker 3>You know who owned it before, Rod Stewart.
<v Speaker 4>Rod Stewart, And this is the car that was in
<v Speaker 4>the shop that Sammy had his Ferrari that the mechanics like, hey, Sammy, Hey, Eddie,
<v Speaker 4>you guys need to get together.
<v Speaker 3>Peanut butter meat, chocolate, chocolate meat, peanut butter.
<v Speaker 4>So this nineteen seventy two Lamborghini is pretty important to
<v Speaker 4>the future of Van Halen.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah. So the single and the video, both released on
<v Speaker 3>the same day. Looks like mid June nineteen eighty four.
<v Speaker 3>Sounds about right, hit number thirteen does okay? Yep. The
<v Speaker 3>video starts off with a plane flying and then a
<v Speaker 3>member of Van Halen flying. Yes, this is the first
<v Speaker 3>time we see the Jack Daniels bass. Yeah.
<v Speaker 4>Michael Anthony was talking to Kevin Duban, who is his
<v Speaker 4>bass technician, and they wanted their own signature guitar like
<v Speaker 4>the Frankenstrat was to Eddie.
<v Speaker 3>Yep.
<v Speaker 4>And while they're thinking about what they're going to do,
<v Speaker 4>they're passing back and forth a bottle of Jack Daniels.
<v Speaker 4>What should we do? Ah, I can't think of anything gold,
<v Speaker 4>And then they're like, I got it. Our guitar is
<v Speaker 4>going to look like the bottle of Jack Daniels, right,
<v Speaker 4>and it's super cool. Right, So they contact Jack Daniels,
<v Speaker 4>and Jack Daniels says, Okay, that's fine as long as
<v Speaker 4>you don't make any more than three at one time,
<v Speaker 4>and so here they show up prominently in the Panama video. Yep,
<v Speaker 4>you know what else shows up in the Panama video
<v Speaker 4>where they're like dangling them and like dragging them across
<v Speaker 4>like it's the bon Jovi living on a prayer stuff.
<v Speaker 4>Several years before that, I read a story where Michael
<v Speaker 4>Anthony's like, when I look at that video, all I
<v Speaker 4>think about is how bad my nuts were getting crushed
<v Speaker 4>by this thing that was swinging us back and forth.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah. So director on this video eat Angelus okay, who
<v Speaker 3>got his revenge after Robert Lombard said this guy can't
<v Speaker 3>do He used all of that footage that Robert Lombard
<v Speaker 3>had shot for the Jump video that Robert Lombard said,
<v Speaker 3>I don't want this in this video, so they put
<v Speaker 3>it in the Panama video instead, including the arrest of
<v Speaker 3>David Lee Roth in a towel which was staged, not
<v Speaker 3>a real arrest.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, but that added some rock credibility that were super cool.
<v Speaker 4>Of course, the motorcycle, it was well done. I thought
<v Speaker 4>it was cool. Yeah, I do agree with them. I
<v Speaker 4>don't think it fits as well in the Jump video
<v Speaker 4>if it's much better in this video.
<v Speaker 3>Sure.
<v Speaker 4>By the way, the number one song of the week
<v Speaker 4>that Panama tops out at number thirteen.
<v Speaker 3>Yes, Ghostbusters, Wow, okay capteen eighty four?
<v Speaker 4>Man, I mean it's it's incredible.
<v Speaker 3>All right. You ready for the next song.
<v Speaker 4>Next song on the album?
<v Speaker 3>Okay? Wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait
<v Speaker 3>before we announce it. If you listen to this song,
<v Speaker 3>or if you're listening to this, we'll play this song right.
<v Speaker 3>If you've got headphones, put your headphones on, and I
<v Speaker 3>want you to tell me, is this one guitar or two?
<v Speaker 3>Listen to how it goes into each year? Is this
<v Speaker 3>is this one guitar or is this too? Okay? This
<v Speaker 3>song is called top Jimmy.
<v Speaker 4>All right, tell me the story about the strings.
<v Speaker 3>Okay. So it sounds like you've got like you've got
<v Speaker 3>some strings playing in your right ear and some strings
<v Speaker 3>playing in your left ear. So it would seem to
<v Speaker 3>be maybe this is two different guitars. It is not.
<v Speaker 3>This is a guitar that was invented by a guitar
<v Speaker 3>builder called Steve Ripley. Was prototype. The beauty of this
<v Speaker 3>guitar was you could send pick up from one string
<v Speaker 3>to one speaker and pick up from another spring string
<v Speaker 3>to another speaker, and so Eddie is playing one guitar.
<v Speaker 3>These notes, these strings are all being played at the
<v Speaker 3>same time. But unlike Mutt Lang, who would probably record
<v Speaker 3>each individual string and then layer them all together, you
<v Speaker 3>were literally hearing it being played at the same time,
<v Speaker 3>but through different speakers. Fantastic and it's beautiful. I love it.
<v Speaker 4>Jeff Johnson told me this is the worst song on
<v Speaker 4>the album. I don't agree with.
<v Speaker 3>Him on that.
<v Speaker 4>Geez okay, But this song was written about a real person.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, which is rare, okay, rare for David Lee Roth
<v Speaker 3>right about somebody else of all things.
<v Speaker 4>So this is written about a guy named James Koenik, right,
<v Speaker 4>And he got his name Top Jimmy because he worked
<v Speaker 4>at a restaurant. It was called Top Taco.
<v Speaker 3>He was also the lead singer of a band. He
<v Speaker 3>was Top Jimmy and the Rhythm Pigs Thank You You're Welcome,
<v Speaker 3>real band.
