David Lee Roth’s favourite Van Halen album
When Alex and Eddie Van Halen first started their band, the kind of sound they would try to achieve was immediately evident. With their playing technique and attitude, they could pack their music full of energy, which was one of the stand-out elements that helped them become so recognisable.
This energy was only added to when David Lee Roth joined the band in 1974. David had unbelievable vocal ability and an excellent stage presence, which made him the perfect person to front the band. From there, Van Halen would conquer the world, taking their ear-splitting, face-melting sound to fans from around the globe.
Together, they wrote six albums with Lee Roth as the vocalist, which was fundamental for cementing the band as rock icons. Some have highs, and others have lows, but the be-all and end-all is that each album took the band somewhere further and contributed to the legacy they still hold.
During an interview, David Lee Roth was asked which of the albums was his favourite; not an easy question for a fan, let alone the band singer, but he still had an answer which would coincide with many of his listeners’ opinions.
“The first one, I think,” he said. “That’s the one that came ‘no mind’; it happened because we played for years in the clubs and the bars. That’s where you really sharpen that without thinking. You know, you’re playing to make the mortgage, the rent for the apartment, so to speak. When you go into the studio, it is so completely familiar. You’re, what’s the term in theatre? You’re ‘off-book’. You are so ‘off-book’ that you know it better than your home phone number.”
Van Halen cut their teeth on the live circuit, playing a mixture of original songs and covers. One band they particularly enjoyed covering was Black Sabbath, who had a similar sound to them in heaviness, which Van Halen developed to include more shredding.
Roth added: “When you are so ‘off-book’, it means you don’t have to read the script. You know every syllable, and you don’t think about it at all. Your mind is somewhere else entirely, ‘no mind’. You become the studio, and you play the music. Your whole mind is on where the music is going to be, where it’s going to sound, etc. But later on in your career, you will be tempted, if not completely induced, to play the studio like it was a musical instrument. ‘Wow, what’s this button? Listen, listen, listen, it’s echo, echo, echo…”
It is a common theme of musicians saying that the first album is often the easiest to write, given it comprises everything the band has been through up until that moment. After the first album, the band had to think beyond their comfort zone, often leading to mediocre work. This never happened with Van Halen, but it didn’t stop their first album from being one of the easiest, most exciting they put together.
