“Thrash it out”: The Prince album that was inspired by Van Halen
It feels like the most criminal understatement in the world to say that Prince was an incredibly inspired man. But as a music fan, it would be tough to find anyone with listening habits or a zone of influence as broad as the Purple One. Across rock, funk, blues, folk, jazz and beyond, Prince’s appetite for music was tireless and indiscriminate. He never ruled out anything or anyone, knowing that there was potential for inspiration to strike in any corner of the music world, including the world of hair metal, as he once credited Van Halen as an inspiration.
Prince’s breadth is astounding. For casual listeners who may have only dipped their toes into Purple Rain or 1999, they’d likely categorise him as a rock artist. But across his 39 studio albums, he defied labels time and time again. His first releases seemed to platform him as a funk artist, while even Purple Rain expands beyond classic rock with electronic details, R&B beats and even classical or gospel moments. From start to finish, he was an ever-changing and ever-evolving force who seemed unendingly fascinated by the capabilities of music and his mastering of it.
That’s perhaps why Prince was a largely isolated worker known for being a total control freak. He produced all his own albums and often played most of the instruments as if to not cloud his vision with the thoughts or influences of anyone else. Instead, he kept his eyes on the prize of whatever energy he was chasing, whether that was extended, blues-inspired musical jams or sonically adventurous future-thinking pop tracks.
For one album, though, his eyes seemed locked firmly on the world of rock. Specifically, he was looking at the world of heavier metal and its 1970s and ‘80s strain of high-glamour hair metal. For his 1996 album Chaos and Disorder, he seemed nostalgic for this moment passed in musical history as he delivered his most outright rock album to date.
Van Halen appeared as a major influence, but not in the expected way. “Someone told me that Van Halen did their first record in a week,” Prince told The Los Angeles Times. He borrowed from the band’s pioneering 1978 self-titled debut album but more so from the process behind the creation rather than the creation itself. Even though it resulted in a heavier rock album, Prince seemed moved by the idea of returning to the excitement of a debut album, fast processes and abandoning overthinking in favour of pure energy.
“That’s what we were going for – spontaneity, seeing how fast and hard we could thrash it out,” he explained, “It was done very quickly, and we achieved what we wanted to achieve in that period of time.”
However, Prince is no stranger to this process. In fact, some of his most famous tracks have been created under tight time constraints. During the making of the Purple Rain film, when they decided it needed another song, Prince made ‘When Doves Cry’ overnight in a session that lasted from 3:30 PM to 7:30 AM. He was known for pulling all-nighters, unable to leave the studio until he had his idea down on tape. He was never a typical artist with his recording process, never leaving thoughts brewing away and waiting for a moment to go and record an album. Instead, he seemed to thrive in fast-paced environments where he could be at the whim of his creative spirit.
Perhaps that’s why he felt such a connection to Van Halen, with their debut album being born from the same frantic energy that he was so accustomed to.
