The album Eddie Van Halen made sure “never happened again”
The original lineup of Van Halen was on the verge of becoming one of the biggest acts in America in the early 1980s. After establishing themselves as hard rock gods at the tail end of the 1970s, the band was gaining more mainstream recognition and continued to incorporate more modern production into their sound. They were also working at a dangerous pace, having released one album every year while touring virtually non-stop.
1982’s Diver Down is a clear sign of burnout. Five covers, three instrumentals, and no true classic tracks among the bunch. Originally, Eddie Van Halen wanted to put out a cover song to satiate the public’s desire for more Van Halem music, but when that went over well with the record company, the idea for a full album was just around the corner.
“I said, ‘Look, if you want to do a cover tune, why don’t we do ‘Pretty Woman’? It took one day,” Van Halen recalled to Guitar Player magazine in 1982. “We went to Sunset Sound in L.A., recorded it, and it came out right after the first of the year. It started climbing the charts, so all of a sudden Warner Bros is going, ‘You got a hit single on your hands. We gotta have that record.’ We said, ‘Wait a minute, we just did that to keep us out there, so that people know we’re still alive.’ But they just kept pressuring, so we jumped right back in without any rest or time to recuperate from the tour, and started recording.”
Roy Orbison’s ‘(Oh) Pretty Woman’ wound up being the choice, but David Lee Roth had a different song in mind. “Dave came up with the idea of, ‘Hey, why don’t we start off the new year with just putting out a single?’ He wanted to do ‘Dancing in the Street.’ He gave me the original Martha Reeves & the Vandellas tape, and I listened to it and said, ‘I can’t get a handle on anything out of this song.’ I couldn’t figure out a riff, and you know the way I like to play: I always like to do a riff, as opposed to just hitting barre chords and strumming.”
Van Halen came up with a suitable riff, but only by taking a work in progress and attaching it to what Roth and producer Ted Templeman wanted, which was a cover of ‘Dancing in the Street’. “I was working on a great song with this riff that I envisioned being more like a Peter Gabriel song, but when Ted [Templeman] heard it, he decided it would be great for ‘Dancing in the Street.’ Ted and Dave were happy, but I wasn’t. The riff was my original idea, and I didn’t get any writing credits for it.”
That conflict would later become emblematic of the compromises Van Halen felt he had to make on the album. “In some ways, I think Diver Down happened that way because Ted wanted more control,” Van Halen later recalled. “There was always an inner struggle between Ted and me. But with Diver Down, it was like I was being asked to turn back. After we made that album, I wanted to make sure that never happened again.”
Check out ‘Dancing in the Street’ down below.
