VHVVV.jpg
Attached is a photo from the original Van Halen website. They list new tracks in production.
GARY CHERONE ON THE 2nd RECORD:
Yeah... We were just writing a bunch of demos after the tour, and things were going well and uh, we were just writing... uh… uh…Trying out... Patrick Leonard’s umm… name came up, and he came up to 5150, and we wrote a couple songs… at that time… with him. And those were the actual… You know? Most of the demos were… me and Eddie... Rough track… You know? Throwing a vocal on a guitar track and then putting it on the shelf. Or I’d kick up an old piece of music and write to it and put it on the shelf. With… With Patrick Leonard came up, we dived into the song a little bit more. And those two songs that we did with him had a little higher production value. And they were really, actually really good. Umm… Uh… I think I took one of those lyrics, uh… I think, “Where do we go from Here.” Those lyrics evolved into one of the last Hurt-smile songs on that last record.
GC: I don’t consider myself a, “Van Halen era.” I consider myself… I did a record.. I did a record and a tour.
Gary was asked if there was a second Van Halen album
Yeah. No, there's, there is no, you know, no finished product. There was a bunch of demos. Some more, more uh complete than others, uh you know? There was a bunch of rough stuff, rough scratches, a lot of ideas. People don't understand with Eddie, you know? I would go in the back, the back of 5150 in there would just be 2 inch reels of reels.
I could've spent three years listening to tracks that he's done. I mean there's a vault of stuff that he's done that I'm sure, I'm sure there's, you know, ideas from the Sammy era, the Dave era, that go way back. And obviously the last record that Dave did, they dug up some stuff, some old riffs as well. But no, it was never completed. A bunch of stuff, a lot of the lyrics, uh, that I was riding at the time found themselves on the tribe of Judah record. Uh, but... Umm, never completed. But there was some really... Real good stuff. There really was.
(Text from the original Van Halen Website)
Kootch Is Kicking Ass
Update 8/11/99: The band has been hard at work at the studio, working six days a week on the new album. Here's what Gary had to say about how things are going with the record's producer, Danny "Kootch" Kortchmar:
"Danny's great! We're really getting a lot of work done. He's pushing us all; kicking everyone's ass. We're having lots of fun and we're really pounding out the songs. Personally, I couldn't be happier!" - Gary Cherone
Click the Album Update link to the right for the latest updates, including a pair of new tracks!
So, you caught the III tour last year and amid all those killer classics and brand-spankin' new cuts, you didn't hear a couple of your favorite tunes that you REALLY wanted to hear? You probably wished you could have voted for some of those songs to be included in the set list?
Well, quit your wishin' and start your clickin' and Jump right into van-halen.com's first Online Voting Forum! You can vote for one song from each Van Halen album that you'd like to hear on the next tour. You can only vote once per album and the results are displayed immediately. However, you can view the results as often as you wish.
The polls will remain open until October 1, 1999. VOTE NOW!
van-halen.com has slipped to #13 in the world at The World Charts Foundation! If you'd like to cast your vote for the site, click HERE. Thank you to everyone who has voted so far!
© 1999
van-halen.com
MICHAEL ANTHONY (MUSIC RADAR)
I wouldn’t say as much bad… as much as... Uh… Ed was… you know, he was… taking over… And… God, it’s kind of hard to say this in a soft way… But you know, more controlling within the band. And when we actually did, let’s say, the uh album with Gary Cherone... It was kind of sad because there were only maybe 2 or 3 songs that we actually played all together in a studio setting. It had gotten to the point… Uh, Mike Post was producing and he talked Eddie you know, into coming to his house. And he got, you know, this was when we were really introduced to Pro tools. Which uh, you know, we had always been the old fashioned way, I mean, even when digital was happening, we still had our analog machines and we recorded like that because we felt, “hey!” This was the way we sound the best. And uh, you know, we kinda got away from all that. And you know personally, we were going through a lot of tough stuff too. Alex was going through a really ugly divorce. An uh, I really felt bad for Gary because it was a really bad time to step into this organization.
And uh, one thing led to another, Ed uh… You know, Alex actually left the band for a while… Because of… Not being able to focus because of what he was going through personally. And uh, Eddie ended up, you know, he played bass on a lot of stuff… He played drums on stuff… And I think Mike Post was just kind of feeding him along and saying, “Hey! You’re the man Ed! Here.” You know? And it started almost to turn into like an Eddie Van Halen solo record.
So had working with Eddie musically grown difficult at that point?
I think difficult in the… in the way that… how he was wanting to do things in the studio… It was just changing. You know? There would be times where you know, he’d uh, be up working on stuff. He’s always up in the studio 25 hours a day… Working on stuff. Even after everybody goes home. And say hey! You know, I’ve got this part, this bass part. If you can’t play it, then I’m gonna play it. Because you know, we’re all working towards the same thing, to make the best album that we can! And uh, you know, it doesn’t matter who plays what! If you can play this guitar part better than me! It was just starting to, kind of… I don’t know? I wouldn’t say unravel a bit, but it really changed up a lot.
It became a very difficult situation and we kind of lost focus as to why we’d be in the studio recording... In the way that we used to do. We weren’t using the same process that we had always used, that always worked for us you know?
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