The Mural Shots. I believe these were from 1978. The guys still had platform shoes.
Can I show you my favorite shot from the book?
Please.
I made it through grad school psych writing papers on rock & roll, dissecting the dynamics and talking about personalities. There’s a picture of Van Halen posing on a limousine. Eddie and Alex are up front, looking a little smug, obviously in charge. Mike Anthony is smack in the middle, torn, trying to keep the peace. Sitting forlorn on the trunk is poor old Diamond Dave, looking a little vaudeville, kind of lonely, but mugging for the camera still. This one picture tells the Van Halen story better than any bio I’ve read.
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Wow, really?
Yeah, it shows you all that dysfunctional chemistry, the tension. But that’s what made Van Halen work.
You’re right. It did.
Did you know that at the time?
Not at all.
Did you stage this shot?
I did stage it. But I’m very intuitive and that plays a part. I guess conventional thinking would have been to put Eddie and David up front. But I put Eddie and Alex. David on the trunk. And I did put Michael in the middle.
But then there’s the photo of Dave and Eddie holding hands and smoking cigarettes, roller skating down the hotel hall. As a Van Halen fan, I really love that one.
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Yeah, me too. I wanted to show people that they didn’t fight all the time. Eddie and Dave were young, they were good friends. They loved each other. Part of my job was to help them remember what it was like to enjoy each other.
So a great photograph tells you a story.
Yes. You got it.
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