Christmas and the 4th of July

By Rob Kern

Van Halen fans nor­mally fall into two groups, the David Lee Roth sup­port­ers and those that back Sammy Hagar. I’ve always been firmly entrenched in the David Lee Roth camp. DLR is that per­fect mix of crazy uncle, car­ni­val ring­leader and 15-year-old goof­ball, con­stantly sport­ing a “What, me worry?” grin. With Roth at the helm Van Halen comes across as gritty and hun­gry with a barely con­tained mean streak. Eddie Van Halen’s gui­tar work has a snarl that rarely reared its head dur­ing the Sammy Hagar era. Top this bad atti­tude off with the shrieks and grin­ning chutzpa of Roth and you had the for­mula for canned sum­mer­time. Slap on a Roth fronted Van Halen disc and it feels like the tem­per­a­ture just increased by ten degrees. Van Halen with Roth was a larger-than-life machine, the ulti­mate party band. When Sammy Hagar took over, they became just another rock band. Roth him­self summed it up best, “Sammy throws a party, I am the party.”

This week saw the release of what most thought would never hap­pen, a new Van Halen disc with David Lee Roth, titled “A Dif­fer­ent Kind of Truth.” The past fif­teen years had been a rocky run for Van Halen. An acri­mo­nious split with Hagar resulted in the band hir­ing for­mer Extreme vocal­ist Gary Cherone for the ill-fated Van Halen III, fol­lowed by a reunion with Hagar that again dis­solved after a rocky tour marred with reports of sub-standard shows and heavy drink­ing. In 2007, the band announced that Roth had returned to the fold and they were mount­ing a tour of North Amer­ica. There were a few hic­cups along the way, a run of shows can­celled due to a rumored rehab visit for Eddie and grum­bles from some of the fans over orig­i­nal bassist Michael Anthony being replaced by Eddie’s son Wolf­gang. Over­all, the tour met with favor­able reviews and became Van Halen’s high­est gross­ing tour to date.

After the tour wrapped, things qui­eted down in the Van Halen camp with spec­u­la­tion that the reunited band were enter­ing the stu­dio to record a new album. From 2008 to mid-2011 the band remained mum on any news of progress or if there even was going to be a forth­com­ing stu­dio release. Rumors flew fast and furi­ous from insid­ers that claimed to have heard new music, yet still noth­ing from the band that con­firmed or denied the exis­tence of new record­ings. In late 2011, the band sud­denly broke media silence and announced a new record deal with Inter­scope records and announced a release date for their new stu­dio album. An advance sin­gle “Tat­too” was released to radio in Jan­u­ary to mixed reviews. So, is “Tat­too” indica­tive of the entire album or just a poor choice for a lead off single?

Breathe easy, Van Halen fans, as “Tat­too” is sim­ply a case of pick­ing the most mid­dle of the road, radio-safe track on A Dif­fer­ent Kind Of Truth. The rest of the album is a nod to classic-era Van Halen. The argu­ment could be made that some of this mate­r­ial is lit­er­ally clas­sic VH as some of the tracks are actu­ally stuff that they’ve had sit­ting in their vaults for decades. “She’s The Woman” orig­i­nates from their 1976 Gene Simmons-produced demo tapes. That being said, none of the tracks have ever appeared on pre­vi­ous releases and all have been reworked and newly recorded. This is noth­ing new; “House Of Pain” from 1984 was also a demo from the vaults. If Van Halen has this strong of mate­r­ial buried away, then by all means, keep dig­ging. Tracks such as “China Town” and “Hon­ey­babysweet­iedoll” fly along at a neck-snapping pace see­ing Eddie shred in way he hasn’t since, well, the last time David Lee Roth was in the band.

Roth him­self is in fine form on this album, he may be singing in a lower reg­is­ter than he did in the 70’s but it suits the mate­r­ial and he still cuts forth with some high notes when the songs call for it. Dave has had a career con­sist­ing of more downs than ups since exit­ing Van Halen but he still has shown flashes of bril­liance from time to time. If you are able to hunt down a copy of the rare David Lee Roth’s No Holds BBQ VHS (that was sold on his 2002 tour) you’ll be in for an audio-visual ADD treat. The com­men­tary track from Roth is a bonanza of pure gold that shows that he hasn’t grown up, and shame on those of us that have. Sure, at times the songs hit a lit­tle too close to old mate­r­ial, I hear strains of “Outta Love Again” from Van Halen II and a cou­ple large nods to “Hot For Teacher” on a cou­ple tracks. Maybe “Stay Frosty” does fol­low the “Ice Cream Man” for­mula but you will be too busy flash­ing your best Dia­mond Dave grin at the police offi­cer that pulled you over for speed­ing around town while crank­ing A Dif­fer­ent Kind Of Truth. I’m giv­ing this one a solid B+. Class dismissed!

Rob Kern is a con­tribut­ing writer for Clas­sic Rock Mag­a­zine, video direc­tor and co-host of the From Out Of Nowhere Pod­cast at www.fromoutofnowhere.com

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