“Get away with everything”: The one producer Sammy Hagar refused to work with
There’s a lot more that goes into picking a producer than simply being the person that turns the knobs in the studio. The best people in the production world are the ones that sit within the song and suggest changes that are not only fair to every musician but also make sure that people are hearing the best version of the band that they’re supposed to. And while Van Halen could do some phenomenal work on their own, Sammy Hagar knew that there were limits on who they should be working with.
But Hagar always understood that it wasn’t solely his decision in the group. The band’s not named after the guitarist and drummer by accident, and whenever sculpting his guitar sound, Eddie was going to make sure that everything sounded fantastic before any vocal was put into the final mix.
And when having someone like Foreigner’s Mick Jones behind the board for 5150, it was bound to be aces from cover to cover. Jones had already made some of the best pop rock songs of the modern age by that point, and even if he was an odd fit for a hard rock act like Van Halen, the results spoke for themselves when tunes like ‘Dreams’ and ‘Why Can’t This Be Love’ started roaring up the charts.
But even if the band had more confidence in their abilities on the second record, that didn’t mean they had to go without a producer. While the credits of OU812 list their engineer Donn Landee as the producer along with the band, Hagar said they weren’t cut out for that position yet, which may explain why there’s a fair bit of bloat on the record and why some of the tunes go on for a bit longer than they should.
Even though they had an ace in the hole working with Andy Johns for their next record, Hagar wasn’t going to allow it. Johns’s credits spoke for themselves, thanks to his work in the background of Led Zeppelin’s career, but Eddie remembered that there was no other choice for Hagar except to work with Ted Templeman.
Although Templeman could deliver a great record when he wanted to, Eddie felt that Hagar was far too harsh in dismissing what Johns could bring to the table, saying, “Sammy wouldn’t even work with (producer) Andy Johns on For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge; he demanded to work with Ted Templeman, because Ted lets him get away with everything. Then, like I said, things got really ridiculous.”
Johns eventually did turn in some time on For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge, but working with Templeman may have been the right call, all things considered. He had already worked with Hagar in Montrose, and since he also had a hand in making the early Van Halen albums as lean and punchy as possible, that meant fans would get a record that could still be long but didn’t have as much filler sprinkled in the mix.
But the problems had to do less with the producers and more with the band behind the tunes. Eddie knew that his partnership with Hagar was going south, and even if it took a few more albums for everyone to realise that the game was up, that didn’t make it any easier for them to make creative decisions together.
