How to fix Van Halen and return them to the top!

First, let me give you a little background:

I’ve been a Van Halen fan for years…many years.  I remember back to the days of early MTV when the video for “Jump!” was on every half-hour and I didn’t understand the concept of editing.  David Lee Roth had a different costume on in every shot and I thought they shot the video in sequence and he was having to change clothes all the time… either way, I thought they were the coolest.  That striped guitar, the keyboards, Eddie’s solos and David Lee Roth jumping around and making crazy faces – it was perfect and I would keep tabs on the band from that moment on.

The band released 6 albums with Roth before his departure in 1985.  Sammy Hagar joined the group in 1986 and went on to release 4 studio albums and 1 successful live double-album.  The Hagar era is when I really got into the band because that’s what was on at the time and their cassettes were more accessible.  There was the constant battle between fans… Roth or Hagar…I thought they both were good in their own way.  In Sammy’s recent auto-biography, “Red”, he described a band that was a mess when he came on board – their relationships, alcohol & drugs, finances, music, everything.  He claims he got them on the path to success and made the band millions of dollars.

In 1996 Sammy quit/was fired and the Van Halen brothers later brought in Gary Cherone…didn’t last long.  In my opinion, Cherone did a fantastic job handling the entire VH catalog live, enabling the band to bring out old classics that Hagar refused to play.  If you didn’t see them on the ’98-99 tour, you missed a good show.  It helped that Eddie was mostly sober and playing at the top of his game.

2004 saw the return of Hagar for a one-off tour and it was rumored that the Van Halen brothers (mostly Alex) were having financial issues and needed some cash.  They proved this with the high ticket prices they made fans pay to watch Sammy, Michael Anthony and Alex Van Halen hold things down while a drunken Eddie butchered his own songs.  I saw them twice:  the first time was sad, the second time must have been a more sober night for Ed, but still messy.  That was the last time they’d get any more of my cash.  In 2007 they reunited with Roth and went on tour with Eddie’s son playing bass since they booted Michael Anthony out because he was associated with Hagar…band drama is fun.  This Roth reunion was what the fans had been begging for…but Roth had lost a step and again the prices were out of control, no thanks, the horrible youtube videos were enough.

So here we are!  Eddie has claimed over the years that he has a stockpile of songs and a new album was around the corner.  You might recall Axl Rose doing the same thing with the “Chinese Democracy” album…sure, 15 years later it was finally released and was mostly a pile of crap.  Like Roth, Axl had lost a step…or 2..or 3.

This time the record is said to be finished, mixed and ready to be sold to the highest bidding label.  The band was set to headline a festival in Australia at the end of the year but that entire event has since been cancelled.  Last week it was announced that their European tour has been canceled…before it was even announced.  Why?  Who knows…which leads me to the point of this column (I like to take the scenic route in my columns):  How To Get Van Halen Back on Top!

Communication is the name of the game these days.

After being dropped from their longtime label, Warner Bros., they’ve recently signed to Interscope Records…because it’s “hipper”…you know, because record labels mean so much these days.  Van Halen has been stuck in the 90’s for a while now, never really embracing the technology of today.  They have a website that has hardly any content, pretty sad for a band with such a popular catalog (the site is currently being redesigned).  They have social networking pages that feature a couple of posts from 2009!   Their youtube channel has two of their old music videos and nothing else.

If you love your fans so much, keep them informed.  Give them some insight into the progress of the new album, get on twitter and check in from time to time, post pictures, clips of new songs….something…anything.  They have maintained this mystique gimmick for way too long.  That game worked in the 80’s when things really were a mystery and the only access came via MTV or the occasional magazine interview; over the past decade you only heard from Eddie when he was promoting his new line of guitars (and half the time he was wasted and rambling).  Then again, the reason we probably haven’t heard from them is because Eddie was drunk half the time, their album was more of a myth than a reality…but if that’s so different now, prove it to us.  There are plenty of legendary bands out there that don’t need to do this big change, but they’re not the ones that have been out of the picture for over a decade and haven’t been jerking their fans around.  And staged crap like this doesn’t count!

The Music

Why do we like Van Halen?  Because they rock!  This album had better kick some ass or they are really screwed.  They’ll tour behind the album, but no one will really care at this point.  When they get on stage, they are going to want to hear the hits and the entire catalog from the first Dave days.  If this BAND is so great and they are such great musicians, prove it and change up the set list every night.  Their back catalog isn’t that extensive when you throw out the Hagar stuff…so there’s no excuse not to learn the full catalog and keep the fans on their toes night after night.  Change the shows up, don’t go through the same ol gimmicks and say the same jokes at every venue.  Remember, as soon as your show is over, there are clips up on Youtube the same night from some shitty cell phone camera.  I know it can’t be easy to keep things fresh night after night…but don’t worry about it and don’t try so hard, just get up there and play the songs.  You’re not a lounge act…you’re Van Fucking Halen!  We don’t need jokes, we don’t need Dave bouncing around on a giant inflatable microphone every night (and really, what does that have to do with anything?  It’s not the flying pig from Pink Floyd that people can reference back to an old album), we just need you to get up there and do what you supposedly do best: rock out!

And one more thing: If you’re serious about this whole reunion, don’t give us just one album.  Give us at least 2-3 (3 being the max you probably have in you).  It’s going to take time, but if there is this mountain of music just waiting to be released, then it shouldn’t be terribly difficult for the mighty Eddie to put together a few more albums.

So there we have it!  I thought the list would be longer!  Maybe it’s just me, but it’s the simple things that this band DOESN’T do that drives me crazy and I think hurts them the most.  I really hope this next album and tour is successful, I hope they can hold it together and not embarrass themselves, I hope I can learn to really love this band again…I hope.