The song Eddie Van Halen called his heaviest: “Not a damn note on this record is contrived”
There has always been an ongoing debate in the hard rock sphere surrounding Van Halen. As much as the band may have liked to be considered one of the most electrifying rock and roll bands in existence, there has always been the question of whether they belong strictly in the rock category or if they bleed into the realm of metal. Although Eddie Van Halen always looked at his playing as pure music at the end of the day, that’s not to say that they didn’t have some heavy moments throughout their catalogue.
At the time that the band debuted, though, heavy metal had a much different face than Van Halen. There had been plenty of acts that had written metal songs that could get more mellow, but considering everyone’s reference point was Black Sabbath, hearing Van Halen put in that same category may have felt a little bit off, especially with someone as engaging as David Lee Roth onstage.
If you take all of ‘Diamond Dave’s schtick away, though, Eddie always had a wealth of heavy riffs in his arsenal. The massive sound of the interlude ‘Tora Tora’ off Women and Children First could have easily been written by Tony Iommi, and singles like ‘Loss of Control’ may as well have been their version of outdoing the punk revolution that was quickly taking over the world.
As soon as Sammy Hagar joined the group, they were a different band entirely. They had those Zeppelin-esque riffs that gave them credibility amongst rock fans, but people weren’t exactly going to bat for them as heavy metal pioneers when they were singing tracks like ‘When It’s Love’ or ‘Right Now’. If ‘The Red Rocker turned them into a different group, though, his departure marked the moment Eddie officially took over.
After all, the band was named after him and his brother, so the next best thing was for him to make an album the way he thought it should sound, with Gary Cherone coming in to do the vocals. Cherone was a more than capable vocalist for the material, but outside of being told how to sing and what to do, Eddie quickly realised that he didn’t need to cower to anyone when it came to the subject matter, either.
Towards the end of Van Halen III, Eddie decided to take aim at politicians on ‘Ballot or the Bullet’ to prove how heavy the band could get, saying, “I think ‘Ballot Or The Bullet’ is one of the heaviest songs I’ve ever done. Everything on the record is based on personal experience or on something that – you know, based on reality. There were no contrived – anything – on this record, not a damn note on this record is contrived, not a lyric, not anything.”
Even if the band did have some more intense lyrical themes with Hagar, this isn’t exactly going to have the same effect as Public Enemy’s ‘Fight the Power’ or anything. Despite making the bold decision of referencing the famous quote by Malcolm X, ‘Ballot or the Bullet’ is a lot more toothless than the title lets on, almost like the band were trying to create a Rage Against the Machine song, only this time with a few better guitar hooks and none of the anger that Zack de la Rocha had.
Although the song does help give some legitimacy to Van Halen III, it doesn’t seem to have as serious a meaning as most people thought with that kind of title. It may have been nice to see some more depth in the band’s work, but while ‘Ballot or the Bullet’ isn’t nearly as bad as a song like ‘Amsterdam’, it’s not going to get the people going in the same way that ‘Panama’ did in their prime either.
