Eruption: The Eddie Van Halen Story by Paul Brannigan

Author:Paul Brannigan [Brannigan, Paul]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3, mobi
Tags: Non-Fiction, Biography, Musicians, Music, Rock
ISBN: 9780571311484
Publisher: Faber & Faber
Published: 2017-08-01T00:00:00+00:00

To inspectors from the Los Angeles zoning commission, the plans submitted by Mr Edward Van Halen for the construction of a racquetball court on the grounds of his Coldwater Canyon estate appeared somewhat extravagant. No one was disputing the popular musician’s right to squander his money in whatever legal manner he deemed appropriate, but were two-foot-thick, concrete-filled cinder blocks strictly necessary for this particular project, they questioned, as the guitarist guided them around the proposed site.

‘When we play, we play hard,’ the unassuming, low-key rock star patiently explained with a smile. ‘We want to keep it quiet and not piss off the neighbours.’

Application approved.

Donn Landee can take the credit for the naming of Eddie’s covert recording facility. While eavesdropping on LAPD bulletins on an illegal scanner, the engineer learned that the reference ‘5150’, derived from the California Welfare and Institutions Code, warned of the escape from custody of a mentally unstable individual diagnosed as a potential danger to themselves and/or others. Aware that many in the Van Halen camp considered Eddie crazy for seeking to build his own studio, Landee shared his discovery with the guitarist, and the pair gleefully appropriated the code as a shared badge of honour. In truth, Eddie’s motivation for embarking upon the project was logical and pragmatic: with his own bespoke studio available 24/7, the obsessive, workaholic guitarist reasoned, he would no longer be forced to sync his productivity to anyone else’s work schedule, would no longer need to place dead-of-the-night phone calls to Ted Templeman, Landee or his bandmates when inspiration struck. The construction of 5150 was his own declaration of independence.

Donn Landee proved an eager and enthusiastic lieutenant in facilitating Eddie’s grand designs, with the pair sharing ‘a common vision’, the guitarist recalled. It was Landee who located a dilapidated Universal Audio console for sale, which Eddie hastily snapped up for $6,000, and Landee who personally dusted down, rewired and breathed new life into the vintage board. In a subsequent Guitar World interview, Eddie would approvingly label his new best friend ‘a man-child genius on the borderline of insanity’. To some in Van Halen’s inner sanctum, the description might have been equally applicable to the twenty-nine-year-old guitarist.

In April 1983, Eddie informed Ted Templeman that he wanted to record the next Van Halen album at his still-unfinished studio. Templeman was far from enthusiastic, but reluctantly acquiesced when he saw how much the prospect excited the guitarist, figuring that he could patch things up at Sunset Sound or Amigo during post-production or mixing if needs must.

The first new song Eddie previewed for the producer was a synthdriven, hook-laden instrumental he’d been toying with for over a year, written in his bedroom on a Sequential Circuits Prophet-10 and finessed on an Oberheim OB-Xa. Templeman was nonplussed.

‘Wait a minute,’4 he recalls saying. ‘I signed a heavy-metal band.’

If this seemed like a curiously out-of-character comment from a commercially minded producer and record executive who had encouraged the band to record ‘You Really Got Me’, taken a proactive role

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