<v Speaker 4>Dave was the anonymous financial backer for this club called
<v Speaker 4>Zero Zero that Top Jimmy owned.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, they had to pretend that they were an art
<v Speaker 3>gallery because they didn't have a liquor license, and then
<v Speaker 3>they just you know, do their stuff at night when
<v Speaker 3>nobody was really patrol on the streets anyway. Among the
<v Speaker 3>people who enjoyed Zero zero and Top Jimmy and the
<v Speaker 3>Rhythm Pigs, Jim Belushim and get rid of this, you
<v Speaker 3>know it, Lucille Ball, Lucy O Ball, I saw that. Man.
<v Speaker 4>She actually made that pronouncement on a TV show.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, one of her like eighties TV shows that she did.
<v Speaker 4>Like I love Top Jimmy and the Rhythm Pigs. Yeah,
<v Speaker 4>oh that's my kind of music.
<v Speaker 3>Benny Goodman, Glenn Miller.
<v Speaker 4>No, Top Jimmy and the Rhythm Pigs.
<v Speaker 3>It was. It was hilarious, even though nobody who knew
<v Speaker 3>who Top Jimmy and the Rhythm Pigs was, because it's
<v Speaker 3>just an absurd name for a band, especially one that
<v Speaker 3>an old at that point, Lady Mom would be listening.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, I love the story. David Lee Roth would come
<v Speaker 4>to this club zero zero and it's kind of a
<v Speaker 4>sleazy club. It wasn't a great club, but he would
<v Speaker 4>bring girls in a limo to this club, a couple
<v Speaker 4>of girls on his arm. They would go inside. They're like,
<v Speaker 4>this place stinks, this is gross. Yeah, we're gonna go
<v Speaker 4>wait in the limo and He's like, ah, whatever, go
<v Speaker 4>sit in a limo, and pretty soon he'd be sending
<v Speaker 4>other girls out to the limo until the limo.
<v Speaker 3>Was stuffed full of girls. Great.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, very Dave fashion.
<v Speaker 3>So mention that the guy who invented this guitar that
<v Speaker 3>Eddie is playing was Steve Ripley. The name of this
<v Speaker 3>song was actually Ripley. Initially, Okay, ultimately they would, you know,
<v Speaker 3>obviously call it top Jimmy. But they took the Ripley
<v Speaker 3>title and they put that to a song that came
<v Speaker 3>out on the Wildlife soundtrack. Remember the movie Wildlife I
<v Speaker 3>Do with.
<v Speaker 4>Had the guy had Lea Thompson and Eric Stoltz, had
<v Speaker 4>the guy from had chris Pin Weird Science, and it
<v Speaker 4>had Iam Ian.
<v Speaker 3>Whatever his name is, Wyatt Wyatt. Yes, yeah, So that
<v Speaker 3>title went to that song on the Wildlife soundtrack. But
<v Speaker 3>that music then becomes the basis for Blood and Fire,
<v Speaker 3>which is on the album A Different Kind of Truth,
<v Speaker 3>which is like the reunion.
<v Speaker 4>Album that they bring Dave back into the fold in
<v Speaker 4>twenty twelve. Yeah, by the way, I thought this quote
<v Speaker 4>was great about the zero zero Club. Yes, it was
<v Speaker 4>a great place to have sex on the hood of
<v Speaker 4>cars with a joint and a fifth of Jack Daniels
<v Speaker 4>in one hand and a line of dope on the
<v Speaker 4>back of the other hand.
<v Speaker 3>Don't do drug skits well too awesome. By the way,
<v Speaker 3>Top Jimmy is an undiscovered gem. Jeff Johnson couldn't be
<v Speaker 3>more wrong this. I love Top Jimmy. We love Jeff
<v Speaker 3>all right.
<v Speaker 4>Next song the album is called drop Dead Legs.
<v Speaker 3>Okay, I gotta say this. Okay, this sound, this guitar
<v Speaker 3>sound number one. He's not using the frankenstrap. He's using
<v Speaker 3>a Gibson Flying V fifty eight.
<v Speaker 4>The V thing.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah V. Yes, that's the sound that would become the
<v Speaker 3>Van Hagar sound. You listen to the way the guitar
<v Speaker 3>sounds on that song right there, and that's what we
<v Speaker 3>That is the foreshadowing of what we get when we
<v Speaker 3>get fifty one to fifty.
<v Speaker 4>I mean it makes sense. I love this song.
<v Speaker 3>I knew you would.
<v Speaker 4>It's like a melted snicker bar. It's wonderful.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, I don't know why being melted makes it wonderful,
<v Speaker 3>but yet it goes so well, you know, it just
<v Speaker 3>melts in your mouth. Yeah, yeah, it's okay. So again
<v Speaker 3>this one, I'm not gonna play the song for you,
<v Speaker 3>because if you don't know it, I'm like, Okay, go
<v Speaker 3>back and listen to our episode on this album. This
<v Speaker 3>one he is an homage to ac DC's Back in Black.
<v Speaker 4>You can hear it. I didn't even recognize it until
<v Speaker 4>I read Eddie talk about that.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah it's then yep ye. Now the solo that he
<v Speaker 3>does with the Flying v later on this one, that
<v Speaker 3>one is inspired by Alan Holdsworth, a guy that he
<v Speaker 3>went and was watching and playing with when he met
<v Speaker 3>Steve Y. All those other stories, now he this. He
<v Speaker 3>and Ted Templeman worked to get Alan Holtsworth a record deal.
<v Speaker 3>And the story is so long and complicated I can't
<v Speaker 3>tell it right, but it goes badly. It goes very badly.
<v Speaker 4>Alan Holdsworth is Eddie's hero, and he uses his power
<v Speaker 4>to get Ted Templeman to produce this album, and in
<v Speaker 4>the end, nobody got.
