The “stupid” Van Halen that was meant to be a “punk rock parody”
No rule says an artist must love every song they put out. Even though many artists might be able to play their handful of hits to anyone who will listen, there’s also a good chance that there is one song in the set that some group members can’t wait to be done with once the concert is over. Although Van Halen may have had spellbinding riffs coming from Eddie Van Halen, even he admitted that one song wasn’t as profound as most people may have thought.
When first putting the band together, Eddie and Alex Van Halen sought to put together a group with much more energy and attitude than the bands they were listening to. Moulded in the vein of artists like Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath, the brothers would eventually stumble on gold when they found David Lee Roth, an Indiana transplant looking to make a name for himself in the local scene.
Drafting in Michael Anthony on bass, the group would become one of the most celebrated acts on the Sunset Strip, with Eddie reigniting the rock world thanks to his trademark tapping licks. Although Eddie may have reimagined the idea of a lead guitar player throughout his time with the band, he believed that one of their songs went along with the trends of the time.
Although Van Halen was breaking down musical barriers in Los Angeles, another significant movement was happening half a world away. Storming out of England, bands like Sex Pistols and The Clash were on the verge of creating punk rock, writing songs that were cut and dry and not emphasising the kind of solid musicianship that Eddie had built his career on.
While the band didn’t let the new movement affect their outlook on their music, their debut album would see them tipping the hat to the genre in more ways than one. Despite featuring some of the most frenetic guitar playing ever appearing on a mainstream rock album, the band would attempt to turn in songs with a punk edge like ‘Atomic Punk’, featuring Eddie raking his hand across the strings to create a gnashing sound.
Among the other songs on the record indebted to punk was the song ‘Ain’t Talkin Bout Love’. Only having one central guitar lick, the song began as an experiment in minimalism, with Eddie playing one lick and a comparatively more straightforward guitar solo than anything else he had ever laid down on a record.
When looking back on the song’s creation, though, Eddie admitted that the song began to feel a little sophomoric to him, saying, “’Ain’t Talkin’ ‘Bout Love’ was originally supposed to be a punk rock parody. It was a stupid thing to us, just two chords. It didn’t end up sounding punk, but that was the intention”.
The truth is, Van Halen couldn’t have been further away from the punk ethic if they tried. Not only was Eddie one of the most complex guitarists in the rock scene at the time, but the band’s ethos of excess and hair metal hedonism was far removed from the political intentions of punk. It might have physically pained Eddie to play only a couple of chords, but it would have hurt the punk scene more to know Van Halen tried to sound like them.
Even though Eddie may not have seen the appeal in the sounds of punk rock, the legacy that he left behind applies to any aspiring punk rocker who came both before and after him. Punk was never concerned with playing as many notes as Eddie did, but his idea of playing every note like it might be your last is one of the foundations of any good rock and roll guitar player.
Punk and Van Halen just don’t mix, and songs like ‘Ain’t Talkin Bout Love’ are very much proof of that.
