‘Van Halen III’: Eddie Van Halen discusses the most important Van Halen album
Most artists don’t sit back and look at their albums as finely crafted pieces of art. They are always looking to make the best songs they can, but there’s also a good chance that they could look at their records as different chapters of their lives rather than their attempt at rewriting Bach or Beethoven. While Eddie Van Halen has certainly earned his spot as one of the most identifiable instrumentalists of his time, he knew that it wasn’t until this album that he understood what the band were all about.
Looking back on what Van Halen was all about, though, there was no real sense of them being considered one of the greatest bands of all time. They were simply interested in making the best party music that anyone had ever heard, and if it happened to leave people with their jaws on the floor, that was an extra bonus. Still, it was hard to deny the insane chops on display as well.
Throughout the band’s first era with David Lee Roth, half of their greatest material came from Eddie writing the best riff that he could and building everything off of that. Despite taking inspiration from people like Eric Clapton, some pieces felt like they were ripped directly out of Eddie’s subconscious, like the strange flamenco sections of ‘Little Guitars’ or hearing him make the heaviest riff Tony Iommi never wrote, like on ‘Loss of Control’.
Even when working with Sammy Hagar, Eddie did have his fair share of highlights. There may have been an added emphasis on keyboards, but hearing him stretch himself on ‘Dreams’ or ‘Right Now’ was a great way to break up the nonstop solos that were going on in between Roth’s strutting across the stage at every single turn. Once ‘The Red Rocker’ decided to call it quits, though, Eddie finally felt free to do what he wanted.
This was his first time working with Gary Cherone from Extreme, and since the frontman didn’t have a set agenda, most of the songs on Van Halen III were about stapling pieces of their sound together to see what happens. Despite the production being messy, though, Eddie was finally at home doing what he wanted.
Compared to every other album he made, Eddie called the record an important milestone for his career, saying, “[It’s] the most important album of my life. For the first time, I was able to let go and let the music happen through me…The lyrics came first, then the music. I finally had something to bounce off.”
While the record may have set a standard for Eddie personally, it doesn’t make it any fun to listen to. Whereas that messiness may have been fun in the studio, Van Halen III is a hot mess in practice, whether that’s concerning the songs being way too long, the fact that none of them have any structure, or hearing Eddie try his best at singing on the final song and coming off like an off-key Tom Waits.
Then again, Van Halen III may, in fact, be the most important album Van Halen ever made. It may have had to become a sacrificial lamb, but having Eddie see the error of his ways and clean up his act managed to birth A Different Kind of Truth in the process. Every record is special to any given artist, but listening to A Different Kind of Truth, it almost felt like the band doing their best to make sure that people wouldn’t remember them for something so scattershot as their swan song.