<v Speaker 3>What they wanted exactly right, exactly Yes.
<v Speaker 4>By the way, this song. I sent you a text today,
<v Speaker 4>I said, we haven't talked about a stripper song and forever.
<v Speaker 4>I said, it's good to get back to boobies. I
<v Speaker 4>mean basics. This song was inspired by Marilyn Monroe.
<v Speaker 3>Speaking of boobies. Yeah. Yeah, So there's this scene in
<v Speaker 3>some Like It Hot where she's walking along with little
<v Speaker 3>violin case and steam shoots out of an engine and
<v Speaker 3>David Lee Roth was like, I would do anything to
<v Speaker 3>have been that violin case at that moment.
<v Speaker 4>Yes, I love this song. It is a gem for me.
<v Speaker 4>I could listen to this one all day. Yeah, hit
<v Speaker 4>stuff on your table, layer, kick it out, flip it
<v Speaker 4>over for side too, and we start off with a
<v Speaker 4>banger double bass shuffle.
<v Speaker 3>Here we go.
<v Speaker 4>This song is called Hopper Teacher.
<v Speaker 3>Okay, So I'm not gonna play these songs again. Mentioned
<v Speaker 3>them when we did our original Van Haleen versus Van
<v Speaker 3>Hagar matchup. But go listen to the band Cactus and
<v Speaker 3>their song Parchment Farm. It's dead on, dead on, ye
<v Speaker 3>go look at Billy Cobbum's quadrant yep. Drums are obviously
<v Speaker 3>very similar to that there. But when you're listening to
<v Speaker 3>the very first drums snippet that doesn't sound quite rhythmic.
<v Speaker 3>But as if you ever had an old car that
<v Speaker 3>you had to start on a cold morning you're gonna go,
<v Speaker 3>it kind of kind of sounds similar to the way
<v Speaker 3>the car just kind of So the rumor is it's
<v Speaker 3>not actually drums, but it's the Lamborghini again and it's
<v Speaker 3>idling as it's just been started. Now. The rest of
<v Speaker 3>the rumor is is that no, it's it's Alex, and
<v Speaker 3>it's the drums are so fast and the way that
<v Speaker 3>it's going. But it's because they were electronic drums, and
<v Speaker 3>so you could program the sound, and so he was
<v Speaker 3>programming the sound of drums that he was hitting with
<v Speaker 3>his hands as the same sound as drums that he
<v Speaker 3>was hitting with his feet, So you get a same
<v Speaker 3>drums sound, but all four appendages are able to be
<v Speaker 3>to be going at the same time.
<v Speaker 4>I called James Buckley other day, yes, and I said, James,
<v Speaker 4>as our resident drummer expert, is Alex playing this all
<v Speaker 4>at one time in the studio? Can a person do this?
<v Speaker 4>He's like yes, he said, very hard.
<v Speaker 3>All right, but you can do it right. It doesn't
<v Speaker 3>sound the same when he plays it on the drums.
<v Speaker 3>I've seen it live. So you think it's the manufacturer.
<v Speaker 3>I think that it. I think that it's probably not
<v Speaker 3>the Lambo sound, but I think that it's Alex imitating
<v Speaker 3>the idol Lambeau with reprogramming his drums. I think it's
<v Speaker 3>a combination of the tip.
<v Speaker 4>Whatever you want to do in the studio is fine
<v Speaker 4>with me.
<v Speaker 3>Again, we've got Eddie playing his fifty eight flying V
<v Speaker 3>and this is the beauty is he can He's moving
<v Speaker 3>between the clean sound and that heavy raunchy Again, this
<v Speaker 3>is classic Van Halen raw.
<v Speaker 4>How did this only get to number fifty six?
<v Speaker 3>It doesn't even make any freaking sense. The video is genius.
<v Speaker 3>The song is arguably the best one on the album
<v Speaker 3>other than the PRMC actually had some sort of impact,
<v Speaker 3>which would find hard to believe, but maybe not because
<v Speaker 3>parents were buying albums for kids, and it was this
<v Speaker 3>song that Tipper gore her Her eight year old child said, Mommy,
<v Speaker 3>why is the teacher taking off her clothes? And she
<v Speaker 3>said at that point and started paying attention. Now, when
<v Speaker 3>they play this video at the Senate hearing, they stop
<v Speaker 3>it in the middle of the like a middle of
<v Speaker 3>his guitar solo, and people laugh and collapse and they're like,
<v Speaker 3>now you're we let you people in here. It's over capacity.
<v Speaker 3>There will be no outbursts.
<v Speaker 4>They played Hotford Teacher in a Senate hearing and people cheered,
<v Speaker 4>but I think though, the real story on this song
<v Speaker 4>is it's really the music video. Oh it's amazing, right,
<v Speaker 4>And so you have these child actors who are Little Dave,
<v Speaker 4>Little Eddie, Little Alex, Little Michael, and they go back
<v Speaker 4>to school and they're causing trouble and they're in class
<v Speaker 4>and then all of a sudden, Miss fez Ed comes
<v Speaker 4>out in a bikini and they're like whoa. They're like
<v Speaker 4>up and cheering.
<v Speaker 3>So the guy who played Little Eddie, his name was
<v Speaker 3>Brian Hitchcock. Eddie actually gave him the little like the
<v Speaker 3>guitar that he had in the video. He gave that
<v Speaker 3>to him in twenty twenty. He sold it for fifty
<v Speaker 3>thousand dollars. In twenty twenty two, it got offered on
<v Speaker 3>eBay for two hundred and twenty thousand dollars. In twenty
<v Speaker 3>twenty three, the real guitar that Eddie played in the
<v Speaker 3>video sold for three point nine million dollars. Yeah, I
<v Speaker 3>feel like it's people taking advantage of the death of
<v Speaker 3>a rock star in this particular scenario.
