“Lightyears beyond”: The pop band Eddie Van Halen hailed as untouchable
The iconoclastic Eddie Van Halen didn’t have much time for the majority of the mainstream. In fact, as his perfectly individualistic guitar playing proved, he didn’t have much time for the majority of the alternative world either.
He was always hellbent on charting his own path through music to such an extent that when he was lured into playing guitar on Michael Jackson’s ‘Beat It’, he did so under the proviso that his contribution would remain anonymous and uncredited. And when that was agreed upon, he went in there and played his heart out all the same, to such an extent that he soloed with such vigour that the studio amp literally caught fire.
In short, he was a full-bodied star who approached musicology like a rock ‘n’ roll Mozart and didn’t give a goddamn about what anybody else was playing. “It’s always about the music, never about anything else,” he once decreed. At times, it seemed like pop deviated from that. It was a crass and talentless world that he was at pains to avoid. Although, he wasn’t prejudiced about it either. “Music is for people,” he happily added, “The word ‘pop’ is simply short for popular. It means that people like it.”
Alas, that didn’t always mean that the best music was presented to the people by the powers that be. Eddie Van Halen had fears that the best pop band of his generation might suffer in this regard. Like Frank Zappa before him, he had cottoned on to the fact that modern music was ‘about 50% image’… and when it comes to pop, that figure is perhaps even higher.
So, when he sat down with Steve Lukather, the founding member, guitarist, songwriter, and singer of Toto, he heaped praise on their 1992 record, Kingdom of Desire, and was keen to explain that their chops matched any icon of classic rock.
The pop band Eddie Van Halen loved
“We’re all proud of [it],” Lukather explained, reflecting on the hit release. “It’s more of a rock record – it’s more us guys playing. It wasn’t like we were trying to do something to get on the radio.” But despite the album being outside of Eddie Van Halen’s typical wheelhouse, the guitarist agreed that they had created something special.
“It’s a brilliant record,” the frizzy-haired ‘Jump’ hero agreed. “I think if [radio stations play] it, people will like it. For five years, you haven’t had a record out here, and the music you’re making, to me, is light years beyond the shit you hear on the radio.” It was a time when songs like ‘Stay’ by Shakespears Sister, ‘I Wanna Sex You Up’ by Colour Me Bad, and ‘Unbelievable’ by EMF were topping the charts and dominating the radio waves.
So, the musically sophisticated and less image-driven Kingdom of Desire was struggling. Lukather put his finger on why Toto suffered in terms of airtime, commenting, “A lot of it is the stigma of the name and what the name conjures up in certain people’s mind: ‘Oh yeah, those studio guys’. That whole thing – they just put us there, like we carry around haemorrhoid doughnuts, sit in a chair and read music live.”
Eddie Van Halen replied in Guitar: “If people only knew you guys were the real shit. Everyone else is faking it.”
Indeed, Toto really were the real deal, at least musically. As it happens, academia even backs them up on this front, with ‘Africa’ being decreed the greatest song of all time according to science. Gizmondo gathered a team of neuroscientists and music experts to get to the bottom of this, and, naturally, ‘Africa’ by Toto came out on top.
“Toto turns out to be remarkably good and sophisticated according to musicians,” Dave Poepell, the Professor of Psychology and Neural Science at New York University, explains. “Toto was a group of hardcore, highly respected studio musicians. They crafted those songs pretty carefully and were incredibly successful with those four albums. And musicians actually really love Toto.”
They certainly drew respect from Eddie Van Halen, who hailed them as heroes in their craft. Beyond their musicality, he thought they were a unique and original force, commenting that their rivals were a dime a dozen. “You’ve got a Guns N’ Roses that comes out, and all of a sudden, every company is on the tails of that coat trying to get a band that looks just like them or sounds just like them.” Meanwhile, Toto were leagues ahead in myriad ways.
