Book Review: Van Halen at 50 by Martin Popoff

Disclosure: I got an advance review copy in exchange for my honest review.

Martin Popoff is a prolific music journalist and critic whose specialty is heavy metal. He has written thousands of album reviews over the years and has written over 20 books all about heavy metal, including books that focus on bands like Blue Oyster Cult, UFO, Rainbow, Dio, Black Sabbath, Judas Priest, Deep Purple, Whitesnake, Nazareth, Thin Lizzy, Uriah Heep, The Cure, Yes, AC/DC, Rush, Iron Maiden, The Who, Kiss, Led Zeppelin, and more! That’s a lot of my music taste in a nutshell. So I have some high expectations for this book.

We’ll be looking at his latest book, Van Halen at 50, a coffee table retrospective book that delves into the legendary hard rock band’s journey with 50 stories spanning half a century of music. Like I’ve said before in the Bruce Springsteen book review, this type of book is one of my favourite types of classic rock books to read because I’m a visual person and I love seeing the photos of the band and I’m a sucker for books with really engaging, colourful, on brand layouts. The layout of it is pretty similar to the Bruce Springsteen book with the book being divided into different sections that represent different eras and there being 50 stories representing the 50th anniversary of the band.

The book is a comprehensive read about the history of Van Halen from their beginnings in California to their initial success with their 1978 self-titled debut album to the sophomore slump and rise back again to the top with 1984 to the Sammy Hagar years to the band getting recognised as rock legends by being inducted into the Rock Hall and going on reunion tours. You can expect stories about each of the different albums, various concert tours and festivals they played, as well as sidebar segments on Eddie Van Halen’s tapping guitar technique, sound effects used on their albums like car horns and revving car engines, Eddie Van Halen’s contributions on keyboard, a look at David Lee Roth and Sammy Hagar’s solo careers, and a ranking of the album cover designs from over the years. As well as the book being packed full of visuals and facts, there are lots of opinions and analysis throughout of the music.

I did notice one mistake in the book saying that Wolfgang Van Halen was 19 when his father, Eddie Van Halen died, but he was actually 29, but overall I learnt a lot from the book and it has a lot of great information about the band.

Overall, I think it’s a worthwhile read for Van Halen fans and those who like hard rock, especially ones who like coffeetable books full of pictures.

Top 10 Takeaways from Van Halen at 50

1. The multicultural immigrant roots of Van Halen

The Van Halens immigrated from Amsterdam to Pasadena in 1962. The father was Dutch and the mother was of Indonesian descent. The two brothers spoke Dutch as a first language and it took them time to learn English. However, one thing that was universal is music. Father Jan was a musician and passed on his love of playing music to his sons, Alex and Eddie, who started their first band while in primary school.

2. Psychedelic Rock was a key influence on the Van Halen brothers.

Eddie Van Halen’s guitar idol was Eric Clapton. Other big influences included Jimi Hendrix, The Who, Black Sabbath, Mountain, and Cactus.

3. Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley discovered them at a show by accident…

Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley were there to see The Boyz, but they were blown away by Van Halen’s set. They recorded demos with Simmons presiding, but Kiss’ manager Bill Aucoin was not impressed, saying that he didn’t like their singer, David Lee Roth, and said that the band should change their name to Daddy Longlegs. Eddie Van Halen felt embarrassed when the planned deal with Kiss fell through.

4. …And that was just one of many rejections the band experienced early on in their careers.

Despite the clear talent of the musicians, they got a lot of rejections early on and their early gigs were poorly attended. Ted Templeman went to one of these poorly attended gigs and was impressed enough to introduce them to Warner Brothers Records CEO Mo Ostin, who helped them get their breakthrough hit, a cover of The Kinks’ “You Really Got Me”, on their self-titled debut.

5. Their debut came out at a time when heavy metal was seen as old news and disco was dominating.

Van Halen is considered one of the best debut albums in classic rock history and it has a lot of great songs like their cover of “You Really Got Me”, “Eruption”, “Runnin’ With The Devil”, “Ain’t Talkin’ About Love”, and “Jamie’s Cryin'”. Their debut came out at a time when heavy metal was seen as old news and disco was dominating so they didn’t have any top 20 hits from that album, but that didn’t stop the album from selling well and getting good reviews. One author, Greg Renoff described them as “A Southern California backyard party band” that “saved heavy metal”.

6. Ozzy Osbourne originally planned for Van Halen to open for Black Sabbath, but when he heard them he thought they out to be the headliners.

He was looking for a “bar band from LA” to open for Black Sabbath and when he heard Eddie Van Halen play “Eruption” he knew that it was over and they need to be the headliners, not Black Sabbath!

7. Much like The Kinks, they were quick to play tours overseas.

What do these two iconic sibling groups have in common? They wasted no time and played gigs overseas not long after they released their debut albums. Within months of Van Halen‘s release, they were playing shows in Europe and Japan.

8. However, like The Who, they were broke after those overseas tours.

Sure, you may have a commercially successful debut that’s considered one of the best rock debuts of all time and you’ve flown around the world playing shows on multiple continents, but you can still be in debt to your label. Van Halen owed a million dollars to their label because of their troublemaking on tour and when the returned home, the band members were still living with their parents.

9. The story behind the “Beat It” guitar solo.

Yes, that was Eddie Van Halen playing that guitar solo, not some imitator! Eddie Van Halen thought Quincy Jones was prank calling him when he called him to ask him to play a guitar solo on “Beat It”. He didn’t take any pay for his work on the session, doing it as a favour to Jones and only asked for a case of beer and for Michael Jackson to teach him to dance. The guitar solo was a bit different from his usual work and Eddie Van Halen saw people snarking at the guitar solo, saying it’s a poor Van Halen impersonation and tapped them on the shoulder saying that it was him.

10. Their very last album, A Different Kind of Truth has a lot of songs that were re-workings of old songs from the vault.

David Lee Roth described it as “a collaboration with the past”. Wolfgang Van Halen played bass on this album and was a big part of the writing and production. David Lee Roth wrote new, updated lyrics that reflected his life at that point better.

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