<v Speaker 4>But anyway, Young Michael Anthony is played by an actor
<v Speaker 4>named Yano Anaya. He played Groverdill in.
<v Speaker 3>A Christmas Story I want to go tell my dad.
<v Speaker 4>The little tody. Uh by the way, wait did.
<v Speaker 3>Did did you? Are you gonna tell them about what
<v Speaker 3>Alex did for this kid? He made him shotgun a beer.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah yeah, twelve years old, Yeah yeah, twelve years old
<v Speaker 3>here shotgun this beer kid. Yeah.
<v Speaker 4>But the director of the video, so he didn't make
<v Speaker 4>it the whole time. Basically, Pete Angelos and davidly Roth
<v Speaker 4>became too much and he had to split. But was
<v Speaker 4>said that the child actors started to take on the
<v Speaker 4>personalities of the real life guys because they're hanging with them, right, Yeah,
<v Speaker 4>And so the kid who played davidly Roth, he's, you know,
<v Speaker 4>boisterous and kind of a turd and rude, and the
<v Speaker 4>kid who's playing Eddie was kind of shy, and they
<v Speaker 4>just took on those personalities.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, that's what you do as an actor, right, I guess.
<v Speaker 4>Hard to tell. In the music video as they're dancing,
<v Speaker 4>they are the worst dancers. And Alex, especially the guy
<v Speaker 4>who keeps the beat for the band like it's his
<v Speaker 4>one job has to be on beat. He's always a
<v Speaker 4>half step behind in the dancing. And Michael Anthony talked
<v Speaker 4>about how right before they were filming, and Alex's like, man,
<v Speaker 4>you gotta help me. I need some help. And he's like, dude,
<v Speaker 4>you're kind of hopeless. I don't know what to tell you.
<v Speaker 3>Can I sit down for this?
<v Speaker 4>The choreographer for the video was the white guy from
<v Speaker 4>the beat It video.
<v Speaker 3>The cameraman was the cameraman from the Texas Chainsaw Masacre movie.
<v Speaker 3>There you go? Wow?
<v Speaker 4>Wait a second, man, what do you think of?
<v Speaker 3>Teacher's gonna look like this year? Right? And the school
<v Speaker 3>that they shot at John Marshall High School, which was
<v Speaker 3>attended by Leonardo DiCaprio. There you go. Yeah.
<v Speaker 4>They also shot the movie Fast Times at Ridgemont High,
<v Speaker 4>Nightmare and Elm Street and Pretty in Pink at this.
<v Speaker 3>School back again? How about that? Wow?
<v Speaker 4>It also starred Diane Rupert, who was Miss Chemistry. She
<v Speaker 4>was the nineteen eighty one Miss Canada runner up. She
<v Speaker 4>made twenty five hundred dollars for the shoot.
<v Speaker 3>I bless her.
<v Speaker 4>Yep, she looks fantastic. Waldo is the kid, you know,
<v Speaker 4>he's the kids getting bullied or whatever by Phil Hartman,
<v Speaker 4>by Phil Hartmon. He gets on the bus, the school
<v Speaker 4>bus with Davie Roth driving, and you have this great
<v Speaker 4>scene where the kids are throwing stuff and all of
<v Speaker 4>a sudden they're staring at this weird kid. But at
<v Speaker 4>the end of the video, David Lee Roth pulls up
<v Speaker 4>in his hot rod and Michael Anthony said Dave could
<v Speaker 4>not drive this car, like it was dangerous for him
<v Speaker 4>to drive this car. And at the end of the
<v Speaker 4>video they all climb on board and Dave peels out
<v Speaker 4>and like takes off, and the whole crew was like,
<v Speaker 4>oh my god, Dave's gonna kill these kids. Right, nothing happened,
<v Speaker 4>but yeah, Dave was not a good driver of that car. Okay,
<v Speaker 4>I've got one other thing for you on this So
<v Speaker 4>this is packed full of fun stuff. I mean, you
<v Speaker 4>got women and teachers and bikinis and kids and hot
<v Speaker 4>rods and Dave in prison for some reason. But on
<v Speaker 4>the chalkboard behind them you have numbers yep eight, fifteen, twelve,
<v Speaker 4>twenty five, nineteen eight nine twenty. And if you just
<v Speaker 4>take the letters of the alphabet and you match up
<v Speaker 4>that letter with that number, you got h O L
<v Speaker 4>Y sh I twenty.
<v Speaker 3>But in reverse. But in reverse, that's in reverse, so's
<v Speaker 3>it's backwards. Holy s word yeap backwards. Yes, this one
<v Speaker 3>was released September twenty third, nineteen eighty four.
<v Speaker 4>They spent two hundred thousand dollars on this music video,
<v Speaker 4>as opposed to twenty bucks in pizza for the jump video.
<v Speaker 4>All right, yes, next song, This song is called I'll Wait.
<v Speaker 4>All right, So this is a really interesting story. This
<v Speaker 4>started out as a instrumental. Eddie would hand it to
<v Speaker 4>Dave and say, Dave come up with lyrics, and Dave
<v Speaker 4>was tapped out. Dave had nothing. Dave couldn't make anything work,
<v Speaker 4>and he and Ted Timbleman worked on it. They couldn't
<v Speaker 4>get anything going, and Ted Templeman said, I've got a
<v Speaker 4>friend who might be able to help us. His name
<v Speaker 4>is Michael McDonald of the Doobie Brothers.
<v Speaker 3>We've talked about Michael McDonald multiple times.
