The issue Eddie Van Halen had with Sammy Hagar’s favourite Van Halen record
Being in a band means accepting the rules of a democracy and acknowledging that there are going to be times when not everyone sees eye-to-eye. Even if the final product becomes a best-seller, there can still be disagreements over the creative direction, like in the case of Van Halen.
As much as the band were named after the surname he shared with his brother and the band’s drummer, Eddie Van Halen, the only constant two members of the group throughout their entire 38-year tenure, it wasn’t purely the Eddie and Alex show.
Upon Sammy Hagar joining the band following the first exit of David Lee Roth, he wasn’t brought in the same way that Black Sabbath used singers after Ozzy Osbourne’s departure. Instead, they wanted him to contribute to the creative process and put his ‘Red Rooster’ stamp on their sound, but it’s difficult to stay aligned forever.
During his initial decade with the group, Van Halen created four albums, and in the eyes of many, got better with each release. He quickly rose to the challenge and felt like part of the furniture, despite the incredible past achievements of Roth.
However, he and the late Eddie didn’t have the same opinion on their favourite Hagar-era Van Halen record. The bone of contention lies with 1991’s For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge, which won them a Grammy and topped the US charts.
For the LP, Van Halen reunited with producer Ted Templeman for the first time in nearly a decade, allowing them to hark back to the vintage Van Halen sound. Nevertheless, it took time to get those songs where they wanted to be, and they spent over a year in the studio working tirelessly to ensure they met their high expectations.
Hagar is in no doubt that it’s the best material he made with Van Halen. Speaking to Guitar World, Hagar said: “And then you’ve got the Van Halen stuff which, for me, comes down to For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge. That’s my favorite Van Halen record. I think it’s even better than 5150 because the writing, vocals, and the way the band was playing tops it.”
In his mind, the intense amount of blood, sweat, and tears they poured into the studio sessions across 12 months was all worth it for the huge pay-off.
Nevertheless, Eddie didn’t share his thoughts on the record, and seemingly believed that it should have been rawer, which he placed on the ridiculous amount of hours they spent in the studio.
When speaking to Billy Corgan in 1996, the Smashing Pumpkins singer said it felt like “your playing was in a weird place, that maybe you were getting in a rut” on the record, which Eddie agreed with, stating, “For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge took a year to record; that’s why the playing on it might sound somewhat laboured.”
He then contrasted that with their 1995 album, adding, “Balance, on the other hand, was written and recorded in only four months, so the whole process was quicker and more immediate.”
As much as Eddie Van Halen’s sound gave off perfectionist tendencies, he preferred a quick turnaround and believed it shouldn’t take a whole calendar year to make a rock album. Furthermore, it included ‘Top of the World’, a track he truly detested, once telling Forbes, “I got outvoted, and I wrote the damn song. It ended up on the record. I didn’t like the song, everyone else did.”
On the other hand, Balance is likely not Hagar’s favourite also due to the environment in which that album was created. It was his last record with Van Halen for a reason, which was due to the in-fighting that took place on Balance that put the writing on the wall for his tenure.
While their creative partnership wasn’t built to last, it did provide the world with an incredible dosage of top-class rock ‘n’ roll.