<v Speaker 4>Got him last week on our Best of eighty six. Yep,
<v Speaker 4>he's the lead singer and the unmistakable voice of the
<v Speaker 4>Doobie Brothers.
<v Speaker 3>Right, But before we get to the Michael McDonald's story. Yes,
<v Speaker 3>as it was still an instrumental and Eddie was pushing
<v Speaker 3>to get something done on it, Ted Templeman didn't like it,
<v Speaker 3>Like this is this is the the end of the
<v Speaker 3>end for davidly Roth and Ted Templeman on one side
<v Speaker 3>and Eddie Yeah yeah, and the rest of them. So
<v Speaker 3>every time Eddie would play this song, Ted Templeman to
<v Speaker 3>taunt him would hum hold your head up by Argent. Okay, so,
<v Speaker 3>can't get any words. Sounds like an Ardent song. Yeah.
<v Speaker 4>So, so Ted Tumbleman calls his buddy Michael McDonald. They
<v Speaker 4>go and they meet at Ted Templeman's office and it's
<v Speaker 4>Ted Tubberman, David Lee Roth, and Michael McDonald. Michael McDonald
<v Speaker 4>goes back, works on the song, comes up with a
<v Speaker 4>good portion of the lyrics, including the chorus the ah wait.
<v Speaker 4>Partner gives it back to Ted tumble doesn't give it.
<v Speaker 3>To him because the story I heard is that Ted
<v Speaker 3>Templeman had a hidden cassette recorder at his desk and
<v Speaker 3>Michael McDonald just came in and sang it and he
<v Speaker 3>recorded it without letting him know that he was doing that.
<v Speaker 4>Interesting. I hadn't heard that part. Yeah, well, I do
<v Speaker 4>know that. When the album came out, Michael McDonald's name
<v Speaker 4>is not listed as one of the writers on this song.
<v Speaker 4>And he's like, do these guys think I'm Santa Claus?
<v Speaker 3>Like I showed up.
<v Speaker 4>I give him this song, which by the way, was
<v Speaker 4>the second single. It reached number thirteen on the Hot
<v Speaker 4>one hundred with no video. Right, not bad, it's a
<v Speaker 4>great song. I love this song.
<v Speaker 3>I love it too.
<v Speaker 4>And so he actually he calls up Ted Tumbleman. He's like,
<v Speaker 4>you screwed me. I was your friend and you brought
<v Speaker 4>me in and I helped you and I gave you
<v Speaker 4>the song and you cut me out. So he actually
<v Speaker 4>had to chase the money a little bit, sued him
<v Speaker 4>suit them and to them and one yeah, and he said,
<v Speaker 4>it's the most lucrative thing he's ever done in his career.
<v Speaker 3>Which is impressive because he's got a very lucrative career.
<v Speaker 3>He said.
<v Speaker 4>The Doobie Brothers made platinum albums, he goes, but Van
<v Speaker 4>Halen made mega platinum albums.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah. So here's the weird twist on this story. Okay,
<v Speaker 3>this wasn't a number one. Eddie didn't know that Ted
<v Speaker 3>had recorded the lyrics to this song, and that it
<v Speaker 3>wasn't it wasn't David Lee Roth who had come up
<v Speaker 3>with the lyrics. He didn't know any of this, right, Okay,
<v Speaker 3>And with this story about the tape, recorder. It kind
<v Speaker 3>of falls into place on that right. But back in
<v Speaker 3>nineteen seventy seven, Eddie and Michael McDonald had cross paths before.
<v Speaker 3>Oh I don't know this, okay. So there's a lady
<v Speaker 3>called Nicolette Larsen and there's a song called Can't Get
<v Speaker 3>Away from You.
<v Speaker 4>That guitar is unmistakably Eddie van Hale.
<v Speaker 3>It's obviously him, even back in nineteen seventy seven, which
<v Speaker 3>is before their debut albums. That's before their debut album,
<v Speaker 3>but unquestionably it's him. Michael McDonald got credit on that album. Yes,
<v Speaker 3>Eddie Van Halen did not at all. Console Circle Crazy.
<v Speaker 4>By the way, So this song hits number thirteen on
<v Speaker 4>June second, nineteen eighty four. I really remember Vanahlen kind
<v Speaker 4>of owning the summer of eighty four, them and Ghostbusters
<v Speaker 4>really and Prince Yeah. Okay, here's your top thirteen real quick.
<v Speaker 3>I'll wait.
<v Speaker 4>Number twelve Borderline by Madonna, Self Control by Laura Branigan,
<v Speaker 4>to all the Girls I've loved before.
<v Speaker 3>Oh yeah, Leoiglecias and Willie Nelson, Break Dance, Irene Kiara Nice.
<v Speaker 4>The Heart of Rock and Roll by Huey Lewis Against
<v Speaker 4>All Odds by Phil Collins, Sister Christian Night Ranger, The
<v Speaker 4>Reflex by Deran Duran, Yeah, Oh Sherry by Steve Perry,
<v Speaker 4>Hello by Lionel Ritchie, Yeah, Time after Time by Cyndi
<v Speaker 4>Lauper and Let's hear it for the Boy from the
<v Speaker 4>Philous soundtrack.
<v Speaker 3>Wow, what a summer man. There wasn't a skipper in
<v Speaker 3>that whole list. All right, next song on the album
<v Speaker 3>this is Girl Gone Bad.
<v Speaker 4>Okay, So here's the story of the creation of this song.
<v Speaker 3>Yep.
<v Speaker 4>Eddie and Valerie were on tour. They were in South America,
<v Speaker 4>and he bolts up one night in bed, lights out,
<v Speaker 4>she's asleep, and this song kind of comes crashing into
<v Speaker 4>his brain, and he's like, I really could just roll
<v Speaker 4>over and go back to sleep. He goes, but I've
<v Speaker 4>learned that when something hits, like inspiration hits, you get
<v Speaker 4>out of bed and you write it down and you
<v Speaker 4>go for it. And so he goes into the closet
<v Speaker 4>so that he doesn't wake up his wife, and he
<v Speaker 4>gets his little tape recorder. He kind of sings into
<v Speaker 4>the tape recorder. This song was played in nineteen eighty
<v Speaker 4>two during the US festival.
<v Speaker 3>Yes, so we'll talk about that a little bit too. Okay.
<v Speaker 4>It was actually intended for the diver Down album.
<v Speaker 3>So this one got heavy influenced by Robert Planning. The
<v Speaker 3>guitar got heavy, influenced by Neil part on the drums.
<v Speaker 4>There are people that love these last two songs.
<v Speaker 3>On the album. I'm not one of them, Okay.
<v Speaker 4>I'm not in love with this song or the next one.
<v Speaker 3>Okay, yeah, I think I specifically said I want to
<v Speaker 3>hear what your thoughts are on the last two songs,
<v Speaker 3>because they are the less known songs on the album, right,
<v Speaker 3>I will tell you listening to them, I didn't. They
<v Speaker 3>weren't prominent in my memory. But the beauty of that
<v Speaker 3>is I was listening to them with fresh ears. I
<v Speaker 3>think they're really good. I think they are. I think
<v Speaker 3>had you not just been tsunamid with this incredible album
<v Speaker 3>worth of music, that they would be fantastic. They could
<v Speaker 3>be singles. They're so good. But there's only nine songs
<v Speaker 3>on the album. I mean, just some of them are
<v Speaker 3>just gonna be the last finisher. It's hard to have
<v Speaker 3>last finishers, right, But I still think these are incredibly
<v Speaker 3>good songs. I think this is one of those albums
<v Speaker 3>that is good from beginning to end. Okay, well, let's
<v Speaker 3>listen to the last song. The last song, Let's do it.
<v Speaker 4>The song's called House of Pain.
<v Speaker 3>Okay.
<v Speaker 4>Kind of a stronger rocker right.
<v Speaker 3>Here, definitely, And like I said just a minute ago,
<v Speaker 3>I think a strong song in any other album, but
<v Speaker 3>there have to be less finishers. I think that the
<v Speaker 3>impressive part. Well, there's all kinds of impressive parts about
<v Speaker 3>this album. Of course. This album is where Templeman and
<v Speaker 3>David Lee Roth are truly splitting off. It's going like this,
<v Speaker 3>it's going like that and going that way fast. And
<v Speaker 3>as a matter of fact, you know, I talked about
<v Speaker 3>the studio fifty one to fifty studio being built, and
<v Speaker 3>the beauty of that for Eddie was that he had
<v Speaker 3>so much control over what he was doing. Well, Ted
<v Speaker 3>Timpleman would keep showing up at the fifty one fifty
<v Speaker 3>fifty studio so that he could produce and mix these
<v Speaker 3>tracks that they had laid down, and Eddie'd be like,
<v Speaker 3>don's got them. I don't know where he is, not
<v Speaker 3>sure where he He's right there, he's behind him.
<v Speaker 4>It's just Ted's coming go hide.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, hide the pullhouse. So Ted Templeman has the backups.
<v Speaker 3>They had the backup originals. Right, he's basically second copy, right,
<v Speaker 3>or first copy if you will. But that's not as
<v Speaker 3>good as the original. Right. But in a panic because
<v Speaker 3>he keeps running into brick walls with Eddie and Don,
<v Speaker 3>he goes and mixes these secondhand pieces. Yes, as he's finishing,
<v Speaker 3>Don shows up and he goes, here you go, here's
<v Speaker 3>the mixed here's the mixed masters. Yes. And the question
<v Speaker 3>is how much of what Don did versus how much
<v Speaker 3>of what Ted did ended up On the end of
<v Speaker 3>the album.
<v Speaker 4>I saw a quote from David ly Roth who said
<v Speaker 4>Ted really didn't do very much on this album.
<v Speaker 3>He not only said Ted didn't do much on this album,
<v Speaker 3>he said Ted didn't do much on any of the albums.
<v Speaker 3>He was like, we kind of realized early on Ted
<v Speaker 3>has these things that he can do for us, and
<v Speaker 3>we are loyal to him, but we're the ones who
<v Speaker 3>have produced almost all of these albums. And it's in
<v Speaker 3>his mind no question that Don Landy and Eddie van
<v Speaker 3>Halen were the ones that made the mixes that we
<v Speaker 3>hear on this album.
<v Speaker 4>To me, this is one of the interesting stories that
<v Speaker 4>I had not heard before that basically, Eddie and Don
<v Speaker 4>had kidnapped these Master tapes and we're holding them ransom.
<v Speaker 4>It wasn't just that guys, leave us alone, we're working
<v Speaker 4>on this. It was Don threatening to burn the Masters
<v Speaker 4>if Ted and Dave did not leave them alone.
<v Speaker 3>And when we're saying this is the split, Ted Templeman
<v Speaker 3>and Eddie van Halen got in a fist fight over there,
<v Speaker 3>a physical fist fight over this. I don't know how
<v Speaker 3>that's not the end of a relationship. You're either best
<v Speaker 3>friends after that or you never talked to each other again.
<v Speaker 3>And in this situation, I think it was we're done. Yeah.
<v Speaker 4>Don Landy actually kidnaps the Masters for fifty one to
<v Speaker 4>fifty and holds them from Mick Jones in a couple
<v Speaker 4>of years, which we'll talk.
<v Speaker 3>About yeah, next episode.
<v Speaker 4>By the way, Valerie Bertinelli was kind of in the middle.
<v Speaker 3>Uh huh.
<v Speaker 4>She actually went to Ted and said, you got to
<v Speaker 4>talk to Eddie.
<v Speaker 3>They're in there doing blow and drink day back, all
<v Speaker 3>day long, for days.
<v Speaker 4>Anyway, Don walks in at the last minute and can
<v Speaker 4>you just imagine sitting there steaming, going.
<v Speaker 3>I've just spent all of these hours mixing this, and
<v Speaker 3>you're bringing me this after hiding it from me. No
<v Speaker 3>wonder fist flew Yeah, no question. Okay, a couple of
<v Speaker 3>things before we leave. Number one, Eddie says there were
<v Speaker 3>thirteen songs that he had for this album, which is
<v Speaker 3>four so what I know or what the rumors are.
<v Speaker 3>One of the songs was called any Time Anyplace. One
<v Speaker 3>of the songs was called Eat Thy Neighbor, one of
<v Speaker 3>the songs was called Baritone Slide, and one of the
<v Speaker 3>songs was called Lie to You Now. If there were thirteen,
<v Speaker 3>or maybe it was fourteen or fifteen, just depends. The
<v Speaker 3>one that is most likely was a cover of in
<v Speaker 3>the Midnight Hour that no one is ever outside of
<v Speaker 3>that small little circle in the catalog, no one has
<v Speaker 3>ever heard.
<v Speaker 4>That is rumored to have been the very first song
<v Speaker 4>recorded at fifty one to fifty studios.
<v Speaker 3>So there you go.
<v Speaker 4>Hey, you know you mentioned in the Midnight Hour. Eddie
<v Speaker 4>wanted it on the album, Dave reportedly vetoed it. Dave
<v Speaker 4>wanted just to Jigglow on the nineteen eighty four album Yeah,
<v Speaker 4>and Eddie's like nope, So guess what it shows up
<v Speaker 4>on Eat him and a smile.
<v Speaker 3>There you go. Okay, So a prequel to all of this,
<v Speaker 3>they've ended the diver down tour, and you can go
<v Speaker 3>back and listen to our original Van Halen Versus Van
<v Speaker 3>Hagar episode to hear about Dave and the jungle squad
<v Speaker 3>that he had that stayed down in Argentina on safaris
<v Speaker 3>on the river. Yeah. But in the midst of all
<v Speaker 3>of that, and all the other guys go home, in
<v Speaker 3>the midst of all of that, Dave gets a phone
<v Speaker 3>call somehow you have to come back. We have a show.
<v Speaker 3>I don't want to do a show.
<v Speaker 1>Right.
<v Speaker 3>They're going to pay us one million dollars for a
<v Speaker 3>ninety minute set one point five Ah, this is where
<v Speaker 3>I blow your mind. Okay. The original offer was one
<v Speaker 3>million dollars, which would have made them the highest paid
<v Speaker 3>band at that point. And we know from our last
<v Speaker 3>episode that they had a world record as the highest
<v Speaker 3>paid band, right right, Okay, So when they signed the contract.
<v Speaker 3>The contract Steve Wosniak is the guy putting this together.
<v Speaker 3>This is the US Festival Part two, nine months after
<v Speaker 3>the US Festival Part one. He really wants Van Haleen.
<v Speaker 3>He offers them a million dollars. They say, okay, we'll
<v Speaker 3>do it, but we want It's called a favored nation
<v Speaker 3>clause in there where if any other band that you
<v Speaker 3>have that you come in after us gets paid more,
<v Speaker 3>we get matched. We're not going to be paid less
<v Speaker 3>than somebody else. Right, Well, this is Steve Wosniak, co
<v Speaker 3>founder of Apple Computers. Yeah, a few bucks, he's got
<v Speaker 3>a little bit of money, yes, And he calls up
<v Speaker 3>his producer and says, I would really like to have
<v Speaker 3>David Bowie play. And his producer's like, we all already
<v Speaker 3>have a full gig, but I love David Bowie. He's like,
<v Speaker 3>there's no room. He goes, it's my money, make room buster.
<v Speaker 3>So John Cougar mellencap when he finds out what everybody
<v Speaker 3>else is getting paid, he's like, I'm out. I'm not
<v Speaker 3>doing this. So a space opens up. They move Joe
<v Speaker 3>Walsh around. You know, they've got the heavy metal day
<v Speaker 3>and they've got the hard rock day or the rock day,
<v Speaker 3>and so they move some around and so David Bowie
<v Speaker 3>gets to come play. Now David Bowie's in the middle
<v Speaker 3>of a tour. He's going to charge them seven hundred
<v Speaker 3>and fifty thousand dollars to appear. But it's going to
<v Speaker 3>be another additional seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars to
<v Speaker 3>fly him and all of his band and all of
<v Speaker 3>the equipment and stuff into cause he's in Europe over
<v Speaker 3>to California for all of this, which means that effectively
<v Speaker 3>they are paying David Bowie one point five million dollars. Well,
<v Speaker 3>Van Halen hears about this and says, hey, favorite nation
<v Speaker 3>clause to change and chain we get one point five
<v Speaker 3>million is where you get this price increase. Right Now,
<v Speaker 3>here's a quick side story on that David Bowie only
<v Speaker 3>played his musicians about three hundred bucks show Oh my gosh, right, okay,
<v Speaker 3>anducks three hundred bucks. And this is his Let's Dance tour.
<v Speaker 3>This is his big like his big commercial success of
<v Speaker 3>the eighties. Right. And one of the guys that says
<v Speaker 3>I don't really want to fly to California for three
<v Speaker 3>hundred bucks is his new guitarist that he's just picked up.
<v Speaker 3>Found him at a Montrose jazz festival in nineteen eighty two.
<v Speaker 3>But that guy is like, you know what, let somebody
<v Speaker 3>else play my solo. Okay, yeah, you're wondering who it is. Yes, Yeah,
<v Speaker 3>as I said, he discovered him. We've talked about him before.
<v Speaker 3>I can tell you that when he performed where on
<v Speaker 3>most of these songs in the album, and when he
<v Speaker 3>would perform it live, he probably played a guitar that
<v Speaker 3>had been owned by Christopher Cross just before he got it.
<v Speaker 3>Stevie Rayvaughn, Yeah, I had no idea. Stee Ravaughn discovered
<v Speaker 3>by David Bowie in nineteen eighty two, has him play
<v Speaker 3>guitar on like three quarters of the songs on Let's
<v Speaker 3>Dance and is his touring guitarist before anybody knows who's
<v Speaker 3>Stevie Rayvon. Wow, how about that? That's fantastic. Yeah. Now
<v Speaker 3>the thing is is we're like, okay, well both of
<v Speaker 3>them got paid one point five million. How did how
<v Speaker 3>did van Halen get the world record for highest paid ban? Well?
<v Speaker 3>Number one? It's because van Halen's pr guy was like, hey,
<v Speaker 3>world record the highest paid ban. He's calling him Guinness
<v Speaker 3>right that they divt it up. One was highest paid ban,
<v Speaker 3>one was highest paid individual performer. It's just that van
<v Speaker 3>Halen got a lot more notoriety at that time than
<v Speaker 3>David Bowie was getting.
<v Speaker 4>Well, and the clash got super mad.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, they were back and forth with each other and
<v Speaker 3>they were constantly I mean, and David Lee Roth, you
<v Speaker 3>talk about Jack Daniels, He gets a bottle of jack
<v Speaker 3>drinks it on stage and he goes, I gotta let
<v Speaker 3>you guys know this is real Jack Daniels. I the
<v Speaker 3>only guys who put iced tea in their Jack Daniels bottler.
<v Speaker 3>That the Clash because they kept on and on about
<v Speaker 3>the commercialization of rock music. They're trying to keep it pure,
<v Speaker 3>and they're out there like, you're selling yourselves. This is
<v Speaker 3>the American way. And so what did the concert promoters do.
<v Speaker 3>They put a picture of the check that the Clash
<v Speaker 3>is getting for half a million dollars and it's like, yeah,
<v Speaker 3>these guys are talking out both sides of the mouth
<v Speaker 3>right now because they just got paid a lot of that.
<v Speaker 3>That's right. Yeah.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, there were some interesting things back and forth between
<v Speaker 4>Dave and the Clash that was a lot of fun.
<v Speaker 4>Before we go, you mentioned that we lost Eddie van
<v Speaker 4>Halen a few years ago. The cover of this album
<v Speaker 4>is very iconic. Yes, it has the angel smoking a cigarette.
<v Speaker 4>It's a little cherub. So they needed a cover for
<v Speaker 4>the album and they were looking at a bunch of
<v Speaker 4>portfolios from different artists, and they came across Margo Najas
<v Speaker 4>and they said, oh, we love your work. We want
<v Speaker 4>you to do something for us. We want a bunch
<v Speaker 4>of chrome women scantily clad. And she's like, no, I'm
<v Speaker 4>not doing that, no, right, and so they said, okay, well,
<v Speaker 4>let's look at your portfolio. And so they came across
<v Speaker 4>this picture of a cherub who is smoking a cigarette,
<v Speaker 4>and they thought, that's it. That's our image. That's the one.
<v Speaker 4>She did not sell them that image. She rented it
<v Speaker 4>to them. Oh so they never obtained like possession of that,
<v Speaker 4>which is interesting. When Eddie died, she posted a picture.
<v Speaker 4>It's that picture, but rather than smoking a cigarette, the
<v Speaker 4>cherub is crying, which I thought was kind of a sweet,
<v Speaker 4>a neat thing on the day of his death.
<v Speaker 3>That, by the way, is the only painting that she
<v Speaker 3>did not do as a hired work that was in
<v Speaker 3>her portfolio. This was something that she did. It was
<v Speaker 3>a painting of her friend's kid smoking candy cigarettes. His
<v Speaker 3>name was carter Helm.
<v Speaker 4>Carter Helm somewhere carter Helm is out there, like you know.
<v Speaker 4>The nineteen eighty four album that's me.
<v Speaker 3>So do you know who her husband is? He's a
<v Speaker 3>director right, Well, he's also an artist. His name is
<v Speaker 3>Jay Vegan Vigo Ink. He that same year designed the
<v Speaker 3>lettering for Purple Rain Boom. That's awesome. Where else you
<v Speaker 3>going to get this kind of information, folks, fantastic guys.
<v Speaker 3>Come back and see us next week. Don't forget to subscribe,
<v Speaker 3>don't forget to hit the follow button, don't forget to
<v Speaker 3>go to our Patreon page Patreon dot com slash 's
<v Speaker 3>early podcasts, whereas little is five bucks a month. You
<v Speaker 3>get access to all of our Patreon episodes, which are
<v Speaker 3>one hit wonder episodes. You get to be involved in
<v Speaker 3>all of the conversations. Even if you sign up for free,
<v Speaker 3>you get involved in the conversation. So do that. Come
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<v Speaker 3>guys so much. Please come back next week where we
<v Speaker 3>will be covering next album after this with a brand
<v Speaker 3>spankin new lead singer named Sammy Agar. That album is
<v Speaker 3>called fifty one fifteen.
<v Speaker 4>Come back next week, guys, You guys,